This does, however, present an opportunity for Senator McCain to come to his senses on the hysteria surrounding climate change, and to demonstrate to conservatives that he shares their principles. McCain Should Reject Dangerous Cap-and-Trade Legislation

Senator McCain Can Reassure Conservatives by Opposing Disastrous Scheme Concocted by Global Warming Hysterics 

Despite a slowing economy that may slump toward recession, unrelenting global warming alarmists continue to press carbon cap-and-trade proposals.  Imposing such regulations will inflict great damage on America's economy, but proposed cap-and-trade legislation before the United States Senate presents a perfect opportunity for Senator John McCain to correct course and reassure conservatives. 

"Cap-and-trade" refers to a bureaucratic system that unsuccessfully aims to reduce carbon emissions, which climate change hucksters accuse of causing global warming.  Never mind that temperatures have actually cooled over the past five years while carbon emissions have increased due to Third World industrialization.  Real-world facts are unimportant to Al Gore and his crusading minions. 

Regardless, cap-and-trade systems empower central governments to cap the total amount of carbon that cities, states, citizens and businesses can emit as part of their productive process.  These emitters would subsequently receive permits, in the form of credits to emit a predetermined amount.  Enterprises that needed to emit more than their dictated amount in order to produce goods and services that they're in the business of producing would be forced to purchase additional credits from other enterprises that had spare credits to sell.  Thus the name "cap-and-trade." 

Obviously, these cap-and-trade systems are extremely complex, and require unfathomable amounts of new bureaucracy, speculative calculation, valuation, regulation, enforcement and dispute resolution.  They also perpetuate the defective assumption that climate change, which occurs constantly regardless of human existence, occurs because of industrial emissions. 

More fundamentally, however, they don't even work.  Rather, they merely inflict great economic damage upon the nations that foolishly enact them, while producing only imperceptible temperature reductions even in a best-case scenario. 

We know this through real-world experience, because the European Union (EU) has implemented an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) that imposes a draconian cap-and-trade system.  Although implementing this scheme allowed sanctimonious Europeans to once again claim the worldwide moral high ground, it has already proven a dismal failure. 

Since 2000, Western European nations' emissions have risen over twice as rapidly as American emissions, despite the fact that they signed the disastrous Kyoto Protocol, whereas the United States did not.  Furthermore, the market price for emissions credits has now crashed because EU bureaucrats issued too many.  And despite this cap-and-trade system's failure to reduce EU carbon emissions, it has forced energy-intensive businesses to consider relocating jobs and production overseas. 

Because of this, European businesses that initially supported the EU's cap-and-trade scheme now lament its economic damage and seek to terminate it.  Indeed, the European Roundtable of Industrialists has drafted a letter to the EU, warning that the ETS is destroying European businesses' ability to compete worldwide. 

Obviously, this is a disastrous experience that the United States should avoid repeating at all costs. 

Unfortunately, environmental activists and their compliant political servants aim to do just that.  The United States Senate is considering legislation that would supposedly reduce carbon emissions, but at great cost in American jobs and prosperity.  The American Council for Capital Formation (ACCF) produced a preliminary study showing that 3.7 million American jobs would be lost as a consequence of this proposed bill, that American gross national product (GNP) would be reduced by 2.6% and that average households would pay $1,760 in additional costs each year.  Furthermore, the preliminary results show that American consumers will pay 30% more for gasoline, 49% more for natural gas and a whopping 94% increase in wholesale electricity prices. 

In other words, the Senate's proposed bill would merely repeat the European experience by weakening our economy without reducing emissions.  It will also punish consumers by raising prices on everything from fuel to food to everyday household items. 

This does, however, present an opportunity for Senator McCain to come to his senses on the hysteria surrounding climate change, and to demonstrate to conservatives that he shares their principles.  Senator McCain has previously uttered ill-advised and incorrect comments regarding global warming and its causes, but he has also been known to recognize his errors and subsequently correct them.  As one example, he has vowed to continue the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, and promised to oppose any new tax increases as President. 

Senator McCain should demonstrate that he is more committed to American jobs and prosperity than he is to pleasing trendy climate change alarmists, and oppose a cap-and-trade system that would be a disaster for America. 

March 13, 2008
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