Salazar on Obama critics: 'They are wrong'
(CNN) – In “The Last Word” segment of CNN’s State of the Union Sunday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar took on critics of President Obama’s cap-and-trade plan aimed at lowering greenhouse gases.
The proposal would impose a cap on the total amount of greenhouse gases that can be emitted in the United States and would also institute a system that allows U.S. companies to trade emission credits. Because the plan would force polluters to assume the cost of the pollution they produce – as determined by the new market for emission credits – it is also likely to make energy more expensive. Many observers expect energy companies to pass those additional costs on to American consumers, with some criticizing the proposal as an “energy tax” on the public.
“They are wrong,” the former senator told CNN’s John King. “I think it’s a false choice that is being set up by those who are in opposition to us addressing the issue of carbon emissions.”
Call it what it is– a carbon tax– and then try to sell it. Unlikely to happen during the First Year of The One.
It is stupid to think that rising energy costs won't be passed on to the consumer. All business costs are passed on to the consumer. Soon, thanks to Obama, we could be paying triple the electric costs, quadruple the gas prices, and double the taxes we pay now. Now that is change!
The radical extremist fundamentalist ayatollahs of the Republican Party may not believe in evolution or global warming or equality of the sexes, but they may find themselves just like the dinosaurs and the Neanderthals...extinct...whether they believe or not.
Well, another one of Obama's cabinet members that is obviously a dork. Energy costs will rise. You only have to have one-half of a brain to know that.
I do not want cap and trade just for America. If you do cap and trade just for America, other countries will just use more of the fuel that we are not raising the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. Make everyone in the world do it and you don't unfairly punish American citizens.
Yes, the story of the Party of No was also debunked on the cost of cap and trade, they were stating it was 3100 a year for increase in utilities, the true price was closer to 300.
Of course, the Party of NO is all about being "serial exaggerators" and "liars"?
“Under a cap-and-trade program, firms would not ultimately bear most of the costs of the allowances but instead would pass them along to their customers in the form of higher prices”
“A cap-and-trade program, like a tax on CO2 emissions, could raise a significant amount of revenue because the value of the allowances created under such a program would probably be substantial.”
Comments fromTerry M. Dinan, Senior Advisor, Congressional Budget Office in his testimony to the Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support Commitee on Ways and Means; U.S. House of Representatives , March 12, 2009