Lieberman-Warner Theft Act

Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 5:13 pm by Neal
This chart shows the machinations of the “Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act” — a beauty of Doublespeak if ever there was one. Click on the chart for the full-size image.

Thanks to Senator Kit Bond (R.-Missouri) for this chart highlighting the mechanism through which new and existing government agencies will bilk American individuals and families for hundreds of billions of dollars in order to fight the global warming bogeyman.

As this chart demonstrates, Rube Goldberg would be proud.

Senator Bond introduced the chart with these remarks:

This chart here is a diagram of the bill’s requirements, new agencies and new programs. The first thing one notices is how extremely complicated and far-reaching this proposal is. Rube Goldberg would be proud, as several members will focus upon.

I want to focus upon the red blocks at the top. Unfortunately, they are not just blocks – they represent millions of families, farmers, drivers and workers who will pay higher heating bills, suffer more pain at the pump, and lose more jobs because of this bill.

The bill’s sponsors themselves admit this bill will cost our families and workers hundreds of billions of dollars. Where will that money go?

It will flow out of the pockets of our families, farmers, drivers and workers at the top here in red, through those pass thru entities in orange, thru EPA and the new Climate Change Credit Corporation in black and out to all of these new government programs and causes here in blue and purple.

Senator James Inhofe, of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, had these comments on the bill:

As we begin the process of digesting the testimony, I would like to share what I think are the common themes of all these hearings: this will be very, very costly; the impacts will be severe; and the bill will have significant impacts on energy markets.

There remain some fringe elements who still claim that this bill will create jobs instead of destroy them. But most people are acknowledging that this bill will cost a great deal of money. Indeed, I appreciate the acknowledgment by one of the sponsors of this bill, Senator Lieberman, who was quite candid that this bill will cost hundreds of billions of dollars. We have heard testimony from perhaps the premier econometric modeling firms in the country that found the impacts of this bill would be substantial – with national costs escalating to between $800 billion to $1 trillion per year and costs of up to $2700 annually or more than $200 per month to the average family. Within just a few years, up to 2.3 million people will be put out of work by this bill and the cost of gasoline, natural gas and electricity will skyrocket, with electricity prices climbing 36-65 percent.

The Midwest and the South will see the most dramatic increases. If we’re lucky, the Northeast and California will see dramatic increases in LNG imports. If we’re not, the economic consequences of this bill would be even worse.

A November 6 Washington Post article put it succinctly when it stated that the current global warming proposals “will require a wholesale transformation of the nation’s economy and society.”

Senator Inhofe goes on to explain how all of this cost and suffering will buy us nothing as long as developing nations such as China are left off the table. We are being asked to bankrupt entire industries, bankrupt families, and transform our economy for a few parts per million of greenhouse gases at the end of the century. What a deal.

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