CLEAN Energy Act of 2007
By rblack198 Comments (9) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Or more precisely "Creating Long-Term Energy Alternatives for the Nation Act of 2007" H.R. 6.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c110:1:./temp/~c110qPIll5::
Watching CNBC over lunch and they are discussing the "legislation" that will be debated this week in the house. This is part of the 100 hours, days, weeks, whatever unit of time we determine agenda of the Democrats. An alternate title is "Ending Subsidies for Big Oil Act of 2007" sounds refreshing doesn't it. Essentially what we have here is attempted legislation to jack up the price of oil and gas in order to pass the "conservation fee" on to promote alternative energy. This is tantamount to taxing Ford on every vehicle and using that tax to promote GM. The fees in the legislation amount to $9 per barrel for oil and $1.25 per mmBTU of Natural gas. But wait they wouldn't possibly do this if the price fell right? Wrong, well sort of, the threshold price of oil is $34.73 per barrel and for nat gas its $4.34 in 2005 dollars. Also included is the mandatory renegotiation of the 98 and 99 leases that excluded royalty payments. Sorry those were my words, I think the actual language gives the lessee the ability to ask for the change, but if you don't ask and don't change you can't bid on any new leases in the Gulf.
In defense of this travesty on CNBC was Karen Wayland of the NRDC. My favorite quote was in response to Sterling Burnett of the Nat'l Center for Policy Analysis who was debating her about what the market was signaling I think. Her response was "It's the governments job to send market signals." To me that message is loud and clear, innovation and ambition be damned, the government knows whats best.
Plan on giving my rep and earful on this one, I'd like to believe this won't see the light of day and the GOP conference will all vote nay along with the Blue Dogs, but I'm not holding my breath.
I could easily see veto-sustaining majorities in both houses (possibily even 41-43 in the Senate) and I find it impossible to believe Bush won't veto this catastrophe should it land on his desk.
And I say that as a proud resident "green", FWIW.
I'm sick and tired of the "all stick, no carrot" approach to energy conservation. And in realily, I don't see how this legislation has anything to do with conservation as it's not likely to compel anyone to conserve anything. I mean, I have a NatGas heat system. Do you really think I'm going to replace it with some sort of "alternative" because of this surcharge? Pfft.
This is nothing more than a back-door way to fund "green" science (mostly in blue state academia, by the way) that cannot attract private funding for a variety of reasons - principally that it's not ready, and will not be ready any time soon, for prime time.
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"I don't know." -- Helen Thomas, in response to the question, "Are we at war, Helen?" - posed by then-White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
The global-warming-induced mild winter in the Northeastern US has led to a glut in oil, and associated price drop. It seems global warming has caused us to use less fossil fuel. I wonder if that effect made it into the computer models predicting the end of life as we know it.
(Oh, I know GW will mean more air conditioning energy use, but that is often drawn from hydroelectric and nuclear power).
The Academy: researching the Illiberal Arts
I'm sure this will do wonders for our domestic energy production. I wonder how many marginally producing wells in the US will be capped as a result of this? They certainly aren't going to be replaced with any new ones. I hold out some hope for a veto here since the President has made a big deal about energy independence.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
leaving national energy policy to Ms. Anderson's third grade class than in the hands of the Congress of the United States. But then that's probably true of just about anything.
Every time Congress makes a law it s joke and every time they make a joke its the law. Both sides of the aisle are pathetic, the difference is that the left side is more pathetic.
John
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Why would God create something like whiskey? To keep the Irish from ruling the world of course.
Why should oil companies get a tax break? Isn't there already more than enough money on the table in the energy market to incentivize the kind of exploration and development these breaks are designed to promote? What good does giving them a tax break accomplish?
OK, so with the taxpayer subsidy we see the price of domestic fuel artificially depressed. Is this a good thing for the health of our economy (or our federal budget)? Why couldn't we just pay the price of fuel and let the market signal that the value of energy development is high?
This is about the royalties they have to pay to the government for the privilege of pumping oil out of the ground. This isn't about tax breaks. It's not about subsidies.
This is about them paying the US government less for a barrel of oil than the Democrats think they should have had to pay, due to a screwup during the Clinton administration. So now they want to force the oil companies to renegotiate the contracts they signed so they can change the terms... it is no different than what banana republicans like Venezuela predictably do whenever oil prices increase or a new strong-man comes to power.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
I'll play along with your devil's advocate, but my problem would be if we eliminate the "subsidies" then we must do that for all fuels (alternative or otherwise). This legislation simply take money from "Big Oil" which is currently doing very well financially and give it to their upstart competitor. Level playing fields only work when no one industry gets to stack the deck. If you take away the ethanol/biodiesel subsidies, then you must look at not subsidizing their feedstocks (currently corn and soybeans). I'm a free market guy, lets the markets work, toying with them only delays the inevitable. I'm not familiar enough with what the left would think is a "fair" tax on gas and oil, but I suspect something close to 100% of every dollar of gas and oil revenue might be close.
House: 80 Nay.
Senate: 35 Nay.
Bush does not veto.
Senior Writer
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If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"...