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Dems Ditch ‘Cap and Trade’ but don’t be fooled

July 21, 2010 12:00

“Those words are not in my vocabulary. We’re going to work on pollution.” Harry Reid is switching the language about the bill. Expect to hear about ‘pollution’, ‘green jobs’ and most of all the oil spill which won’t have anything to do with the bill. Kerry and Lieberman had already tried ‘American Power Act’ but we can expect something with ‘pollution’ in the name.

The real message about the ‘energy bill’ no matter what it is called is a simple as Obama’s pre-election statement that ‘ Under my plan electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket’. But get ready for the switcheroo. Harry Reid knows the public won’t swallow the climate saving agenda as a reason to add $3 trillion in energy taxes so he’s going to change the ‘message’ not the bill.

DARREN SAMUELSOHN at POLITICO reports:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid played dumb last week when a reporter asked him if the energy and climate bill headed to the floor would come with a “cap” on greenhouse gas emissions.

“I don’t use that,” the Nevada Democrat replied. “Those words are not in my vocabulary. We’re going to work on pollution.”

Moments earlier, Reid had confirmed he was trying to craft legislation targeting the heat-trapping pollution that comes from power plants. But he’s determined to win the war of words when it comes to a carbon cap — and that means losing the lexicon attached to past climate battles.

Gone, in the Democrat’s mind, are the terms “cap” and “cap and trade,” which are synonymous with last June’s House-passed climate bill as well as other existing environmental policies for curbing traditional air pollutants. In their place are new slogans recommended by prominent pollsters (and even a neuroscientist) that Reid and allies hope they can use to overcome the long-shot prospects for passing climate legislation.

The constant revelations about the UN climate report being based on many false and or unsubstantiated studies and the email revelations known as climategate have dampened enthusiasm for pushing a monstrous tax to ‘save the planet’ from non-existent global warming especially in a time of economic malaise. So what is the typical response of our power elites like Harry Reid and the deceptive Democrats? Change the message. They have called in help to see what kind of words they can use to fool the people into accepting another massive unread bill that will do nothing for the environment, will slow the economy, kill jobs and increase the cost of virtually everything by raising the price of energy.

The POLITICO article notes:

Enter the rebranding strategy — a controversial overhaul that many Republicans still see as spin. Some Democrats remain dubious, too. Last week, Reid’s office brought in Drew Westen, an Emory University neuroscience professor, to explain the best messaging practices to about 30 Democratic Senate chiefs of staff and communications directors. (emphasis added)

A Senate Democratic aide in the room said Westen covered a lot of ground, starting with a call to “get us out of acronym land, get us out of Senate-speak and [get] it down to regular terminology of what’s effective and what’s not.”

That means no longer referring to climate legislation by any one particular author, such as Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) or Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). It’s also about playing up the patriotism angle, including the prospect of losing out to the Chinese on development of clean energy technologies. And then Westen urged them to go for the political jugular by associating Democrats with new ideas for clean fuels while labeling GOP opponents as “trying to go backward with dirty fuels.”

“Being aspirational but also drawing clear contrasts,” the Senate Democratic staffer said.

This is pure propaganda. Why can’t we have an open honest debate about energy? If these are good smart ideas and will actually help the American people why would they have to hide them in doublespeak and the ‘right words’. As more people are coming to realize, this government is not about helping the American people, it is about paying off pricey lobbying from big contributors like GE who owns NBC and MSNBC. GE stands to make billions from ‘smart grid’ technology being forced on the US. They already managed to force poisonous mercury polluting light bulbs on us in the name of saving the planet from global warming which has shown to be a hoax. Other large corporations are on board too. BP and other oil companies have been dealt into the money pie by John Kerry to get behind this bogus bill. Deborah Corey Barnes at the Capital Research Center has published a report that shows how Goldman Sachs and Al gore will make millions off such a carbon system. Glenn Beck has shown the connections to the political and power players who will be enriched by a carbon trade to the point that it seems criminal. An Investor’s Business Daily editorial points out that a carbon trading scheme will be a ‘$10 Trillion Climate Fraud’ and that its trail leads to the White House.

“While senators froth over Goldman Sachs and derivatives, a climate trading scheme being run out of the Chicago Climate Exchange would make Bernie Madoff blush. Its trail leads to the White House.”

And this from the IBD Editorial:

So lucrative does this market appear, it attracted the attention of London-based Generation Investment Management, which purchased a stake in CCX and is now the fifth-largest shareholder.

