THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIII, Issue # 62, March 2, 2011
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
FEARING EPA'S CARBON TAX
By Dennis T. AVERY
WHAT WOULD BE THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES, SHOULD THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY GO FORWARD
WITH ITS ANNOUNCED PLAN TO IMPOSE STRICT CONTROLS & LIMITS ON CARBON EMISSIONS INTO THE ATMOSPHERE?
WHAT WOULD BE THE IMPACT ON FOOD & FUEL COSTS IN THE U.S.A.? WHAT IS THE PRIMARY OBJECTIVE OF THIS PLAN?
FULL STORY:
Farmers, along with the rest of us, could get hit with a triple jolt of regulatory shock if the Environment Protection
Agency goes forward with its announced controls on carbon emissions. Consumers are already paying heavily for the
federal mandate that puts a huge chunk of our corn crop, as ethanol, into our gas tanks, instead of into our meat, milk,
and eggs. While food costs soar, along with fuel costs, it is a waste of good corn, as it contributes almost zero to our
energy independence.
Now, the EPA is moving to impose tough limits on carbon emissions from the big power plants across the country —
and then plans to screw the new carbon limits down tighter and tighter. Farmers’ fuel and electricity costs would go
through the roof, along with everybody else’s.
The goal, after all, is to make the coal, oil, and natural gas that power most of our power plants too expensive to use.
They need to make all our electricity at least slightly more expensive than the ultra-costly solar panels and wind
turbines that have failed to produce “Green power” in Europe and, thus far, fail to provide much energy here at home.
After the power plants are stymied, then the farmers will be subject to EPA operating permits for any livestock
enterprise emitting more than 100 tons of greenhouse gases per year. Since each cow emits about four tons of methane
per annum, 90 percent of the livestock farmers are expected to be over the limit. The EPA estimates the operating
permits for livestock farmers would cost the farmers $866 million per year, certainly a low-ball figure. Counting the
farmers’ paperwork time, this will add more than $1 billion to our annual food costs.
Who will pay the added billion? We will. And, expect, by that time, to be paying for $8 gasoline and tripled electric bills
too. They are paying $3.70 at the pump in California this week.
U.S. Representative John Shimkus (Republican - Illinois), of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, recently told
the Illinois Farm Bureau that the claim the U.S. Supreme Court had “required” the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases
“is a myth.” The Supreme Court actually said EPA should regulate greenhouse gasses “if they could make a
determination that the gasses ‘significantly endanger human health.” Shimkus says the EPA simply repackaged the
theoretical risks from the IPPC’s computer models, with no other evidence. The EPA is set to act on guesses about the
future to regulate our taxes and energy costs in the present.
The Little Ice Age ended in 1850, but after 1940, global temperatures trended downward for 35 years — during the first
and biggest surge of human-emitted greenhouse gasses that has ever occurred. (We’ve had a net warming of only 0.2
degrees Celsius since 1940). The IPCC itself says the first greenhouse emissions are theoretically the most powerful —
but the post-1940 emissions produced a global cooling! The computers models can’t forecast the snowfall over
Chicago in 2011, let alone the climate 100 years out. Does the EPA know about the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, that
shifts our temperatures up and down in 30-year spurts? Or about the 1,500-year climate cycle that has given us more
than 500 global warmings in the last million years?
If the cooling trend resumes after the current El Nino/La Nina interruptions, we can expect the planet to cool until 2037.
By that time, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may have picked up their billions of pre-printed
energy-rationing coupons and gone elsewhere.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Dennis T. Avery, a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC, is an environmental economist. He
was formerly a senior analyst for the U.S. Department of State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer, of Unstoppable
Global Warming Every 1500 Hundred Years. Readers may write Avery at PO Box 202, Churchville, Virginia, 24421
or send him email at cgfi@hughes.net
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity