Palin Calls Obama’s Cap and Trade “Cap and Tax”

In a sharp and intelligently-written op-ed in the Washington Post, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin nails the argument against Obama’s Cap and Trade legislation which even the most liberal readers will have to consider.

Calling Obama’s plan “Cap and Tax,” Palin, the former vice-presidential candidate, makes her case that this environmental legislation, in its current form, “would undermine our recovery over the short term and would inflict permanent damage” by driving up prices on energy and consumer goods as well as result in massive job losses.

Palin is sharply critical of Obama’s openly admitting that his Cap and Trade legislation will “necessarily skyrocket” electricity rates which will impact everyone including lower income people.

Palin, who will soon step down as governor, is convincing in making it clear that cap and trade is not the only solution to environmental issues and that other alternatives, including incentives, will free us from foreign energy dependence as well as improve the environment.

“We have an important choice to make. Do we want to control our energy supply and its environmental impact? Or, do we want to outsource it to China, Russia and Saudi Arabia? Make no mistake: President Obama’s plan will result in the latter,” Palin says.

Here are the links:

The ‘Cap and Tax’ Dead End by Sarah Palin | The Washington Post

Obama:  My Plan Makes Electricity Rates Skyrocket | You Tube

 

While Media’s Attention Focussed on Jackson, Senate Works on Cap and Trade

While most major media are swarming L. A. for the Michael Jackson funeral today, Congress is quietly moving forward with cap and trade legislation which, if passed and signed into law, will become the largest tax increase in the history of the world and drive up prices on everything we need and use.

The Senate Environment Committee convened today to discuss, in a question and answer session, the legislation which already passed the House.  Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour (R) was interviewed this morning.  Later today, Mayor John Fetterman (D) of Braddock, Pennsylvania, is expected to share his views with the committee.

While Governor Barbour is concerned about the expense of cap and trade, Mayor Fetterman is all for it.  Braddock, a former steel town in Western Pennsylvania, will benefit from cap and trade because of the benefits to former steel workers.  Even though no American steel will be used in the electricity-producing windmills, Fetterman says, “I sure hope it passes.”

Watch this afternoon’s session at cspan.org.

 

Ohio Fights Back Against Cap and Trade

Citing that Obama’s “cap and trade program will result  in massive increase for all consumers,” the Ohio Senate passed a resolution on Tuesday opposing the federal legistlation, according to the Star Beacon in Ashtabula, Ohio.

In what many are now viewing as the biggest increase in taxes in the history of the world, Obama’s environmental policy of cap and trade would affect every area of everyone’s lives and place taxes and excessive restrictions on food, energy, clothing, and even what kind of trees can be planted and where they can be planted.

Acknowledging that cap and trade would cause an increase in expenses for every American citizen, the U. S. Congressional Budget Office agreed that lower income income people would be hurt the worst by cap and trade.

“CBO has acknowledged these increases in energy costs will act as a regressive tax and affect every household in the nation, according to the Ohio Senate resolution,” as reported in the Star Beacon story.

Regression or “regressive” taxes, which have been acknowledged by the Congressional Budget Office for cap and trade, are particularly severe on people in lower income brackets because these kinds of taxes take a larger share out of their income.  Someone who makes more money has less of a chunk coming out of their income and therefore is more able to afford necessary goods and services.

Cap and trade has already passed the House and is now being considered by the Senate.  In addition to taxes (the rates will increase year after year and take more money out of people’s pockets) on all goods and services, including food, this legislation now being considered by the U. S. Senate would place hundreds of restrictions on our daily lives, require us having Federal inspectors into our homes, and would ration water and electrical energy.  The bill which passed the House prohibits anyone from selling their home until a Federal inspector approves it for sale; if the inspector rejects the home, the home owner would be required to make expensive green retrofits to the home.