As we noted last year, Gore is co-founder of Generation Investment Management, which sells carbon offsets of dubious value that let rich polluters continue to pollute with a clear conscience.

Other founders include former Goldman Sachs partner David Blood, as well as Mark Ferguson and Peter Harris, also of Goldman Sachs. In 2006, CCX received a big boost when another investor bought a 10% stake on the prospect of making a great deal of money for itself. That investor was Goldman Sachs, now under the gun for selling financial instruments it knew were doomed to fail.

The actual mechanism for trading on the exchange was purchased and patented by none other than Franklin Raines, who was CEO of Fannie Mae at the time.

Raines profited handsomely to the tune of some $90 million by buying and bundling bad mortgages that led to the collapse of the American economy. His interest in climate trading is curious until one realizes cap-and-trade would make housing costlier as well.

Amazingly, none of these facts came up at Senate hearings on Goldman Sachs’ activities, which may be nothing more than Ross Perot’s famous “gorilla dust,” meant to distract us from the real issues.

The climate trading scheme being stitched together here will do more damage than Goldman Sachs, AIG and Fannie Mae combined. But it will bring power and money to its architects. (emphasis added)

Now you see why its so important to Harry Reid to ‘change the message’. Call it something else. This bill will be sold as an energy panacea. They will claim it will create jobs, cleanse the world, move us away from ‘dirty’ energy and yes even make us safer.

POLITICO notes:

Just before President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech, Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp and GOP pollster Frank Luntz, who had famously done work for climate change opponents during the George W. Bush administration, released a study showing that the best way to sell greenhouse gas legislation was by talking about national security and “energy independence,” while avoiding debate over the science of climate change.

But it is these same environmentalists who have made us so dependent on foreign oil. They are the one who forced drilling out to deeper water where it is more dangerous and harder to manage. They have prevented refineries from expanding or new ones being built. They have prevented drilling for oil in safer land based environments like the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. They have prevented progress on nuclear power plants leaving us to fund terrorism against ourselves by being forced to buy oil from terror supporting countries. This is just another straw man to get their agenda passed. Environmentalists are anti-growth and some even admit it.

There is even pressure to stifle the new shale gas exploration projects because it may be too clean and cheap for the big alternative energy push to make any sense at all. It could also help to free us from dependence on foreign oil.

As an article in the Wall Street Journal noted:

I have been studying the energy markets for 30 years, and I am convinced that shale gas will revolutionize the industry-and change the world-in the coming decades. It will prevent the rise of any new cartels. It will alter geopolitics. And it will slow the transition to renewable energy.

The shale boom also is likely to upend the economics of renewable energy. It may be a lot harder to persuade people to adopt green power that needs heavy subsidies when there’s a cheap, plentiful fuel out there that’s a lot cleaner than coal, even if gas isn’t as politically popular as wind or solar.

And what about all those ‘green’ jobs that they will shout about that will ‘save the economy’? That is another lie. Obama and the greens used to use Spain as a model of how adopting a green jobs based economy solves so many problems at once. But Spain went broke. There was even a study done in Spain reported on by George Will that showed that for every ‘green’ job created 2.2 regular jobs would be killed. But that did not fit with Obama’s green energy agenda so he conspired with businesses that stand to profit from alternative energy and his pet think tank the Soros funded Center for American Progress to cover up the report and publish something friendlier to the green agenda. Another IBD Editorial has all the sleazy details.

There are many articles that show the theory of green jobs is a myth. Here are a few:

The Green Con Job – higher ‘green’ energy costs = job losses

Myth of ‘green jobs’ continues

The Weatherization Boondoggle -’green’ union money pit

Green Stimulus Money Costs More Jobs Than It Creates, Study Shows

Billions for ‘green jobs,’ whatever they are

Nonpartisan Proof: Cap-and-Trade Is an Economy-Killer

What can we say then about this continuing attempt to push a ‘green’ agenda that does not and will not work? An agenda that will do nothing that we will be told it will do. An agenda that is more likely to harm the economy, kill jobs and make us more dependent on foreign energy. You decide. Will you continue to sit quietly by as these thieves loot the treasury and destroy our freedom? Or will you get off the couch and do what you can. Research this. Its all out there. Print out articles and pass them around your neighborhood. Hold a ‘tea party’ in your home or business and inform people of this scam. Join a group or organization and help them get the message out. Call, write, email and fax your legislative representatives and educate them. Most importantly, be an informed active participant in the election of honest, constitution supporting leaders at all levels of government.