At The National Review, Stephen Spruiell and Kevin Williamson lay out what we face with the Cap and Trade bill. It isn’t pretty.
The stimulus bill was the legislative equivalent of the famous cantina scene from Star Wars, an eye-popping collection of the freakish and exotic, gathered for dubious purposes. The Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, known as ACES (the American Clean Energy and Security Act), is more like the third panel in Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights — a hellscape that disturbs the sleep of anybody who contemplates it carefully.
Two main things to understand about Waxman-Markey: First, it will not reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, at least not at any point in the near future. The inclusion of carbon offsets, which can be manufactured out of thin air and political imagination, will eliminate most of the demands that the legislation puts on industry, though in doing so it will manage to drive up the prices consumers pay for every product that requires energy for its manufacture — which is to say, for everything. Second, it represents a worse abuse of the public trust and purse than the stimulus and the bailouts put together. Waxman-Markey creates a permanent new regime in which environmental romanticism and corporate welfare are mixed together to form political poison. From comic bureaucratic power grabs (check out the section of the bill on candelabras) to the creation of new welfare programs for Democratic constituencies to, above all, massive giveaways for every financial, industrial, and political lobby imaginable, this bill would permanently deform American politics and economic life.
The House of Representatives, famously, did not read this bill before passing it, which is testament to either Nancy Pelosi’s managerial incompetency or her political wile, or possibly both. If you take the time to read the legislation, you’ll discover four major themes: special-interest giveaways, regulatory mandates unrelated to climate change, fanciful technological programs worthy of The Jetsons, and assorted left-wing wish fulfillment. We cannot cover every swirl and brushstroke of this masterpiece of misgovernance, but here’s a breakdown of its 50 most outrageous features.
Be more responsible than the thugs you voted into office. (Yes, I’m looking at you, Gene Green! I voted for you! And you voted for this! Never again! You are dead to me now!) Read at least the first ten items in the list. (But be advised, this isn’t a top-down “fifty most tyrannical” list. It’s organized by the type of damage each item generates, not how awful that damage is.)
Here’s a foul taste:
10. Rural electrical cooperatives are demanding that the offsets be awarded in proportion to historic emissions, and they probably will prevail. This means that high-polluting generators, such as the coal-fired plants typical of electric co-ops’ members, will be rewarded because they pollute more, while cleaner producers, such as those using nuclear and hydroelectric power, will be penalized.
“Perverse” doesn’t begin to cover this. This is psychotic.
There is nothing beyond the government’s reach in this. Nothing. (Don’t believe me? See items 21-26, regulating light bulbs — light bulbs! — home appliances, home construction, and snowmobiles.)
This is naked fascism, the compulsory blending of government and business, in all its hideous progressive horror.
Han doesn’t shoot first (because the ATF confiscated his blaster when he registered it), Greedo does, and Greedo doesn’t miss. Jaba the Hut prospers. Darth Vader rules. The Republic falls.
There is no Force but Liberty, and when that dies, we will not be saved by spunky kids and gruff smugglers, and most especially not by mysterious old farts in robes living in the desert.
Tags: ACES, American Clean Energy and Security Act, cap and trade, Waxman-Markey