See these links for the list of hidden items in the current cap and trade legislation:

1. http://www.examiner.com/x-2304-DC-Republican-Examiner~y2009m7d1-Fun-with-Cap-and-Trade-No-more-than-60-watts-in-your-candelabra

2. http://patriotroom.com/article/picking-our-way-through-waxman-markey

3. http://soitgoesinshreveport.blogspot.com/2009/06/whats-in-waxman-markey-bill.html

Star Beacon story link: The Star Beacon; Ashtabula, Ohio – Resolution opposing cap and trade adopted by Ohio Senate Tuesday.

 

Cap and Trade Won’t Work

As the Dems in Congress try to garner votes for the cap and trade bill, a new report says that cap and trade won’t work and can be more damaging to environment and economy.

Read this:  Cap and trade will not save the earth.

 

Will Waxman Get His Way?

Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee worked late into the Washington night in their attempt to fast-track a 1,000-page energy bill without adequate debate.

Essentially, this energy bill, pushed by Committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-California) and Representative Edward Markey (D-Massachusetts), would establish a cap and trade on carbon dioxide emissions and would increase electricity rates for consumers across the nation.

According to CNSNews, Waxman intends to ram the legislation through committee and “to conclude consideration of the legislation” by today.

Republicans object that there has not been adequate time – less than one week – to review the bill which is nearly a thousand pages.  Additionally, the minority party is concerned that the public is not aware of what this bill would do and its consequences to their wallets.

“Pass it now!  Explain it later,” is how Representative Joe Barton (R-Texas), the Committee’s minority leader, describes Waxman’s tactics which include bypassing an important subcommittee which would address the bill’s impact on industry.

Barton and other Republicans are accusing Waxman of jamming the bill through before lawmakers or the public know what’s going on “to skirt serious debate” on the bill, according to CNSNews.

A recent Rasmussen poll shows that less than 25% of voters even know what “cap and trade” is and that it has to do with environmental matters.  With these low numbers, there is justified reason to be concerned about quickly pushing legislation like this through Congress since the American public is not completely aware of how this policy can affect energy prices including for electricity.

Click here for more information on “cap and trade” or go to this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissions_trading

CNSNews Link:

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=48290

Technorati Tags: environment,cap and trade,Waxman,House,Barton,Markey,Politics,Government and politics,Government,Washington,politics as usual

 

Instead of Cap and Trade, Why Not Fix the Problem?

An article in the NY Times yesterday highlights the push by some in Congress to set cap and trade as our new energy policy as this:

“It is a steel fist of regulation covered by a velvet glove of emission trading,” Mr. Montgomery said. “Why not just impose a carbon tax?”

W. David Montgomery, by the way, who said this to the NY Times was the author, in 1971, of the concept of cap and trade in his doctoral thesis.

Whether they call it a carbon tax or cap and trade, these are still just the same old tired Washington ways of doing nothing.

Why not really bring change, as promised this time, by actually fixing the problem of our being dependent on foreign oil?

The government could offer tax incentives to power companies who convert to natural gas.  They could offer incentives to companies who look for ways to increase natural gas production like, for instance, from the conversion into gas from cities’ garbage.  They could look to power production from water, and many more ideas.

But instead, they still buy into the special interests which keep us dependent on oil!

Link NY Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/us/politics/17cap.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th

Technorati Tags: politics,washington,environment

 

Dept. of Agriculture Plans To Implant Every Animal

Yes, you read that correctly!

The USDA is trying to rush a measure through Congress (without scrutiny)  that would require every livestock animal, quail, bison, alpaca, and other animals, to have a radio chip implant and be registered in a giant database for DNA and surveillance tracking!

Funded by the mega agribusiness factory farm special interests (like Cargill and Tyson), biotech companies involved in genetic engineering of animals, and surveillance companies, the proposed measure titled the National Animal Identification System (or NAIS) will require everyone who owns livestock to buy expensive computer equipment and implant their animals.  Even if you own just one chicken, you will be required to buy the equipment, implant that chicken, and then register its DNA into the national database.

