Having failed to convince the country that we should reorder one-sixth of our economy (health care) in one fell swoop, liberals in the Administration and Congress are now doubling down and moving on to the next big thing. This time it’s the transformation of everything, through climate legislation. One could almost stand agape, admiring the boldness of the overreach, were not so much prosperity at stake.
The latest attempt to force the U.S. economy to turn away from readily available, affordable fuels and leaving it to the tender mercies of untried, experimental and expensive technologies is a bipartisan effort by Sens. John Kerry (D-MA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT). A legislative package from them, according to The Washington Post on Saturday, would individually cap how much traditional energy the main pillars of the American economy would be able to use. This would of course cripple our economy and threaten our prosperity. Any doubts about how broad and deep this effort is are dispelled by reading the following paragraph in the Post:
According to several sources familiar with the process, the lawmakers are looking at cutting the nation’s greenhouse gas output by targeting, in separate ways, three major sources of emissions: electric utilities, transportation and industry.
The reason the Senators could not act through their preferred vehicle, a “cap-and-trade” scheme that would put an across-the-economy ceiling on the use of traditional sources of fuel such as coal, oil and natural gas—above which companies using these fuels would have to pay for extra rights—is that the whole edifice of global warming is now falling apart.
It is collapsing with such rapidity that it is worth pausing from time to time to take stock.
The foundations of such edifice rest on a single assumption. This hypothesis—one that drove many people, even some reasonable ones, to contemplate upending the world as we know it — is that that traditional fuels will have cataclysmic consequences on the environment because they emit gases that make the world too hot.
The authority to turn this assumption into fact rested largely on a U.N. document - the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 report - which declared climate change “unequivocal” and its man-made origin “very likely.” The purpose of the IPCC report was to turn hypothesis into fact.
The reason Sens. Kerry, Graham and Lieberman had to turn away from cap-and-trade, and target industries individually, is that the idea of an iron-clad scientific consensus is now being revealed to be a bit, shall we say, exaggerated. The IPCC’s turning of hypothesis into fact now looks less like the scientific process and more like the magician you paid $50 an hour to pull flowers out of hats at your daughter’s birthday.
The first scales began to come off the global warming edifice in November, when emails from the University of East Anglia in the UK revealed how scientists at that key global research center had tried to suppress the opinion of peers who dissented from their view and hid evidence that countered the theory of man-made global warming.
Then the U.N.’s Copenhagen summit that was supposed to produce a global agreement to replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol fell apart in December, with the key countries refusing to hobble their own economies for the sake of science that was less and less there.
Then, last month it started to become clear that the 2007 IPCC report was more hollow than hallowed. Its claims that half the Netherlands is below sea level was off by a factor of two. Ditto for the outlandish fear-mongering that the glaciers of the Himalayas would melt by 2035. The IPCC was forced to admit that, actually, its projections were that that would happen by 2350. Oops!
Then last Friday, the news pages of The Wall Street Journal published yet one more devastating story on the IPCC and its hapless chairman, Rajendra Pachauri. The front page story detailed how inconclusive science, political pressure and shoddy administration all led to the Cassandra-like pronouncements of the IPCC report. Imagine that: politicians putting pressure on scientists to come up with theories that would vastly add to their regulatory and taxing powers.
Things have gotten so desperate that Al Gore himself had to come out of seclusion and pen a piece for The New York Times. On Saturday he implored readers that all these cascading events didn’t amount to a hill of beans. The article was vintage Gore. Let’s say it was not restrained. Here’s Gore on what will happen if we fail to act now:
Our grandchildren would one day look back on us as a criminal generation that had selfishly and blithely ignored clear warnings that their fate was in our hands.
The former Vice President and failed presidential candidate was so exercised he even took a jab at FOX, apparently blaming it for the troubles global warming is experiencing: “Some news media organizations now present showmen masquerading as political thinkers who package hatred and divisiveness as entertainment.”
Alas for Gore, Pachauri, et al., the climate alarums are working less and less not because of FOX, but because the alarmists overreached. Even an embarrassed U.N. was forced to announce Saturday that an independent board of scientists will be appointed to review the workings of the IPCC.
Unfortunately, climategate and IPCCgate have not put a dent on the Obama Administration’s plan to (mis)use the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate CO2, and thereby the companies that power our nation. Its Administrator Lisa Jackson was out in front of Congress last week again repeating the same shibboleths on a scientific consensus on global warming. This should make us all wonder if stopping global warming really was ever the end game.
As for Sens. Kerry, Graham and Lieberman, their reaction is to slap carbon controls on individual sectors of the economy separately, instead of setting a national target through cap-and-trade. The foundations for doing cap-and-trade have been torn asunder. Our research shows that cap-and-trade would be a $1.9 trillion tax on businesses over eight years, more expensive than the Vietnam War, Hurricane Katrina or the New Deal. But taxing the different pillars of our economy individually would be just as economically suicidal.
