The Boxer-Kerry green boondoggle
By Michelle Malkin • September 30, 2009 10:37 AM
Expensive eco-hysterics take to the Senate floor today. Democrat Sens. Barbara Boxer and John Kerry are set to unveil their “climate change” plan this morning.
The Institute for Energy Research has posted the two advance drafts of the bill and provides helpful analysis.
Except, of course, for the parts where Boxer and Kerry have inserted numerous placeholders — a phenomenon we saw in the House version of the cap-and-tax bill:
From these drafts it appears that the Boxer-Kerry bill will dramatically increase regulation, provide new entitlements to politically-connected groups, and give corporate rent-seekers a new source of Federal dollars. As a result of Boxer-Kerry, the American people will be forced to endure higher energy prices and onerous regulation.
Apparently, Senators Boxer and Kerry understand the difficulties they will face in passing a cap-and-trade bill this year. It seems that, in order to create leverage to secure more votes, the drafts do not completely spell out how the carbon dioxide allowances will be allocated. Instead the draft bills contain many placeholders…
…After the first draft bill was leaked, and appeared in a story in Greenwire, an updated draft was leaked. This second draft did not contain as many placeholders as the first, instead it gives the EPA Administrator discretion to allocate many of the allowances. This still gives Senators Boxer and Kerry bargaining power to allocate allowances to politically preferred groups.
But it also raises an important question—if Congress needs to act to limit the damage of EPA regulating carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act, how is the second Boxer-Kerry draft an improvement over EPA regulation? This is especially important because the Boxer-Kerry draft does not limit EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gases using the Clean Air Act.
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In case you missed Boxer vs. Harry Alford, Round 2, the video is here.
Here’s a round-up of reaction to the “radioactive” Boxer-Kerry proposal.
And via the Green Hell blog, here’s how Boxer’s paying off GE:
Section 821(c) requires that, by December 12, 2012, the EPA set standards for greenhouse gas emissions from “new aircraft and new engines used in new aircraft.”
General Electric is the world’s largest manufacturer of commercial and military jet engines, a business worth about $12 billion in annual revenues.
So the Boxer bill would compel airlines and the military, when purchasing new aircraft and new aircraft engines, to purchase more expensive “green” engines made by GE, according to standards set by the current and GE-lobbied Obama administration.
Keep in mind that GE CEO Jeff Immelt is member of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Council.
