Says Indiana Representative Mike Pence:
“I think, rightly understood, the cap and trade legislation represents an economic declaration of war on the Midwest by liberals in Washington, D.C.,” Pence said in a telephone interview.
Pence says that climate change legislation could cost the average American household more than $3,000 a year in higher energy costs.
“An economic declaration of war on the Midwest by liberals in Washington, D.C.” Really, Mike? With tempered, reasonable language like that, it’s hard figuring why the Democrats aren’t much inclined to work with Republicans like Mr. Pence. (Yes, I know, people can find overblown quotes from Democrats and, therefore, they are all equivalently bad.)
But, let’s ignore the language for a moment, and consider whether carbon dioxide emission caps disproportionately affect the Midwest and whether they ought to. Apparently we burn coal for our power more than in other regions. Our pollutants get blown away from us and on to others. It’s not that this legislation increases the cost of our energy production. Rather, it internalizes the cost so that the cost is reflected in the price. In fairness, we really shouldn’t be permitted to offload our costs in the form of pollution, the consequences of which are borne by third parties who neither produced nor consumed the coal-generated energy.
Pence is seemingly on a path of isolation from the main stream. He has postioned himself in an extreme partisan position. Could it be he is looking toward 2012–perhaps as Pres candidate or shooting for Palin-Pence ticket—there are some fractions that would endorse this in a moment.
What these #@$#@$#@ need to realize is that we are currently paying a LOT more than $3000 a family for our “cheap energy.” We are just accruing debt with Mother Nature. Some day, Mother Nature is going to come calling when Indiana gets hit with a long term, multi-decade drought. Or when more and more tornados rip through our towns. Or from the increased cost of social services for refugees fleeing coastal areas.
I really wish we could get all of these politicians to read Flat, Hot and Crowded by Tom Friedman. Even if they disagreed with the science, they would at least be more educated about how short term costs mean long term stability.
Cliche boy says: “A stitch in time saves nine.” Also, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
What Pence and everyone like him in Indiana needs to realize is that aggressively positioning yourself with the Club for Growth types is going to hurt the state in the long run. The smokestack industries are disappearing quickly and need to be replaced. But there are a lot of people who aren’t going to want to move their business, or themselves, to a state that historically sh!ts where it eats. You don’t have to be a hippie about it, but you have stop pretending that every attempt to clean up the air, water and land is a Communist (to cross-thread) attack on jobs.
Sadly, Daniels doesn’t get that advancing a business agenda includes making Indiana more pleasant place to live. If not for other states and the EPA, we’d swim in an even more toxic chemical stew whenever we took a trip to the Dunes.
Pence is a political panderer but his figures are probably not far off. If done as the administration suggests (selling carbon credits as opposed to giving them away – effectivley creating an enormous source of federal revenue instead of making the mandate revenue neutral), the economic effect on Indiana would be profound. Thought of in terms of a tax – and that’s really what it would be – it’s hard to imagine a system more regressive. The president’s middle-class tax cut blanches in comparison.
As a question of policy, carbon restriction may be the right thing to do. But dismissing the real threat of enormous economic harm to Indiana from such a policy is silly. And dismissing it just because a political whiffle ball brought it up is worse.
While you correctly point out that the carbon emitted in Indiana may float elsewhere, what of the carbon emitted by China and India? Their carbon emissions won’t stay in one place either. Until and unless you get buy-in from all countries, you are inflicting economic harm on places like Indiana to the benefit of countries that don’t restrict carbon at all. And what of the hundreds of years worth of coal we have in Indiana? It will be sold to China. Such sales already occur.
When we deal with this we can’t be blind to the consequences. To do so is to be as disengenuous as Pense.
The Republicans misread the study. The correct number is about $340.
http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/community-news/light-switch-tax-47040202
So Pence is either stupid, or lying, or he didn’t read the memo, or all of the above.
Pence has national prominence now.When a TV news station wants the ‘genuine conservative point of view’, Pence is one of those who is called upon. He’s photogenic and can explain himself very well,and doesn’t sound anything like a strident rwer.. When Newt Gingrich comes to the podium and says almost the same things,people wince.
But Pence and others with his message ,imo, can’t gain national stature by advocating small government.Big money will go somewhere with agendas attached to it and will buy favors .
Allocating control to the private sector doesn’t necessarily make government smaller. Private control ‘without control’ is government at its worst.
It’s an issue of our seeing our money being ‘managed’ by forces out of our control,and that includes private control. When Americans (myself included) lose 40% of our Mutual Funds,which were thought to be bedrock, conservative investment, we don’t want to hear smug ideology retorts like: ” nothing is ever guaranteed’
Young guys at the gym flipping houses and becoming millionaires and others losing their mutual funds is one, big sequential process..
Putting “left & right” aside for a moment, I honestly think most reasonable people can appreciate changing our energy policies to cleaner alternatives, but just like any household would (or at least should)do it, i.e., not spending $10,000 on a new furnace when you don’t have $10,000 to save $50 a month in heat bills. Instead of driving yourself into bankruptcy to save $50 a month, you start out insulating, wrapping pipes, etc while saving and working towards an energy efficient house and replacing the furnace when it makes sense financially.
What get’s us in trouble is knee-jerk reactions (by both parties & administrations)to problems which shouldn’t be ignored, but rather carefully considered and addressed over time…..
While it’s true every administration tries to ram it’s policies down our throats (yes Bush did it too), any thinking person would have to be extremely nervous at the speed with which this administration is implementing very expensive and questionable policies, most of which are not even read by them before passing.
The ramming down throats phenomenon, I think, is exacerbated by the reality that an administration’s effectiveness seems to plummet after the 1st year. Year 2 is mid-terms, Year 3 & 4 are re-election, and Year 5-8 are lame duck. Year 5 is probably a President’s second bite at the apple.
I would say not the merely the effectiveness, Doug, but the public’s memory is a factor of the first year. Observe that Mitch Daniels did everything controversial in his first year- toll road lease and DST, notably. Was that because he was more effective then, or, as a matter of strategy, to get the contentious stuff out of the way ASAP, so as to cruise to the re-election. Certainly worked out that way, didn’t it?
Mitch Daniels was re-elected because he had no effective opposition, and because the average Hoosier has no idea of the mess Mitch and his minions have made (and continue to make) of state government.
Yeah, I’ll agree with you that people’s memories tend to be short, but Daniels also benefitted very much from having a weak opponent. Jill Long Thompson was virtually invisible. I imagine that a lot of people didn’t know that there was a Democrat running for governor until they stepped into the voting booth on election day. If Long Thompson (or some other Democrat) had brought up all of Mitch’s baggage from years 1,2,3, and 4 of his term, Daniels would not have been re-elected.