Climate Bill Will Cost Consumers Way Less than Republicans Claim

Republicans have spent the last couple months circulating false claims about how much the House climate change bill would cost consumers, with estimates skyrocketing into the ridiculous. Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann recently claimed that the cost of climate action would be between $3,128 and $4,000 per household, and called for “armed and dangerous” opposition against climate action.

The Congressional Budget Office has put an end to all of the partisan speculation, confirming that climate change legislation would cost the average household a mere $175 a year by 2020, with the poorest 20% of households actually netting $40 annually.

From The Washington Post:

The costs would result from higher prices for carbon-based fuels, offset by a complex series of tax breaks and free allowances, new technologies and behavioral changes, and impacts on corporations and their profits.

The CBO, a nonpartisan arm of Congress, said it did not take into account any indirect benefits of slowing climate change, which are substantial but difficult to quantify.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman  Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) said the CBO report shows that his bill is “effective and affordable.”  Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), the bill’s lead co-sponsor, said it showed that the cost would be about the same as a postage stamp a day for the average household.

But Michael Steel, a spokesman for House  Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), said that the CBO analysts “got an unrealistically low number for cost per family because they didn’t factor in the millions of American jobs that will move overseas if the United States imposes this tax and our foreign competitors, like China and India, do not. I don’t know what color the sky is in a world where that won’t happen, but I’m sure you can ask the unicorns.”

Boehner’s office is hardly known for responsible and accurate number crunching. It was Boehner who initially claimed the $3,128 – $4,000 figure, citing some math done using a study by an MIT professor on a two-year-old cap and trade bill. But John Reilly, who conducted the study, says Boehner inflated the cost 10-fold by ignoring the offsetting benefits.

Eh, you know how it is. You can smell the desperation of Republican lawmakers from a mile away. They’ll do anything to con Americans into siding with them.

Link [The Washington Post]
Photo credit: [Jezebel] + [Esquire]

RNC Clown Michael Steele Weighs in on Global Warming

 

Michael Steele is the gift that keeps on giving. Voted chairman of the Republican National Committee in what smells suspiciously like a “Hey, look, we’re not all fat white guys” stunt, Steele hasn’t exactly provided the hip, diverse edge that the RNC was apparently going for. Now, after several embarrassing missteps – including dorky, awkward misuse of urban slang and a tail-between-his-legs apology to Rush Limbaugh – Steele is inserting his foot even deeper down his throat with statements about global warming.

Steele said the following on a radio broadcast originally picked up by The Huffington Post’s Sam Steele, via DeSmogBlog:

“We are cooling. We are not warming. The warming you see out there, the supposed warming, and I am using my finger quotation marks here, is part of the cooling process. Greenland, which is now covered in ice, it was once called Greenland for a reason, right? Iceland, which is now green. Oh I love this. Like we know what this planet is all about. How long have we been here? How long? No [sic] very long.”

At least this time, Steele’s statements don’t put him at odds with the party he represents. Dumb as they are, they do fit in with the general Republican view that global warming – if it’s happening at all – isn’t caused by man.

As usual, DeSmogBlog has a concise explanation for why Steele is wrong:

While Steele is correct in implying that a cooling period helped make Greenland what it is today, he doesn’t seem to realize that that period, dubbed “The Little Ice Age” by historians and climate scientists, ended a long time ago – over 150 years ago, to be exact. During this era, which lasted several centuries, Norse settlements on the island were wiped out due to a combination of malnourishment, armed conflict and declining temperatures.

Similar century to millennia-long periods of intense cooling and warming, triggered by abrupt climate shifts, have occurred throughout history. Therefore, while it is certainly not implausible that the planet may eventually lapse into another mini ice age, most projected trends point to several decades of warming, made worse by anthropogenic influences. Of course, if Steele understood this, then he’d already know why scientists are so concerned about the dramatic rate of melting of Greenland’s ice sheet – melting prompted by higher air and water temperatures, I might add.

Boy, Michael Steele is so “off da hook”. He’s fighting that Obama stimulus bling-bling and giving the GOP a “hip-hop makeover”. Even Michele Bachman says “Michael Steele, You be da man!”. Between Steele, Bachman, Rush Limbaugh and Bobby “Kenneth the Page” Jindal, the Republican Party is definitely gearing up to drop it like it’s hot on our liberal asses. Friggin’ awesome. Word.

Link [DeSmogBlog] + [The Huffington Post]

Loony Rep. Michele Bachmann Takes Credit for Lower Gas Prices

By now, people far beyond the borders of Minnesota are getting an idea of just how kooky the state’s representative, Michele Bachmann, really is. The Republican, who’s up for reelection today, has made a series of high-profile moronic missteps over the last few months, starting with her statement that “the environment has already been saved”. Her recent rally cry for a patriotism witch-hunt in Congress led to a huge boost in campaign contributions for her Democrat challenger, and now she’s taking credit for lower gas prices.

Just watch (via Treehugger):

“We saw gas at $2.04 today. That was my goal, when I started this year I wanted to get gas below two dollars a gallon and we are almost there…”

This woman is almost too insane to be real. Nothing she says is surprising anymore, not after she called out the so-called “green agenda” and introduced the “Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act” to stop us green commies from taking her incandescents. She’s a bottomless fountain of crazy, so we’ll almost miss her when she gets her ass handed to her today, but we’ve gotta put the future of our country above entertainment value.

Link [Treehugger]