After the passing vote in the House on the cap and trade bill, I sent a note to my Senators voicing my concerns. What follows is My Senator's astute reply.
Thank you for your letter expressing opposition to cap and trade legislation as it pertains to energy policy in the United States. I share your concerns with the cap and trade proposals being considered, and I welcome the opportunity to respond.
On May 15, 2009, Congressmen Henry Waxman and Edward Markey introduced, H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act which would establish a cap and trade program to control human activities resulting in carbon dioxide emissions. As you may know, on June 26, 2009, the House of Representatives narrowly passed this legislation with a 219-212 vote. Over the next several weeks, the Senate is expected to hold several hearings on climate change legislation and a full Senate vote is expected no earlier than September of this year.
Let me be clear, I have serious concerns with any legislation that proposes a cap and trade system to reduce human carbon emissions. I believe such proposals are not the most effective approach to reducing carbon emissions (CO2), and I question whether controlling human activity can have any influence on the climate. I believe it is important to look at the scientific basis for climate change legislation and to weigh the cost and benefits of such legislation.
Though it is not widely covered in the media, there is considerable debate within the scientific community regarding the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). The United Nations Panel on Intergovernmental Climate Change (IPCC) bases its theory of AGW on a number of assumptions. The validity of these assumptions continues to be the basis for the debate surrounding global warming. If the assumptions are wrong, the theory is faulty.
The most obvious assumption is that a causal relationship exists between human carbon emissions and observed warming. If most of the global warming has resulted from human CO2 emissions, then real-world observations of these two variables should demonstrate a correlation. This assumption is not supported by one of the most comprehensive and widely accepted data sets available to climate science: the Vostok ice cores taken in Antarctica.
We now have 600,000 years of ice core data showing a very strong correlation between changes in temperature and carbon levels in the atmosphere. The most recent analysis of the data shows clearly that changes in atmospheric carbon follow changes in temperature with a lag of between 800 and one thousand years. In short, more than one half of a million years of observed data fail to support the very central IPCC assumption that CO2 is a primary driver of the climate. Instead, the data supports the possibility that the opposite relationship exists. Furthermore, climate models failed to predict the climate trends that scientists have observed over the past decade. Actual observations show that the Earth's climates has cooled since 1998.
Moreover, a simple cost-benefit analysis shows that if all provisions of the cap and trade program were implemented global temperatures would only decrease by nine-hundredths of a degree Fahrenheit. This means that for every dollar we spent to combat global warming through carbon emissions, we do far less than a dollar of good.
Proponents ignore the cost-benefit analysis by claiming the program would generate more than $1.6 trillion in revenues. What they do not tell you is who would pay for it. The fact of the matter is, Utahns and all American families across the country will pay for it. A study done by the Rural Electric Cooperative Association concluded that a carbon cap-and-trade program could result in a 70 percent increase in the average Utah family's electric bill, making it the highest increase in the nation. Additionally, as manufacturers struggle to meet expensive mandates, high prices will be passed onto the consumer. Given the current state of our economy, we can ill afford to overburden taxpayers for a program which provides minimal benefits and threatens our global competitiveness.
We should make sure we are not disadvantaging ourselves among our international competitors. As we seek to become more energy independent, this legislation will in fact result in an annual $120 billion reduction in our economy, while ensuring our competitors such as China, gain a distinct advantage over us in the worldwide marketplace. It will send more than a million of our manufacturing jobs to countries with less-stringent environmental standards resulting in a net increase of global CO2 emissions. Unless we require the same standards of our international competitors, it would certainly reduce U.S. jobs while increasing global CO2 emissions.
Rather than looking at ways to artificially control society through the creation of a false market, we should be tapping into the free market to reduce CO2. False markets simply redistribute wealth to preselected winners and losers, the winners here would be the select few who control carbon credits and the rest of us would be the losers. Such an outcome is the natural result of mandatory cap-and-trade rules, for if you control carbon, you control life.
Again, thank you for writing.
Sincerely,
Orrin G. Hatch
United States Senator
