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| November 10th, 2009 |
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Media Contact(s): Mark Eddington, (202)-224-5251
Heather Barney, (801) 524-4380 |
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Printable Version |
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HATCH EXPLORES CAP-AND-TRADE LEGISLATION’S IMPACT ON AMERICAN JOBS, GLOBAL CLIMATE
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WASHINGTON – At a Senate Finance Committee hearing today, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, explored the impact cap-and-trade proposals would have on American Jobs. Titled “Climate Change Legislation: Considerations for Future Jobs,” the hearing included testimony by various experts.
“There seems to be this emphasis by folks in Washington about the terrible social costs of doing nothing about warming,” Hatch said after the hearing. “But our job as policymakers is to make cost-benefit analyses of the actual actions being proposed. And if you run the actual numbers using the United Nation’s own assumptions about CO2, the cap-and-trade bills before Congress would lower global temperatures by a tiny .1 to .07 degrees Celsius after 100 years of implementation.
“The only negative aspect of CO2 emissions, according to the U.N. and the Environmental Protection Agency, is that it causes warming,” Hatch continued. “So let’s not forget that this legislation is supposed to be about the warming. But if you run the cost-benefit of cap and trade on warming, you get no measurable change. Knowing there will be no real measurable benefit in temperature reduction from cap and trade, it becomes a real concern that almost every expert agrees that the costs will be significant in terms of job losses and economic contraction across the nation, including in my home state of Utah.”
One witness at the hearing, Margo Thorning, the chief economist at the American Council for Capital Formation, referred to a study by the Energy Information Agency’s National Energy Modeling System, which estimated that after accounting for any new “green” jobs created under a cap-and-trade scenario, there would still be a net loss of 80,000 jobs in 2020 and between 1.79 million and 2.4 million in 2030, with U.S. manufacturers being the hardest hit. Asked by Hatch about the value of those new “green” jobs and about families’ ability to shift from the loss of one job to a new job, Thorning said that even with those who are able to make the transition to a new job, “the shifting would lead to an overall loss of productivity and there would be an economic slowing overall.”
Another witness, Kenneth Green of the American Enterprise Institute, testified that based on his research, cap-and-trade proposals are “an inappropriate policy tool for the control of greenhouse gases that will cause significant economic harm and will kill and export jobs, for little or no environmental benefit.”
In a question to Green, Hatch referred to the fact that the poorest of the poor pay up to 50 percent of their income on energy costs and asked if it was possible to protect the poor under such a program. Green replied that it would possible to shield them from the direct cost of higher utility bills, but that “the poor would suffer disproportionately from the indirect costs of other goods and services that are infused with energy costs.”
“There is no way to shield the poor from the economic downturn and loss of jobs that would result [because] of a nationwide cap-and-trade program,” Green added.
Hatch ended his participation in the hearing by expressing concern about the U.S. starting down this path while other nations would not live up to their commitments under a cap-and-trade-program.
“Frankly, I’m very concerned that our nation will lose its competitiveness, and that these jobs will be going overseas,” the senator said.
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