Cap and Trade

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I don't claim to understand cap and trade, but according to the American Thinker, if I want to see the results of it, I should look at the California economy over the past three years.  According to the article, California passed a measure in 2006 to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, which Washington is looking to as a model.  The consequences of that law have not been pretty.  One example from the article:

"For more than 100 years the Calportland cement company has manufactured cement from its limestone quarry in Colton, California, outside of Los Angeles.  Already under pressure from plunging prices and profits, the company is facing large new expenses from the cost of meeting California's CO2 control regulations.    

State regulators have projected that retrofitting the state's 11 cement plants would cost $220 million and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 12 percent per ton of cement. But CalPortland's executives say it would cost more than that to retrofit the Colton plant alone.  "We don't have enough limestone left to invest $200 million," said James A. Repman, the company's president.

Economists quoted in the Times column said the state's cost analysis
unconvincingly portrayed the law as "a riskless free lunch," and that the regulators were "systematically biased" in ways "that lead to potentially severe underestimates of costs."

Since Calportland can not justify the expense of upgrading the plant, the alternative is to close the plant and eliminate the 140 jobs it provides.  The response of the carbon law's supporters to that prospect - be sure you are sitting down before you read this - tells all we need to know about the priorities here:
 
And the law's supporters note that less economic activity means reduced emissions of heat-trapping gases, making the law's goals -- cutting carbon-dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 -- easier to meet."
 
In a time of a struggling economy, this is not wise.  If you look at the states as laboratories for new ideas and how they work, California tells you all you need to know about cap and trade.  The sad part of the story is that is you opened up offshore drilling off the coast of California and off the east coast, the new jobs created and the income from the oil and natural gas off our shores (and in a few other places within our country) would end our financial crisis and increase our national security--also, we might not have to be so nice to some of the Middle Eastern countries that totally mistreat women. 
 

 

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This page contains a single entry by Granny G published on March 4, 2009 4:40 AM.

Policies Have Consequences, Even For Children was the previous entry in this blog.

US Corporate Tax Rates Are The Highest In The World is the next entry in this blog.

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