Today the U.S. Chamber unveiled what is becoming an annual exercise: a chart of the overwhelming number of regulations and mandates contained in the latest comprehensive climate bill. The Chamber’s chart, which maps out the regulatory process and implementation of H.R. 2454, the “American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009,” can be viewed at http://www.uschamber.com/media/pdfs/waxmanmarkey.pdf.
The 1,200-page bill, which consists of (1) a cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gas emissions, (2) a federal renewable electricity mandate and (3) a suite of new mandatory energy efficiency standards, will impose 397 new federal regulations (which require traditional agency rulemakings) and 1060 new mandates.
Waxman-markey pre-liminary head-count as of Thursday afternoon (courtesy Myron Ebell):
218 needed to win…
Yes
Yes = 175
Leaning Yes = 35
TOTAL = 210
Undecided = 20
No
No = 190
Leaning No = 14
TOTAL = 204
Undecided or Won’t Say:
Kirkpatrick Az
Boyd Fla
Brown Fla
Bishop Ga
R Kirk Ill
Foster Ill
Donnelly Ind
R Jones NC
McIntyre NC
R Frelinghuysen NJ
Tonko NY
Arcuri NY
Space Ohio (he voted for it in committee)
Carney Penna.
Davis Tenn
Al Green Tex
Jackson Lee Tex
Ortiz Tex
Eddie Bernice Johnson Tex
Kind Wisc
Leaning Yes:
Mitchell Az
Cardoza Calif
Costa Calif
Baca Calif
R Castle Del
Grayson Fla
Meek Fla
Kozmas Fla
Abercrombie Hi
Bean Ill
R Cao La
Kratovil Md
R Ehlers Mich
Kildee Mich
Schauer Mich
Peters Mich
Clay Mo
Skelton Mo
Thompson Miss
Shuler NC
Adler NJ
Lance NJ
Meeks NY
McMahon NY
Murphy NY
R McHugh NY
Maffei NY
Driehaus Ohio
Fudge Ohio
Kilroy Ohio
Cooper Tenn
Edwards Tex
Rodriguez Tex
Nye Va
Kagan Wisc
Leaning No:
Salazar Colo
Marshall Ga
Boswell Iowa
Minnick Idaho
Halvorson Ill
Etheridge NC
Kissell NC
Massa NY
Kaptur Ohio
Boccieri Ohio
R Gerlach Penna
Hinojosa Tex
Mollohan WV
Rahall WV
Politico.com reports that Al Gore has canceled what was to be a personal appearance on Capitol Hill today to lobby House Democrats on Waxman-Markey.
According to the Politico report:
“As the list of undecided Members narrowed, the Speaker thought it was unnecessary to impose on the Vice President’s schedule to travel to Washington, and instead to continue coordinating efforts from Tennessee,” spokesman Drew Hammill said in an e-mail.
Perhaps … or does Gore figure that the House vote will be so close that he doesn’t want to risk personal embarrassment in the event that Waxman-Markey goes down to defeat?
The League of Conservation Voters issued the following “unprecedented” threat to Congress on June 23:
In light of the tremendous importance of this legislation, LCV has made the unprecendented decision that we will not endorse any member of the House of Representatives in the 2010 election cycle who votes against this historic bill.
This is no idle threat since, as recounted in Green Hell, the LCV was instrumental in making Barack Obama a U.S. Senator in 2004 and, well, you know the rest…
…stimulate more investment in renewable energy now; … stimulate more consumer demand for the energy-efficient vehicles that the reborn General Motors and Chrysler are supposed to make; and,… reduce our oil imports in a way that would surely affect the global price and weaken every petro-dictator.
Since we use about 385 million gallons of gas per day, aFraidman’s “Freedom Tax” would collect about $140 billion per year — which would then be wasted on government-directed energy technology boondoggles. Remember U.S. Synfuels Corp.?
And as to being subject to the whims of petro-dictators, about 44 percent of our oil supply comes from OPEC members.
So would you rather have 44 percent of our oil supply controlled by foreign petro-dictators or 100 percent of our oil supply controlled by domestic green-dictators?
The petro-dictators must sell their oil — if they want to stay in power. The greens don’t want us using any oil at all, regardless of source.
Also, as aFraidman’s Freedom Tax would take American’s out of their cars — a technology that has allowed Americans unprecedented freedom of mobility for more than 100 years — it would actually make us less free.
Finally, Friedman, who authored the 2008 alarmist book Hot, Flat and Crowded, is married to a woman (Ann Bucksbaum) who is an heiress to a real estate and shopping mall fortune that was worth $3.2 billion in mid-2008.
Although the family fortune was reduced by mismanagement and debt to a mere $116 million by December 2008, you can bet that Friedman’s $9.3 million, 11,400 square-foot home on 7.5 acres in the tony Washington, D.C. suburb of Bethesda, Md is neither hot, flat, nor crowded.
No wonder Friedman’s aFraidman…
Tom Friedman's home is neither hot, flat nor crowded. (Photo courtesy of AmericanThinker.com)
Waxman-Markey delenda est!
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The New York Timesreported today that AltaRock Energy — a start-up geothermal energy firm whose investors include Al Gore’s venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins — failed to notify federal regulators that the bedrock drilling technique it is using in the San Francisco-area had been linked with a project-ending 3.4-magnitude earthquake in Basel, Switzerland in 2006.
According to the Times:
AltaRock, in its seismic activity report, included the Basel earthquake in a list of temblors near geothermal projects, but the company denied that it had left out crucial details of the quake in seeking approval for the project in California. So far, the company has received its permit from the federal Bureau of Land Management to drill its first hole on land leased to the Northern California Power Agency, but still awaits a second permit to fracture rock.
“We did discuss Basel, in particular, the 3.4 event, with the B.L.M. early in the project,” Mr. Turner said in an e-mail response to questions after the visit.
But Richard Estabrook, a petroleum engineer in the Ukiah, Calif., field office of the land agency who has a lead role in granting the necessary federal permits, gave a different account when asked if he knew that the Basel project had shut down because of earthquakes or that it had induced more than 3,500 quakes.
“I’ll be honest,” he said. “I didn’t know that.”
Gore says “the planet has a fever.” I wonder if he’s worried about giving the already grouchy earth under San Francisco a splitting headache?
Venture capitalist Bob Metcalfe writes in the Wall Street Journal that his firm has been discouraged from investing in tabletop-sized nuclear reactors because about $50 million of the requested $100 million investment would be swallowed up by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission itself.
