Louisiana Oil & Gas Association –  Don Briggs -

The most reprehensible, unscrupulous, and costly development to the American people is unfolding in our Nation’s Capital.  As President Obama would say, “Let me be clear.”  The Obama administration has been knocking at the front door.  While all along, they had the key to the back door and is now standing in the living room.

Remember “Cap and Trade”, a bill that was suppose to set up an Emissions Trading System and thus tailor back greenhouse gases, saving the world from catastrophic disasters?   As you are aware, the bill failed to go anywhere in the Senate last month.  “Cap and trade” inevitably cratered under the lack of the Senate’s will to pass legislation on an issue that has become indisputably scarred with scandals and misinformation.

President Obama was depending on the Senate to pass some sort of “save the world” climate and energy legislation prior to his visit to Copenhagen on December 19^th.   Knowing the possibility that the Senate would not pass his needed legislation, Obama had an ace in his hip pocket and would not show up empty handed in Copenhagen.

On December 7, the President unveiled to the world his “Ace” or should I say, the key to our back door.  On that day, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced, “greenhouse gases (GHGs) threaten the public health and welfare of the American people. GHGs are the primary driver of climate change, which can lead to hotter, longer heat waves that threaten the health of the sick, poor or elderly; increases in ground-level ozone pollution linked to asthma and other respiratory illnesses; as well as other threats to the health and welfare of Americans.”

According to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, “These long-overdue findings cement 2009’s place in history as the year when the United States Government began addressing the challenge of greenhouse-gas pollution and seizing the opportunity of clean-energy reform.”

So the question now seems to be, “Who needs the Congress?”  The powers the EPA will wield with this key bureaucratic move have always been ones reserved to the Congress, not for a regulatory agency to develop.  However, EPA is getting this authority, in the administration’s opinion, from the U.S. Supreme Court.  According to the court ruling in April 2007, carbon dioxide (CO2) should be considered a pollutant under the Clean Air Act (CAA).  As a result, the court said, the EPA had not only the power but also the obligation to regulate the gas.  Remember, this is the same gas (CO2) that we exhale, that we put in our beer and soft drinks and that we need for photosynthesis to make things grow.

Back to Copenhagen:

Armed with the release of the U.S. EPA’s new ambitions to control and regulate greenhouse gases, President Obama told the 193 nations heads of state, “There is no time to waste.  America has made our choice.  We have charted our course, we have made our commitments, and we will do what we say.”

While the President and global diplomats toil over speculative issues like climate change in Europe, Americans at home are facing much more pressing issues.  With healthcare reform, massive government bailouts, the takeover of private industry, skyrocketing unemployment, a declining dollar and the overall status of our weakened economy, we now have the EPA in our living room.  Americans today are falling victim to government intrusion of epic proportions.  In regards to the EPA decision, Jack Gerard, President of the American Petroleum Institute, expressly noted, “This action poses a threat to every American family and business if it leads to regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.  Such regulation would be intrusive, inefficient and excessively costly.”  This move by the Obama administration is far reaching, unconstitutional, and will have an immediate near future impact on every hardworking American family.

Louisiana Oil & Gas Association – Don Briggs -

Two weeks ago in looking at the issue of cap-and-trade and what it is really about, two questions were presented: 1) what about global warming, and 2) what is cap-and-trade really about?

Since global warming is the invented reason for creating a cap-and-trade system, it is understandably important to determine if the world is in fact warming. As President Obama put it in his recent speech to the UN, “That so many of us are here today is a recognition that the threat from climate change is serious, it is urgent, and it is growing. Our generation’s response to this challenge will be judged by history, for if we fail to meet it – boldly, swiftly, and together – we risk consigning future generations to an irreversible catastrophe.”

Not being a scientist, I must rely on scientist to educate me on the facts surrounding the global warming issue and its relationship to man-made CO2.  The fact exist that 31,000 independent U.S. scientists have signed a petition saying there is no conclusive evidence that demonstrates CO₂ causes climate change. As well, in 2007, Hungarian scientist Dr. Ferenc Miskoczi published a peer-reviewed paper, which has not been refuted. He worked out new laws about the atmospheric recordings and created a theory that the greenhouse effect is saturated and extra

CO₂ will not affect the Earth’s temperature.

