The cost of green
With few in government or media prepared or able to stand in the way, it looks like full speed ahead for President Obama’s proposed cap and trade program. In fact, the program is likely to be locked into place when the United States agrees to an international climate change treaty later this year. Cap and trade is designed to lower industrial emissions by making it expensive for American industries to release carbon dioxide into the air. Industries will be required to pay a carbon tax to the government, the cost of which would certainly be passed along to consumers.
Contained in the President’s proposed 2009 budget is a forecast that industries will pay the government $79 billion in 2012 alone for permission to emit carbon dioxide into the air. How will that affect our pocketbooks?
According to Point Carbon, a European consultancy which analyzes carbon trading schemes, the initial cost for energy industries will be about 14 dollars per metric ton of carbon emitted. That would result in an increase of 12 cents per gallon of gasoline, and a 7 percent price hike in the cost of electricity.
For consumers, the sacrifice does not end there. Businesses will have to pay those additional energy costs, which will lead to trickle down price hikes on everything that is bought and sold. Again, the consumer will pay the penalty.
Remember – this is only the initial cost. The president’s projection is that by 2019, the carbon tax on industries will reach $646 billion, and the cost to consumers will rise accordingly.
Never mind the 2009 economic stimulus package and how much federal debt is being accumulated on the backs of future generations. Even before we have figured out how to get out of the current economic crisis, the seeds are quietly being sown for a green attack on the American economy three years from now.
If the American people wish to increase their cost of living to benefit a global initiative, so be it. But shouldn’t cap and trade receive a thorough debate and up or down vote in Congress before the executive branch quietly makes it the law of the land?
UPDATE, 3/18/09 – At least eight Senate Democrats have joined with two dozen Republicans opposing the president’s plan to sneak cap and trade into the annual budget bill, according to an Associated Press report.
