The Leiberman-Warner Act dies (temporarily, anyway)

The U.S. Senate wisely decided recently not to bring a very controversial bill, the Climate Security Act, to a floor vote.

The legislation, co-sponsored by Sens. Joe Leiberman and John Warner, would have attempted to ration carbon emissions by enacting a massive “cap-and-trade” system.

According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the bill would have created a massive new federal bureaucracy, eliminated between 2 million and 4 million jobs around the nation, and transferred over $6 trillion of financial resources from businesses and other energy users to government.

The theory of the bill was to establish an “acceptable” level of carbon emissions and have the government assume ownership of them and “give” them away.

Any emissions above that level would have to be “purchased” from the federal government. The cap-and-trade gambit is perhaps the most egregious example of Big Government attempting to hide in sheep’s clothing in the last half century.

The bureaucracy that would be assembled to administer this program would be mind-boggling.

Especially interesting would be the creation of two new government or quasi-government agencies.

The Climate Change Credit Corporation, a new “public-private” entity, would take in the trillions of dollars removed from businesses and individuals and decide how they would be spent. This corporation would be able to avoid the congressional appropriations process and spend the money as it sees fit.

One can only imagine the mad rush of K Street lobbyists to get their friends appointed to that board.

The legislation would also give rise to the Carbon Market Efficiency Board that would govern our use of carbon emissions in this country.

The Climate Security Act isn’t something that will only affect life “inside the beltway.” It will have a significant impact on the economy and livelihoods here in Louisiana.

The National Association of Manufacturers and the American Council for Capital Formation jointly commissioned a study to determine the impact of this legislation in the 50 states. For Louisiana, the data is quite revealing. The low-side estimate for job losses is 46,000 by 2030. On the high-side, it would exceed 61,000.

Likewise, the loss of household income would range from a low of $3,343 by 2030 to a high estimate of $6,095.

The study estimates that the price of residential electricity would increase from a low of $8.41 per kilowatt hour to a high of $14.99.

If Congress wanted to reduce demand for things that create carbon emissions, why wouldn’t it simply enact a direct carbon tax and avoid creating an expensive, massive bureaucracy?

The answer to that question is not hard to deduce. Using a straightforward carbon tax would impact consumers head on and let them know how much money the government was taking directly out of their pockets.

That isn’t how Congress likes to do business. Not having the courage to cast a vote for the largest tax increase in the history of the nation, the proponents of the Climate Security Act instead support trying to hide that tax in a massive regulatory scheme.

Our two Louisiana senators, Mary Landrieu and David Vitter, are to be commended for not advancing this huge expansion of government that would kill the jobs and rob the incomes of Louisiana’s citizens.

Unfortunately, this issue isn’t going away for long.

Both Barack Obama and John McCain support this legislation. Expect to see it raise its ugly head again when the new Congress is sworn in next year.