Talking Turkey on Cap-and-Trade

With the Senate starting work on its version of a cap-and-trade system to limit carbon emissions, opponents are gearing up for a fight.

"This cap-and-trade is a turkey,"

said Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., yesterday. "I don't care how many gee gaws you put on it, that baby's never going to fly."

Bond and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, yesterday unveiled a new study that claims the Senate cap-and-trade proposal amounts to a $3.6 trillion fuel tax.

"We must stop this tax," Hutchison said. "Even environmentalists say this (proposal) will have no impact on global warming."

The Senators were reacting to a proposal by Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and John Kerry, D-Mass., that is similar to a bill passed earlier this year by the House. The cap-and-trade mechanism would limit greenhouse gas emissions and set up a market in which emissions can be bought or sold. The idea is to make carbon-based energy more expensive in order to encourage investment in cleaner energy and promote more efficient use of energy, with the long-term objective of slowing global warming and decreasing U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

Bond and Hutchison were headliners at a Capitol Hill press conference put together by American Trucking Associations, which opposes cap-and-trade. On hand from ATA was Barbara Windsor, president and CEO of Hahn Transportation. Windsor, who is first vice chairman of ATA and slated to become chairman next October, said that cap-and-trade will not reduce trucking's carbon emissions because trucking is not a discretionary user of fuel.

"Proponents of an economy-wide cap and trade system believe that by increasing the price of fuel, fuel users will either purchase more fuel efficient vehicles or convert to alternative-fueled vehicles," Windsor said. "These options are not currently available to the trucking industry in any meaningful manner."

Bond and Hutchison said their study shows the House cap-and-trade bill would impose a $2 trillion tax on gasoline, a $1.3 trillion tax on diesel and a $330 billion tax on aviation fuel, for the total of $3.6 trillion over 35 years. They said the Senate version of the bill would be even more expensive.

Neither is inclined to look for ways to work with a cap-and-trade system, mitigating its impact on core industries such as trucking and farming by carving out exceptions. It's the concept that's flawed, they said.

"When government gets in and tries to start picking winners and losers, who gets excepted, who doesn't, you're still going to wind up hitting people who should not be hit," said Sen. Bond.

Hutchison said it is hard to make exceptions because the proposal works by putting the cost of emissions on fuel refiners, who would have to pass that cost through to customers in trucking and elsewhere.

"We can improve the environment and economy through American ingenuity and technological advancement, not with taxes and mandates that increase costs and burden American families and businesses," Hutchison said.

Bond added that according to the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, unless India and China adopt a similar system - which they have said they will not - that cap-and-trade would have only a slight impact on global temperatures. "Our best hope of reducing emissions is to develop technology and share it with India and China," he said.

Both Bond and Hutchison support the idea of using nuclear energy to produce electricity, arguing that it would reduce the emissions associated with burning coal and that new technologies can greatly reduce the amount of hazardous waste created by old-fashioned nuclear power plants.

Bond said he is among those who believe the question of whether or not man-made emissions are contributing to global warming is not yet settled.

The majority of the U.S. and international scientific establishment has concluded that man-made emissions have contributed to a dangerous warming trend. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has led a years-long research effort by more than a dozen federal agencies, says "global warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced."

Climate-related changes are under way, affecting water, energy, transportation agriculture, ecosystems and health, NOAA says. Among other problems, the agency predicts more frequent and intense heat waves, heavy downpours leading to flooding and rising sea levels that threaten coastal areas.