Sen. Kerry told the Post last week about his legislative effort, “What people need to understand about this bill is this really is a jobs bill, an economic transformation for America, an energy independence bill and a health/pollution-reduction bill that has enormous benefits for the country,” Kerry said. Notice he said nothing about global warming or climate change, the reason we were supposed to take this long walk off a short pier. Notice also he didn’t say it was about handing the political class the reins of the private economy. Kerry, Graham and Lieberman want electric power to be first on the economic chopping block. Previous analysis of similarly severe carbon cuts project electricity prices will rise over 70 percent, even after adjusting for inflation. Not only is this a nightmare for household utility bills, the higher cost will hit consumers over and over since businesses must pass on their higher costs as well.
You can follow Mike Gonzalez on Twitter @Gundisalvus
Quick Hits:
- The latest CNN poll shows that 56% of Americans say they think the federal government has become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens.
- If you missed the seven-and-a-half-hour health summit Thursday, Heritage has compiled a four minute highlight reel here.
- Because his ethical lapses have not “jeopardized our country in any way,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will let Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY) keep his leadership post.
- Senior aides are telling The New York Times that President Obama will permanently reduce America’s nuclear arsenal by thousands of weapons.
- Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN) shows how Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) have increased satisfaction while bringing down health care costs in his state.
August has been a brutal month for advocates of government-run health care. According to a new CNN poll, for the first time in his presidency, a majority of independents (53%) now disapprove of how President Barack Obama is handling his job. And a majority of all Americans (53%) also disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling health care. Responding to these new facts on the ground, senior Obama officials are now telling Politico that when Obama does finally detail the specifics of what he wants to see in a health care bill, the public option will not be included.
Instead, according to Obama senior adviser David Axelrod, President Obama will focus on health reform that will “create competition and choice.” Axelrod’s focus groups must love that phrase, because the White House has been selling Obamacare as “choice and competition” for some time now. Unfortunately, even without the public option, the other pillars of Obamacare (federal regulation of health insurance, massive new taxpayer-funded subsidies, and employer and individual mandates) will all decrease, not increase, Americans’ health care choices.
- Federal Regulation of Health Insurance: Both the pending House health care bill and Senate HELP Committee bill include provisions that would, if enacted, result in sweeping, complex, and highly discretionary new federal regulation of health insurance. Taken together these provisions would make the current situation worse by driving costs higher and by encouraging more employers and individuals to drop coverage.
- Massive New Taxpayer-Funded Subsidies: Both the House and Senate would expand eligibility for Medicaid, and create new taxpayer-funded subsidies to the middle class. Such commitments would result in millions of Americans dependent on the government to finance their health care.
- Employer Mandate: Both the House and Senate bills would impose an employer mandate for employers who do not offer coverage and for those whose benefits do not meet a new federal standard. An employer mandate would hurt low-income workers the most and would also stifle much-needed economic growth. Employer mandates are passed on to workers in the form of reduced wages and compensation. This is exactly the wrong prescription for businesses, especially during a recession.
- Individual Mandate: According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a federal individual mandate for health insurance would be unique and unprecedented because it would “impose a duty on individuals as members of society” and would “require people to purchase a specific service that would be heavily regulated” by the government. According to President Obama HHS nominee Dr. Sherry Glied: “Developing a system to promptly identify and penalize scofflaws will take effort and ingenuity, particularly in our diverse and mobile country. It may require a degree of intrusiveness and bureaucracy that some will find unpalatable.” In fact, it was jut last year that then-candidate Obama also opposed individual mandates.
Conservatives have been for increased “choice and competition” in health care long before David Axelrod discovered the phrase was popular with the American people and commandeered it to push Obamacare. Such pro-competition reforms include giving individuals the freedom to purchase coverage from trusted sources and not be restricted by where they happen to live, equalizing the tax treatment of health insurance purchases, and putting Medicare and Medicaid on a fiscally sustainable path.
Heritage Center for Health Policy Studies Deputy Director Nina Owcharenko concludes: “Instead of continuing to protect the status quo, Congress should advance improvements that put the health care system on a path to reform. Such improvements should be focused on increasing choice and competition not by turning control over to Washington but by empowering individuals and families to control their health care dollars and decisions.”
Quick Hits:
- California’s San Joaquin Valley is facing 14.3% unemployment thanks largely to a drought … a man made drought caused by the Endangered Species Act.
- Speaker Nancy Pelosi will let Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) keep his chairmanship despite his failing to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets on federal disclosure forms.
- According to the National Legal and Policy Center, the White House New Media operation is planning to conduct a massive, secret effort to harvest personal information on millions of Americans from social networking websites.
- According to Service Wire, the Department of Education is planning an unprecedented nationwide address on September 8th by President Barack Obama to the nation’s PreK - 6th grade students that also instructs teachers to have their students read books about Obama and ask them: “Why is it important that we listen to the President?”
- Obama administration bailed-out and United Auto Worker-owned Chrysler actually saw their sales drop 15% during the Cash for Clunkers program.