The measure is supposed to stop further contamination of food, like the recent salmonella crisis, but that’s just to make it look good on its surface.  In truth, this bill will virtually end the small family independent farm in the United States!

Here’s the catch:  where NAIS will require everyone else in America who owns horses, chickens, cows, or other livestock animals, to implant and register their animals, the big agribusiness factory farms – like Tyson’s farms – will be EXEMPT!

The special interests supporting this measure say the corporate farms are exempt because they already track their animals from birth through their life span.  But the real truth is that this bill, if passed, will put undue financial burden on independent farmers who are already under pressure from these massive agribusinesses.

Moreover, this bill helps create a DNA database to benefit those biotech outfits who are experimenting with genetically engineered animals!

Congress is planning a committee hearing on this issue on March 11.  Click here to go to the action page and let your member of Congress know you don’t agree with NAIS! 

Read the entire text of the e-mail regarding NAIS below:

Sent: Tuesday, March 03, 2009 11:14 PM

Subject: Red Alert: Stop The Next Peanut Contamination Disaster

>
> Radio Chip Animal Identification Would Do ALL Harm To Our Real Food
> Safety, And No Good
>
> It would be too easy to blame the recent peanut panic on one criminal
> corporation owner, who KNOWINGLY shipped Salmonella contaminated
> product. But before that it was millions of pounds of ground beef,
> and before that tomatoes all over the country, and on and on. And
> when you ask where is all this horrible filth coming from, with a
> over a million cases of Salmonella in the U.S. alone every year, the
> answer is self-evident. It’s the huge factory farms that overflow
> with seas of untreated animal waste, that then spill into our food
> supply, including through our agricultural plant crop fields.
>
> We have a lot of work to do to clean up this giant mess, but the
> first thing we have to do is STOP a lunatic boondoggle being pushed
> by these same corporate interests, to force radio computer chip
> implanting of literally every farm animal in the country, EXCEPT on
> their own factory farms. It is absolutely nothing but a further
> attempt to drive small family farms out of business, who in fact are
> our safest source of reliably clean food now.
>
> The proposed National Animal Identification System (NAIS) would force
> even the smallest healthy farms to buy expensive new computer
> tracking equipment, and potentially would subject them to
> gestapo-like tactics by the USDA if they are in even slight technical
> non-compliance. And all this just to fatten the pockets of the RFID
> chip manufacturers, and to make it LOOK like something is being done
> to make our food safer.
>
> The special one click action page below will send your personal
> message to all your members Congress and also directly to the U.S.
> Department of Agriculture who is trying to rush this thing through
> without adequate scrutiny.
>
> Stop NAIS Action Page: http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum942.php
>
> This action is especially urgent because the U.S. House Agriculture
> Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy and Poultry is holding a hearing on
> NAIS implementation on March 11, and many farm activists fear the
> plan is to push it out for a full vote in Congress faster than a
> greased pig, before we the people have a meaningful chance to speak
> out.
>
> You may not have a House member on that particular subcommittee, but
> you can pressure your own House member to tell they colleagues on it
> that there is massive constituent pressure against NAIS. For the
> especially mobilized on the action page above there is a link to the
> phone numbers for those on the subcommittee, because they are in fact
> your representative as an American citizen if they sit on it.
>
> Below are some more extensive truth points you can select from in
> drafting your comments or on the phone, again linked to from the
> action page above.
>
> NAIS was designed by NIAA (the National Institute of Animal
> Agriculture), a corporate consortium consisting of Monsanto,
> industrial meat producers such as Cargill and Tyson, and surveillance
> companies such Viatrace, AgInfoLink, and Digital Angel. The NAIS
> scheme fits agribusiness, biotech, and surveillance companies to a T:
>
> 1) They are already computerized, and they engineered a corporate
