Posted by Matt Dempsey – 3:45 ET – Matt_Dempsey@inhofe.senate.gov

 

Weekly News Round-up  

 

White House Admits Cap-And-Trade Tax Costs Triple Their Official Estimate - March 17, 2009 

Excerpt: The deputy director of the White House National Economic Council, Jason Furman, is giving us a glimpse at the real number, telling Senate staff the energy tax scheme would actually raise “two-to-three times” the budget’s official $646 billion revenue estimate. Dow Jones reports that 5 people at the meeting confirmed the statement—we can be pretty sure he said it. It make sense, because the budget estimate was only half the official score from the Congressional Budget Office for last year’s Lieberman-Warner bill, even though the Obama version is designed to have much steeper costs because it requires steeper emissions cuts.If Furman is right that the real tax hike would be two or three times the official budget estimate—and it’s likely still a lowball—that would mean the actual tax hike would run well into the trillions, roughly between $1.3 trillion and $1.9 trillion between fiscal years 2012 and 2019 by Furman’s own estimate.  

WSJ - White House Official Boosts Cap and Trade Revenue Estimate – March 17, 2009

Excerpt: A top White House economic adviser told Senate staff a proposed cap and trade system could raise "two-to-three times" the administration's existing $646 billion revenue estimate, according to five people at the meeting. This could mean the cap and trade system could actually generate between roughly $1.3 trillion and $1.9 trillion between fiscal years 2012 and 2019. Jason Furman, deputy director of the National Economic Council, offered the estimate at a Feb. 26 meeting on Capitol Hill with a bipartisan group of staffers, most of whom are attached to the Senate Finance Committee, according to five Senate aides who attended the meeting. They spoke on condition they wouldn't be identified by name. The meeting was held in the Finance Committee's hearing room in the Dirksen Office Building, the day the administration released its budget framework. According to those who were present, there were between 50 and 60 staff of both parties, including some staff of House lawmakers. A White House official wouldn't confirm Mr. Furman's comments, but said excess revenues from any cap and trade bill that passes Congress will be used to compensate vulnerable families, communities and businesses.  

The Hill: Climate debate focus shifts away from environment, toward jobs – March 18, 2009

Excerpt: The debate over climate change is shifting away from saving the planet and toward rescuing the American worker. In selling his controversial plan to cap carbon dioxide, for example — as he did in his address to Congress last month — President Obama has linked the need to save “our planet from the ravages of climate change” with the need to “truly transform our economy.” In a subsequent speech to a group of CEOs, meanwhile, Obama again sought to sell his plan as a way to green the environment and promote economic growth. He told the business executives that he did not “accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders.” “You and I both know that we need ultimately to make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy,” Obama said. “We know that the best way to do that is through market-based caps on carbon pollution that drive the production of more renewable energy in America.” 

The Detroit News - Editorial: Cap-and-trade idea needs full debate – March 20, 2009Sen. Levin leads effort to force an honest vote:

Excerpt: Enacting a carbon cap-and-trade system is too transformational to allow it to be jammed through Congress without the full give-and-take of the legislative process and with the votes of just one party counting. Credit Michigan Sen. Carl Levin for stepping in front of his own party's bulldozer to shout, "Slow down!" Senate Democratic leaders know that cap-and-trade is an extremely divisive issue, pitting manufacturing states like Michigan against coastal states that have lost their minds to the global warming hysteria. Levin correctly notes that a system of auctioning off carbon credits could drive up the cost of energy, meaning higher prices for nearly all goods, and put manufacturing industries at risk. He has joined seven of his Democratic colleagues in protesting the attempt to circumvent the normal legislative rules to get the bill passed without a full airing.   

Boxer Says Reconciliation Still on Table, But Opposition Mounts Against Strategy – March 20, 2009

Excerpt: Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) told reporters March 19 that a strategy to use the budget reconciliation process to fast-track climate change legislation in the Senate “should remain on the table” even as opposition continued to mount against the strategy. Senate Democrats including Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) have discussed reconciliation as a way to swiftly enact President Obama's priorities such as climate change and health care with 51 votes rather than the 60 needed to end legislative debate and pass the measures on the floor. All eight Republicans on Boxer's Environment Committee, led by the panel's ranking Republican, Sen. James Inhofe (Okla.), March 19 signed a Dear Colleague letter threatening to offer an amendment “to strip any climate revenue provision” if it is included in the Senate budget resolution. The Republican committee members called on senators to join their efforts “to resist the erosion of proper democratic principles.”