Climate 411

Claim

“MIT researchers released an ‘Assessment of U.S. Cap-and-Trade Proposals,’ which shows that the increase would be an increase of more than $3,000 a year for each household.

— From press release issued by the National Republican Congressional Committee targeting new and politically vulnerable House Democrats, March 31, 2009.

Truth

PolitiFact, a nonpartisan watchdog group whose full response is available here, calls this a “Pants on Fire” lie.

According to PolitiFact, the NRCC used an MIT report analyzing a similar cap-and-trade bill last year. The MIT report said the bill, under certain assumptions, could raise $366 billion per year. The NRCC divided this by 117 million households in the U.S. to get to $3,128.

But, according to John Reilly, an MIT economist and one of the authors of the report, the interpretation that what is raised under a cap policy can be equated to cost per household is “just wrong. It’s wrong in so many ways it’s hard to begin…”

And, courtesy of Think Progress, here is a letter [pdf] Reilly just sent to House Republican Minority Leader John Boehner urging the NRCC to stop misrepresenting the MIT report.

Read the full PolitiFact post for more on how NRCC got this all wrong.

Pants on fire indeed!

Claim:

Despite Democrats’ promises to deliver tax relief to families who need it the most, the recent budget proposal from the White House includes a “cap-and-trade” provision that should more appropriately be named the “cap-and-tax” provision, because if it became law it would raise energy taxes on every single person who flips on a light switch. As Congress takes the President’s federal budget under consideration, [insert state] families deserve to know if Rep. [insert name] would support such a devastating energy tax proposal.”

— From press release issued by the National Republican Congressional Committee targeting new and politically vulnerable House Democrats, March 31, 2009.

Truth:

Global warming is not a partisan issue. Its devastating impacts will be felt by Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike. And it will take our combined efforts as a nation to overcome the grave threat of run-away global warming.

Many leading Republicans support a strong bill to cap America’s global warming pollution — including Governors Arnold Schwarzenegger from California and Jon Huntsman from Utah; senior statesmen like former Senator John Warner from Virginia and Senator Richard Lugar from Indiana; and the Republican nominee for President last year, Senator John McCain.

These leaders understand what the NRCC and other opponents apparently don’t — that ignoring global warming won’t make it go away; that sticking with our current energy policies will only keep us addicted to foreign oil; that a real economic recovery depends on rebuilding our energy infrastructure; and that a cap on carbon will create new millions of new jobs in clean energy industries throughout our country.

Instead of offering constructive ideas on how to seriously deal with the threat the global warming and free America from our dependence on foreign oil, the same people who brought us the worst economic mess since the 1930’s are simply trying to scare us. These tired political tactics have no basis in reality — they are just one made up statistic after another about how bad things will be if we try anything different.

In reality, the costliest action we could possibly take is to do nothing about global warming — just stick our heads in the sand and pretend there’s no threat. This will lead to rising insurance premiums, increased infrastructure costs, and billions more we’ll have to spend to deal with natural disasters: floods, droughts, wildfires and the like.

What our opponents really advocate is a huge do-nothing tax that will blow up our economy and devastate our environment.

This morning, Congressmen Henry Waxman (D-Ca.) and Ed Markey (D-Ma.) released a 600-page draft and put their committee on the path to passing climate legislation this year.  The details will be worked out in the legislative process, but this is great progress.

If Congress succeeds in passing a cap on carbon emissions, we will address global warming and pump billions of dollars into clean energy and new jobs. If we fail — well, let’s not fail.

Here’s the response from EDF’s president, Fred Krupp:

Chairmen Waxman and Markey are experienced legislators who have focused on exactly the right issues to quickly build consensus and allow Congress to pass a strong bill this year.

We applaud the Chairmen for moving forward boldly and deliberately with their proposal for comprehensive legislation, and we look forward to working with them, the congressional leadership, and the Obama administration to help refine and pass a bill this year.

Claim:

“I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us, ‘Having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,’ and the people – we the people – are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country. And I think this has the potential of changing the dynamic of freedom forever in the United States…

“The science is on our side on this one, and the science indicates that human activity is not the cause of all this global warming. And that in fact, nature is the cause, with solar flares, etc.”

— Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) on AM1280, a local radio station, 3/21/09 (thanks to The New York Times Green Inc. blog for highlighting the quote).

Truth:

We’ll leave it to the authorities to decide whether Rep. Bachman’s call to arms crosses the line of inciting violence.

As to the substance of her statement, the Congresswoman is way off the mark.

Read More »

Claim:

“The Environmental Protection Agency’s recent endangerment finding that greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, ‘are pollutants that endanger the public’s health and welfare’ would come with monumental costs. The cumulative GDP losses for 2010 to 2029 approach $7 trillion. Single-year losses exceed $600 billion in 2029, more than $5,000 per house¬hold. Job losses are expected to exceed 800,000 in some years, and exceed at least 500,000 from 2015 through 2026. It is important to note that these are net job losses, after any jobs created by compliance with the regulations–so-called green jobs–are taken into account.

“A silver lining? ‘While the EPA has so far been silent about how it might actually regulate CO2 — and the endangerment finding is only an early step in a process that could take a year or longer.’

“The aforementioned costs, paired with what little environmental benefits we receive and questionable science, are the primary reasons this should be a slow process. Even EPA officials and Congressional proponents of global warming legislation are taking their time. The projected costs of regulation aren’t going anywhere, and time will allow more facts and reasoning to come to the table.”

— The Heritage Foundation’s Foundry Blog, March 25, 2009.

Truth:

The Heritage Foundation is at it again — muddying the science and the economics on climate change. Their efforts to fool the American people into thinking that reducing pollution will cost too much are as detached from reality as their claims that climate change is a hoax.

Here are the facts: Read More »

Claim:

“A key element in President Obama’s economic agenda is legislating limits on carbon dioxide emissions to combat the supposed threat of global warming. What have been given far less attention are the costs that will be imposed on the American people from implementing this policy – costs that potentially can be very high.

“In his outlined budget for the government’s next fiscal year, the president has proposed a cap and trade policy that is claimed will reduce carbon emissions by 14 percent from their 2005 levels by 2020, and by 83 percent by 2050.

“Under a cap and trade system, the government would assert ownership of the atmosphere over the United States and set a maximum number of permits that it would sell to private companies for the right to discharge carbon dioxide into the air…”

— Richard M. Ebeling, American Institute for Economic Research, March 25, 2009.

Truth:

One gets the sense that Mr. Ebeling has seen The Manchurian Candidate too many times on AMC. The government will control your atmosphere, then how much air you can breathe, then, ooh, everything about your lives. Run for the hills.

Saying that under a carbon cap program the government will own the atmosphere is like saying that laws requiring seat belts means the government owns all our cars. It’s nonsense.

Mr. Ebeling also tipped his hand a bit in his first paragraph when he referred to the “supposed threat of global warming” — might want to check that phrasing with the National Acedemies of Science of the U.S., U.K., China, India, Japan, Russia, France, Italy and others who’ve all urged prompt governmental action to deal with the REAL threat of global warming.

It is also flat wrong to claim that the costs of global warming action haven’t been studied. It seems that there has been an economic study published every week — some good, some atrocious — examining the proposal to cap America’s global warming pollution.

Here’s what we know about the costs of global warming action:

• It is projected to be a tiny fraction of America’s overall GDP growth over the next few decades;
• The cost of inaction is much higher; and
• The longer we delay action, the more costly it will be to solve this crisis.

It’s time for Congress to act.