Thursday, October 29, 2009

New Name for the Obama Energy Tax   [Greg Pollowitz]

How about the "Obama/Enron Energy Tax?" Because, really, what's so different between what President Obama wants to implement and what Enron wanted to do? From a CEI op-ed back in 2002:

It’s not surprising to most people that Enron delivered truckloads of money to politicians in an attempt to influence the political process. What may surprise many, however, is that Enron believed that one of its main opportunities to make money by gaming the political system was global warming.

 

Enron became one of the biggest corporate boosters of the Kyoto global warming treaty, which would require huge reductions in energy use by consumers and industry. According to an internal Enron memo, quoted by The Washington Post, the Kyoto treaty would “do more to promote Enron’s business than almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring the energy and natural gas industries in Europe and the United States.”

 

In addition to all its political lobbying and contributions, Enron became a founding member of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change’s Business Environmental Leadership Council, a leading industry front group pushing the Kyoto agenda. Enron chairman Ken Lay also served on the board of the Heinz Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment, along with Fred Krupp of Environmental Defense, and former Alcoa CEO and current Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill.

 

Even after President Bush decided to withdraw the U.S. from the Kyoto treaty, Enron continued to push for a domestic regulatory scheme known as cap-and-trade, whereby the government would set a cap on the total amount of carbon dioxide emissions allowed in the U.S.

 

It would then distribute permits or allowances to companies affected by the cap giving them the right to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide. Those allowances could then be traded in the open market.

 

Enron executives believed that a cap-and-trade program would put them in a position to dominate the U.S. energy market. Electric utilities, required to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, would be forced to switch from coal to natural gas as the only practical alternative to electricity production. As a leading trader of natural gas, Enron would be the recipient of a huge financial windfall.

The rest here.

10/29 11:00 AMShare