CAP AND TRADE IS BACK THIS MONTH

"You never want a good crisis to go to waste". Thank you Rahm "Dead Fish" Emanuel. And, they're piling it on, but for most of us who have lived in the real world, he's a rookie.  Bring it on.

Overlapping with the threat of government run health care will be Cap and Tax, and it's set to start a three-day hearing October 27th. The only thing is their new draft is conveniently unavailable to the voting public. Figure that, and so much for another broken campaign promise -- transparency.

Continuing their series on Cap and Trade, the Heritage Foundation writes:


A Call for Transparency
Waxman-Markey proposes a new national tax of historic proportions
October 20, 2009

As you read this, the Environmental Protection Agency is modeling the economic impacts of a semi-draft form of the Boxer-Kerry cap and trade legislation. “Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer said a bill EPA is analyzing should be marked up in her panel by the second week in November. An EPA official said the agency has pledged to deliver the cost analysis Friday, in time for a three-day set of hearings starting Oct. 27.”

We’d do it too. But we can’t. According to Congressional Quarterly, the senators “produced a ‘semi-final draft’ of the legislation -- including the critical formula for distributing billions of dollars’ worth of pollution credits to different industries and interest groups.” But that draft is unavailable to the public. It has only been given to the EPA to model the economic impacts.

President Obama, in his memorandum for the heads of executive departments and agencies, wrote that “Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use.”

Bill Beach, the director of The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis, wrote a letter to Senator Boxer (CCing Senator Kerry, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and Senator Inhofe) asking for a copy of the semi-draft legislation to model the economic effects of the bill.

Charles River Associates (commissioned by the National Black Chamber of Commerce), The American Council for Capital Formation (commissioned by National Association of Manufacturers) The Brookings Institution, the Energy Information Administration, the Congressional Budget Office, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Political Economy Research Institute and The Heritage Foundation all produced economic analyses of the Waxman-Markey House cap and trade bill, but only the EPA has the semi-draft legislation of the Boxer-Kerry version.

For the sake of transparency, we’d like the EPA or Senator Boxer to publicly release the most recent version of the Boxer-Kerry cap and trade bill that includes the all-important allocation of billions of dollars of allowances. Clearly the more details we have about the bill, the better economic analysis we can provide in a timely manner for Members of Congress and for the general public.


>> Visit Heritage's Rapid Response page for a collection of the latest research and policy resources on cap and trade.

King Obama to Congress: "write the legislation I want, or else I will simply enact it by decree"

It is becoming more apparent, that if this administration does not get what they want by majority vote, they will do it anyway. "It's Unconstitutional" does not apply, nor will it, unless our representatives get a backbone.

It is mind-boggling to watch the out-of-control power grab, but elections have consequences. We are witnessing what happens when the power in all three branches of the government is on the left -- a progressive, statist, socialistic take-over.

Where is the Supreme Court is all this?

An exposè from Atlas Shrugs is an excellent description:


King Obama to Congress: "write the legislation I want, or else I will simply enact it by decree"
Commentary by Robert Tracinski, October 2, 2009

1. The Anti-Industrial Coup
It looks like President Obama, facing the failure of his domestic agenda in Congress, is now going to attempt to pull out a victory by threatening Congress with the usurpation of its legislative powers. How? The administration has announced plans to impose sweeping controls on emissions of carbon dioxide by executive fiat, through the EPA, bypassing the legislature altogether.

As I warned early this year,

Under what system of government does the chief executive say to the legislature, in effect, "write the legislation I want, or else I will simply enact it by decree"? The answer: not under a system of representative government and the separation of powers. Barack Obama is proposing to govern, not in the manner of an American president, but in the manner traditionally sought by leftist strongmen like Hugo Chavez.

We've now arrived at that point. This is another step toward the Obama Banana Republic.

Note also one particular detail. The administration is justifying its action under the authority of the Clean Air Act. But the limit it is proposing to place on carbon dioxide emissions is far higher than those mandated by the Clean Air Act on actual pollutants. The more draconian limit required by that Act would not only be an economic disaster; it would be politically unpopular because it would target small businesses and not just unsympathetic big corporations. So the EPA unilaterally altered the Clean Air Act limits. So much for claiming to act under the authority of legislation.

"EPA Moves to Curtail Greenhouse Gas Emissions," John M. Broder, New York Times, September 30

Unwilling to wait for Congress to act, the Obama administration announced on Wednesday that it was moving forward on new rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from hundreds of power plants and large industrial facilities.

President Obama has said that he prefers a comprehensive legislative approach to regulating emissions and stemming global warming, not a piecemeal application of rules, and that he is deeply committed to passage of a climate bill this year.

But he has authorized the Environmental Protection Agency to begin moving toward regulation, which could goad lawmakers into reaching an agreement….

"We are not going to continue with business as usual," Lisa P. Jackson, the E.P.A. administrator, said Wednesday in a conference call with reporters. "We have the tools and the technology to move forward today, and we are using them."

The proposed rules, which could take effect as early as 2011, would place the greatest burden on 400 power plants, new ones and those undergoing substantial renovation, by requiring them to prove that they have applied the best available technology to reduce emissions or face penalties….

Ms. Jackson said the proposed rule had been written to exempt small businesses, farms, large office buildings and other relatively small sources of carbon dioxide emissions. But under the rule proposed Wednesday, the EPA would assume authority for the greenhouse gas emissions of 14,000 coal-burning power plants, refineries, and big industrial complexes that produce most of the nation's greenhouse gas pollution….

Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma and an opponent of global warming legislation, called the proposed rule "a backdoor energy tax" that circumvents Congress and violates the terms of the Clean Air Act.