The Senate’s giving up cap and trade for now and probably forever; leaders say they’ll consider it next spring but even the dumbest of senator can figure out that an election year is not the time to triple voters’ energy costs. But those who want to wreck the economy have a better trick up their sleeve: the EPA which, under a bad law passed by Congress and a worse 5-4 decision of the Supreme Court, has the authority to enact by regulation what the Democrats can’t do politically. So it will, and the results will be horrendous. Economic recovery, anyone?
(WSJ):
Momentum for a climate bill has been undermined by fears that capping carbon-dioxide emissions — the inevitable product of burning oil and coal — would slow economic growth, raise energy costs and compel changes in the way Americans live.
“It’s really big, really, really hard, and is going to make a lot of people mad,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.).
Democrats looking ahead to the 2010 midterm elections are concerned about a backlash from voters in industrial and heartland states dependent on coal. Republicans are portraying Democrats’ ”cap and trade” proposals, which call for capping overall U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions and allowing companies to buy and trade permits to emit those gases, as a “cap and tax” scheme.
Meanwhile, the administration is moving ahead with a plan to have the Environmental Protection Agency declare greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, a danger to public health. That would trigger potential regulations that could affect a wide swath of the economy.
