|
| |||
 |
|||
Burton, Pence Lead Fight Over Cap and Trade |
|||
The Shelbyville News (IN) By Jeff Tucker |
WASHINGTON - The two congressmen who represent different portions of Shelby County in the U.S. House of Representatives told reporters Thursday they oppose to an energy plan being considered in the House that some say could cost homeowners thousands of dollars a year and push gasoline prices to $8 a gallon.
President Obama's so-called "cap and trade" energy plan is being considered by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Several congressmen, including U.S. Reps. Dan Burton and Mike Pence, discussed the Democratic-led energy legislation and the potential effects on American jobs and the economy.
Pence, the House Republican Conference chairman, said the legislation intended to reduce greenhouse gases "amounts to an economic declaration of war on the Midwest by liberals in Washington, D.C., and it must be opposed."
Pence, R-Columbus, referred to the measure as "cap-and-tax" legislation and a "national energy tax."
"I make this case because the very nature of the cap-and-trade legislation is to essentially raise the costs on the creation of energy that uses traditional fossil fuels," Pence said. "And in the Midwest, particularly with regard to coal-burning power plants, we rely in places like Indiana and Michigan and Ohio and Wisconsin so heavily on coal-burning power plants that it will be small business owners, family farmers and households across the Midwest that will bare the heaviest burden of this cap-and-tax legislation, if it should become law."
Pence, who represents Hendricks, Jackson, Sugar Creek and southern Hanover township in Shelby County, is also chairman of the American Energy Solutions Group, a working group House Republicans tasked with finding solutions to lower energy prices. The group is hosting energy summits next week in Pennsylvania, California, and one at 10 a.m. Wednesday in Indianapolis at the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library.
Pence said Thursday's conference call from Washington with reporters and the energy summits are an effort to "educate the American people about the realities of this energy tax."
Burton, who represents the remainder of Shelby County in the U.S. House, said the legislation could cost Americans $646 billion in additional taxes.
"It's going to send thousands, and probably millions, of jobs overseas to China and India, countries that don't have the same kind of environmental standards we have, and it's going to cost every single American household thousands of dollars in additional expenditures per year," Burton said. "Now they say it's not going to be a tax on individuals or households, but the fact is it will be an indirect tax because the business and industries of this country that are taxed are going to pass those costs along to the consumer, which means that every single household in this country will have to spend between $3,000 and $4,000 in additional expenses every single year. And that's money that right now during this recession the American people simply cannot afford."
Burton said cap and trade is an unnecessary tax and is "just something that should not happen." He said Obama conceded in January 2008 during an editorial board meeting with a California newspaper that electricity rates "would necessarily skyrocket" under cap and trade.
"We have to take the president at his word," Burton said.
Burton said a new natural gas discovery in Louisiana could help America become energy independent.
"In Louisiana, they just discovered the largest natural gas find, I think, in the world at this point," Burton said. "It was the equivalent of 380-some billion barrels of oil. So we have an additional resource that was not well-known just a few short weeks ago. And with that, I think the United States of America could rapidly move toward energy independence if we put our minds to it. It's just a matter of the Congress of the United States realizing that we can have less reliance on foreign oil and foreign energy and do the jobs ourselves here at home."
U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wisc., also spoke against cap and trade during the conference call, calling it a "regressive, hidden tax" that amounted to a "unilateral disarmament in manufacturing." He said the legislation could raise electric rates up to 170 percent in Wisconsin, and natural gas costs up a little more than 100 percent, while pushing gasoline prices to $8 a gallon.
U.S. Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., said the costs of cap and trade would work their way into food and clothing and cause the loss of 3 million jobs.
"It will be in virtually every aspect of your life," Camp said, "and throw a wet blanket over any opportunity we have to recover."
"This is a war, really not only on the middle class, but on middle America," said U.S. Rep. Robert Latta, R-Ohio. "Multinationals will move companies overseas because energy rates are too high.
"This is suicide on the part of the United States," Latta continued. "People across America have got to know what's going on out there because this is a serious situation."
Pence said House Republicans would offer an alternative energy proposal similar to a measure, the American Energy Act, that the GOP offered last summer when gas prices were soaring. That measure called for more domestic exploration, more conservation and alternative sources of energy, including wind, solar and nuclear.
"We're currently working to piece together what we're calling the American Energy Act 2.0 and it will include all of those strategies, plus a heavy emphasis on clean-coal technology and creating incentives where we can reduce greenhouse gases, not with a national energy tax, but with a the kind of incentives that will promote new technologies," Pence said, adding the legislation will be unveiled sometime next month.
