Industry-Funded Report Inflates Cost of Obama Green Jobs Plan
Surprise, surprise: a new study sponsored by a group of energy-intensive industries claims that President Obama’s plan for a cap-and-trade system and to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions would result in 1.9 million job losses and would cost the average American household $1,400 a year. If those figures sound off to you, you’re on to something.
Kevin Grandia of DeSmogBlog explains at The Huffington Post:
These industry estimates are wildly off the mark, of course. The Environmental Protection Agency last week concluded that the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade legislation being debated by the House Energy and Commerce Committee would cost the average household just $98 to $140 a year through 2050.
The Coalition for Affordable American Energy, which commissioned the study, was formed in June 2008 by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Association of Wholesalers-Distributors, and 73 other industry trade associations.
The group currently claims more than 180 associations as members, including dozens of local chapters of the Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc. and such noteworthy partners as the International Association of Ice Cream Vendors and the Association for Hose and Accessories Distribution. (The group has no website of its own, all of its online communications are hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which calls itself a “key player” in CAAE.)
The Coalition for Affordable American Energy last made headlines when the group’s leaders met with former President Bush in August 2008 to lobby for increased domestic oil and gas drilling both offshore and in environmentally sensitive areas of Alaska. “I agree with them,” Bush said at the time.
Now, the Coalition is updating their report based on the Waxman-Markey bill, but that hasn’t stopped people (hellooo, Fox News) from taking the incorrect figures and running with them. The CAAE study has been widely published and cited since its release.
Naturally, conservatives and corporations were up in arms about these inflated figures, saying the cost was too high – but as The Hill pointed out, the economic consequences of a warming planet could be even greater. That’s one thing that so many on the right don’t seem to get: they’re not looking past here and now to consider what’s looming in the future.
Link The Huffington Post
Related posts:
- More Polluter-Funded Front Groups Fighting Climate Action
- Climate Bill Will Cost Consumers Way Less than Republicans Claim
- Fossil Fuels Industry Ignored its Own Scientists on Climate
- Nuclear Industry Moves to Hijack Obama’s Climate Bill
- More Climate Bill Forgery: Big Oil Lobbyists Fake Public Opposition
This entry was posted on Friday, May 1st, 2009 at 10:30 am and is filed under Consciousness, Green Living, Health, Science, Spirituality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
