Greenpeace recently leaked a memo from the American Petroleum Institute discussing the trade group’s involvement with so-called “Energy Citizen” rallies against Waxman-Markey. Greenpeace likens these grassroots efforts to “astroturf.”
The problem with API — aside from failure to keep its communications confidential — is not that it is funding grassroots rallies against Waxman-Markey. We are for anybody that opposes the bill and would welcome their support with open arms.
The group’s real problem is that, while it opposes Waxman-Markey, it wants Waxman-Markey Lite.
According to this API memo issued in the wake if the Greenpeace kerfuffle, the oil industry association says,
API has a clear position on climate legislation: It opposes Waxman-Markey, and calls for the Senate to get it right. API is not opposed to fair and transparent climate legislation that limits greenhouse gas emissions but protects U.S. jobs and ensures that energy prices are not raised to the point where they threaten the economy.
How the oil industry thinks it can live with greenhouse gas regulation is beyond comprehension. Regardless of how lax they start, greenhouse gas limits will only get more expensive, stringent and draconian.
API’s effort to cut a deal with the carbon devil is reminiscent of France opting for Nazi occupation-lite through its Vichy government. The only sensible — and honorable — thing to do, however, is to fight evil all out.
When I first read “Atlas Shrugged” many years ago, I thought Ayn Rand was greatly exaggerating when she depicted businessmen playing a key role in the destruction of capitalism through their attempts to manipulate government policies to their own benefit. I was wrong.
We are now in the last stages of “Atlas Shrugged” — and unless we see a major uprising of the American people, we are doomed to end as the book ends.
It never occurs to them that what is good for business is good for everybody, especially when higher taxes are what is being opposed. “Green” causes can receive endless funding without any damage to their credibility, of course.
And yes, once the bureaucracy is in place to tax people a 0.1% tax on fossil fuels, all it takes is the stroke of a pen to use the EXISTING bureaucracy to enforce a 10%-20% tax. Like Lenin said, “Two Steps Forward, One Step Back” is their favourite trick, and after enough such “compromises” we will wake up in Communism wondering how it happened.