Carbon credits spell U.S. ruin

The U.S. Senate is considering an extraordinarily expensive and useless bill to stop global warming, and it's essential that the scheme be scuttled.

America's Climate Security Act (S. 219), sponsored by Sens. Joseph Lieberman and John Warner, is supposed to cut down carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases" and save mankind. In reality, it would cripple the American economy.

Even the climate-change alarmist Environmental Protection Agency says the bill would bleed GDP between $1 trillion and $2.8 trillion by 2050.

Both of Utah's senators, Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett, have strongly criticized the scheme, which the Wall Street Journal called "easily the largest income redistribution scheme since the income tax."

Hatch released a statement lambasting Lieberman-Warner, saying in part, "At a time when we are already seeing dramatic increases in gas and food prices, it would border on immoral to pass legislation that would effectively levy a $6.7 trillion regressive tax on all Americans."

Estimates may differ, but it's plain the measure would cost Americans trillions in taxes, pork barrel projects, higher energy prices and lost jobs. And for what? Nothing. Nothing.

The Climate Security Act proposes an international "cap and trade" system. That means the U.S. will cap its carbon emissions. Companies over the limits can trade their emissions with companies whose emissions are under the limits, or else buy credits from the government.

Never mind that this law isn't even needed. Cut through the propaganda, and you'll find that man-made global warming arguments rest on religious fervor, not science. In fact, mounting evidence shows that any warming will be slight and that the planet may be heading into a cooling phase driven entirely by astrophysical forces beyond man's control.

But of course this doesn't faze those who trade in hysteria. Their purpose is to pick your pocket. Lieberman-Warner doesn't even use stealth to grab American's wallets. It's a full-scale mugging.

"Cap and trade" really means "cap and tax" because companies would be forced to buy carbon credits from the government. That's about as punitive a tax as ever devised. But the bill's effects will be far more onerous. By limiting sources of energy, the Lieberman-Warner bill would, by 2030, raise the price of almost all energy -- adding $1 to the price of gasoline and hiking electric bills 44 percent. The average family can expect to pay an additional $1,000 a year.

And American factories would have to shut down as the U.S. allows nations such as China and India to emit carbon at will even as they employ workers to manufacture U.S.-bound goods. Lieberman-Warner would export energy use to countries that pollute more than the United States does. Rather than cut global greenhouse gas emissions, the measure is likely to increase them.

The Climate Security Act should be renamed the Job Insecurity Act. By 2022, because of cap-and-trade, as many as 1 million Americans could lose their jobs, with another million laid off in the following five years.

But if this is all so bad, why are politicians in favor of it? As always, follow the money, and the power. The U.S. government would be selling carbon credits -- as much as $850 billion worth by 2030 and more than $3 trillion by 2050. The government could also give away carbon credits, i.e., use them as pork to reward favored groups. Washington politicians are already drooling over the prospect of such a vast slush fund.

More important in the eyes of many politicians, the cap-and-trade scheme would require a huge federal bureaucracy that would order companies -- and you -- when and how to use energy. Critics say it would spawn the biggest, most intrusive expansion of the federal government since the New Deal.

Adding to this folly, the measure would not even work. Cap and trade has proved ineffective in Europe. The E.U. put in a program in 2005, and since then emissions have increased faster than in the U.S.

It won't work, as well, because carbon in the atmosphere cannot be reduced appreciably, even by the most optimistic estimates, including Al Gore's.

And finally, it won't work because even if carbon were reduced in the atmosphere, the great forces of nature that dictate Earth's climate -- the sun, for example -- will not be deterred. Climate will continue to change slowly, inexorably, warmer and colder, no matter what puny mankind does.

Back on the ground, international cap-and-trade programs will be rife with fraud. As Sen. Bennett pointed out in a recent radio interview, the U.S. has no way to monitor whether other countries use their credits fairly. China, for example, could close old power plants it was going to shutter anyway, and claim carbon credits for doing so.

The best summary we've seen comes from Bennett, who said, "It's really a terrible idea and I am going to do everything I can to try and stop it."

President Bush has said he'll veto Lieberman-Warner, but the promise provides scant comfort. Remember that Bush also vetoed the pork-laden farm bill and was overridden by light-headed majorities in both houses. Besides, Bush won't be president for long. The next one, no matter who wins the White House, is going to be somebody who believes the fantasy of man-made global warming and is likely to combine with a Democrat-controlled Congress to hit you where it hurts.

It would be better if the Senate stopped this disastrous scheme before it gets up any momentum.