http://coachep.com/wordpress/?p=568Read this speech by Ben Lieberman, the Senior Policy Analyst for Energy and Environment at The Heritage Foundation.
Here is the lesgislation’s cost estimate for a family of four
In our analysis, the higher energy costs kick in as soon as the bill’s provisions take effect in 2012. For a household of four, energy costs go up $436 that year, and they eventually reach over $1,241 in 2035 and average $829 per year over that span. Electricity costs go up $468, gasoline goes up $565, and natural gas goes up $161 by 2035. That’s a 58 percent increase in gas prices, 90 percent for electricity, and 55 percent for natural gas. Cumulative higher energy costs for a household of four from 2012-2035 would reach nearly $20,000.
Here is how the legislation will effect employment.
Beyond the cost impact on individuals and households, Waxman-Markey also affects employment, and especially employment in the manufacturing sector. We estimate job losses averaging 1,145,000 at any given time from 2012-2030. And note that these are net job losses, after the much-hyped green jobs are taken into account. Some of the lost jobs will be destroyed entirely, while others will be outsourced to nations like China and India that have repeatedly stated that they would never hamper their own economic growth with energy-cost boosting global-warming measures like Waxman-Markey.
This legislation will hurt the poor disproportionately.
I should also add that these costs are not distributed evenly. As I mentioned, the burden of higher energy costs disproportionately hurts the poor, who spend a larger percentage of their incomes on energy. The Congressional Budget Office has been very clear on this point. And of course, any attempts to try to make low-income households whole by redistributing the auction proceeds gets a lot harder to fund because of all the free allowances. So it is not only a tax but a highly regressive one at that. Waxman-Markey also hurts some regions of the country much more than others, particularly the industrial Midwest, which, unlike the West Coast and Northeast, still has manufacturing jobs to lose. It also hurts those areas that get a larger percentage of their electricity from coal, which is the hardest-hit energy source. So keep in mind that these national numbers in our analysis understate how badly the worst-hit persons and regions are hit.