> loophole: If an entity owns a vertically integrated, birth-to-death
> factory system with thousands of animals (as the Cargills and Tysons
> do), it does not have to tag and track each one but instead a herd is
> given a single lot number.
>
> 2). NAIS will only be burdensome and costly (fees, tags, computer
> equipment, time) to small farmers which helps push them out of
> business, thus leaving more market to giant agribusiness.
>
> 3) Agribusiness wants to reassure export customers that the US meat
> industry is finally cleaning up its widespread contamination. NAIS
> would give that appearance … without incurring the cost of a real
> cleanup.
>
> 4) NAIS will allow total control over the competition: Owners of even
> a single chicken would be required to register private information,
> the Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates of their ‘premise’
> and if any animal leaves its ‘premise’, the owner will be required to
> obtain an ID number for it and have the animal microchipped. All
> information, including 24 hour GPS surveillance would be fed into a
> vast corporate data bank, allowing for ease of false slaughter to
> hide true problems or to substitute biotech’s genetically engineered
> animals.
>
> 5) NAIS may allow plundering of farmers through required DNA samples:
> DNA samples would be invaluable to Monsanto and biotech corporations
> genetically engineering animals. Farmers who raise heritage breeds
> would have no say in how their distinct DNA would be used and to the
> sole profit of biotech companies.
>
> 6) The advantage for the surveillance companies is obvious:
> Compulsory tagging of 6 million sheep, 7 million horses, 63 million
> hogs, 97 million cows, 260 million turkeys, 300 million laying hens,
> 9 billion chickens, and untold numbers of bison, alpaca, quail, and
> other animals — and new animals being born, means a massive
> self-perpetuating market.
>
> Please take action now to stop this insanity. Our health and our
> lives depend on it.
>
> Stop NAIS Action Page: http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum942.php
>
> The health claims for NAIS are a sham though fear of disease is used
> to advance it. NAIS does not touch the contaminated source of E.coli,
> salmonella, listeria, mad cow, and common meat-borne diseases – the
> inherently unhealthy practices (mass crowding, growth stimulants,
> feeding regimens, rushed assembly lines, poor sanitation, etc.) of
> industrial-scale meat operations. Upton Sinclair’s “Jungle” all over
> again. NAIS will do nothing to stop these practices. Moreover,
> tracking ends at the time of slaughter, yet it’s from slaughter
> onward that most spoilage occurs. But NAIS does not trace any
> contamination after slaughter.
>
> The self-serving Agribusiness NAIS plan distracts from their
> contaminatory practices, while targeting hundreds of thousands of
> small farms, homesteaders, organic producers, hobbyists … and maybe
> even you. NAIS’s purpose is to advance corporate monopoly over all
> food in the US. And with it, they have laid the ground work.
> Kissinger said if you control food, you can control people. This
> immense corporate plan to control of our food supply and eliminate
> our independent farmers is, at it heart, the most severe threat
> possible to our democracy itself.
>
> Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed
> to be ours, and forward this alert as widely as possible.
>
> If you would like to get alerts like these, you can do so at
> http://www.peaceteam.net/in.htm
>
> Or if you want to cease receiving our messages, just use the function
> at http://www.peaceteam.net/out.htm
>

 

Technorati Tags: agribusiness,Congress,NAIS,USDA,genetic engineering

 

Food and Fossil Fuels

Source:  EnergySniff » Blog Archive » Food and Fossil Fuels

By now we have all heard the food vs. fuel debate: Should corn be used to feed stomachs or SUV tanks? This past year as food prices rose criticism of corn based ethanol rose as well. Pres. George Bush attributed the rise of food prices to increased demand from developing nations. Ministers of developing nations fired back claiming Western government policies mandating and subsidizing corn based ethanol were to blame. Lobbyists for farmers and hunger relief advocates jib jabbed back and forth with policy papers, letters to editors, etc. This week’s issue of The New York Times Magazine, the Food Issue, focuses on the problems of our current food ecosystem and possible solutions.

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