With all of that being said, we are now back to question number 2) what is cap-and-trade really about?  It’s about creating an Emissions Trading System (ETS) in the United States similar to the European Union ETS, which is still going through its trial period.

In a recent report by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, titled Emissions Trading System – in perspective, “The EU ETS (European Union Emission Trading System) is also interesting because it provides some insights into the problems to be faced in constructing a global GHG (green house gas) emission trading system.  This will be the next stage in global climate diplomacy if and when the U.S. adopts a cap-and-trade system.”

As the saying goes, “just follow the money”.   The 1,400-page cap-and-trade bill would create a whole new global market dealing in the selling and trading of GHG credits.  There are numerous environmental companies around the world positioning their companies in this highly lucrative business.  It is not about the environment. It’s about a new gig that will prove to be costly to every American citizen with no environmental gain.

Paul Driessen in his recent column said, “The process recalls Churchill’s description of Russia: ‘a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.’  Here we are dealing with estimates wrapped in assumptions inside speculation – based on assertions that Earth faces a manmade climate disaster.’” Another way to attempt to understand ETS and the impact of CO2 on the environment is; GHG (green house gases) is 1% of the atmosphere, carbon dioxide (CO2) is 3.6% of the 1% of the atmosphere, and human caused CO2 is 3.4% of the 3.6%.

I can only conclude from the information, as I understand it, that global warming is a natural phenomenon. The earth has warmed and cooled many times, a fact that is indisputable.  Global warming is about politics and power and a total disregard of scientific facts.

Don G Briggs, President, Louisiana Oil & Gas Association

President Obama’s dream “Green Energy Economy”, powered by alternative and renewable energy, which proposes to create millions of new green jobs, and a robust economy crossed another threshold this past Thursday.   House Democrats, along with the support of one Republican, passed the Waxman/Markey “American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009”  (ACESA) out of the Energy and Commerce Committee by a 33 to 25 vote.

In brief, the legislation proposes to create a cap-and-trade system where power plants, manufacturers, oil refineries and the like, would be required to obtain allowances for the pollution they emit.  Those companies needing more or fewer allowances would be able to buy and sell the allowances in a Wall-Street type market.  The bill calls for a 17 percent reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions by 2020 and an 83 percent reduction by 2050, which of course is to save the world from “global warming”.

The Waxman/Markey “American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009” is an asinine 946 page piece of legislation.  The bill will not create millions of new green jobs and a new economy; in fact, it will do the opposite.

The National Black Chamber of Commerce commissioned CRA International, a renowned think tank and consulting firm, to conduct a study of the Waxman-Markey bill to determine the “Impact on the Economy of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 2454).”  The analysis compiled by CRA International determined that by 2030 the law would:

•    Reduce national GDP roughly $350 billon below the baseline level;
•    Cut net employment by 2.5 million jobs (even after accounting for new “green” jobs); and
•    Reduce earnings for the average U.S. worker by $4,309 per year.

NBCC President and CEO Harry Alford said, “These findings add to a growing body of evidence that demonstrates cap-and-trade would make American consumers poorer and the products they buy more expensive.  Moreover, the NBCC study finds there will be little, if any, environmental impact to justify the high price U.S. families will have to pay since the trading system will deliver virtually negligible changes in global CO2 emissions so long as developing nations such as China and India don’t buy in.”
Obviously Waxman and his gang are very much aware of the loss of jobs that will occur, because buried deep in that 946 page bill is what they call the “Response Guide for Mass Unemployment” which gives three years of salary and health insurance, job training and relocation cost to displaced workers.  Can you imagine the number of folks who will pile onto that program?

On May 7 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Douglas Elmendorf testified to the Senate Finance Committee that a 15% cut in emissions through a cap-and-trade program would cost the average household an additional $1,600/year in home energy costs.  The biggest burden for this increase will fall on lower income families.

The Waxman/Markey bill is supported by President Obama, a bill touted as a creation of a green economy creating millions of jobs but………will in fact cost taxpayers billions, millions of jobs will be lost and more handouts for those who want government to take care of them.

If there is going to be a climate bill Congress has a lot of work to do in getting it right.  Under the Waxman Bill our nation’s energy and economic security is at risk.