Thinking people have known this all along, and now we know that the Treasury Department believes that proposed cap-and-trade legislation — the Waxman-Markey bill — is really a tax in disguise.
A Washington Times article gives more detail. It’s based on the work of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a think tank that’s done some great work on the issue of global warming alarmism.
The memo that CEI received indicates that a cap-and-trade program could generate revenues to the federal government of $100 to $200 billion annually.
The memo, captioned “Domestic Climate Policy” contains this sentence, referring to President Obama’s proposed cap-and-trade program: “While such a program can yield environmental benefits that justify its costs, it will raise energy prices and impose annual costs on the order of xxx dollars.”
“xxx” is a placeholder to represent a number that was redacted or withheld from the CEI — and by extension the American public — in this document that was obtained under the federal Freedom of Information Act. We have to wonder why someone thinks it’s necessary to keep this number secret. I think this is an indication that such a program would be terribly expensive. At the same time, the program would produce negligible benefit, as far as reducing or slowing the growth of global temperatures.
Earlier this year, CEI uncovered evidence of science taking a back seat to politics in the global warming debate. Its site GlobalWarming.Org is a good place to keep up-to-date on the latest information in this field. Now CEI has launched Freedom Action, a site designed to help citizens take action by communication with elected officials.