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Energy Leninism
Is the Democratic Party's energy policy overreach setting up another 1994?
"The worse, the better," Vladimir Lenin is said to have observed. What Lenin meant was that the worse social conditions became in Russia, the more likely he and the Bolsheviks could foment a communist revolution. President Barack Obama's White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel recently updated Lenin's maxim, saying, "Never allow a crisis to go to waste."
Last Friday, the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives took those maxims to heart when they pushed through their 1,200-page American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act by a vote 219 to 212. The bill is supposed to address the twin crises of economic recession and climate change by creating millions of new "green" jobs. Instead of an old-fashioned Soviet-style five-year plan, ACES can be thought of as 50-year plan to radically transform how Americans produce and use energy.
The new climate and energy bill would create a convoluted cap-and-trade scheme that aims to curb the emissions of carbon dioxide by American consumers and businesses. Why? Because the extra carbon dioxide emitted into the air from burning fossil fuels like coal and oil to produce energy is heating up the atmosphere. That additional heat will melt glaciers, raise sea levels, change rainfall patterns, cause plants and animals to shift their habitats, and so forth. To avoid these consequences, argue congressional Democrats, it is necessary for Americans to shift from cheap fossil fuels to expensive renewable energy fuels.
So the 1,200-page House bill would set a declining cap on carbon dioxide emissions that, by 2020, reduces them by 17 percent below 2005 levels and by 83 percent below by 2050. Each year the Environmental Protection Agency would issue a lower number of carbon dioxide emissions permits. Under the House bill 85 percent of the permits would be given away for free to various energy producers and users while the remaining 15 percent would be auctioned off. A company must have a permit for each ton of carbon dioxide it emits. The idea is that some companies will be more efficient in reducing their emissions and so will have some permits left over that they can sell to other, less-efficent emitters.
Trading permits in the market will set a price on carbon dioxide emissions. This means that electricity and automobile fuels produced using coal and oil will become more expensive. Higher electricity and gasoline prices are intended to encourage consumers to buy more fuel-efficient automobiles and appliances and to cut back on home heating and cooling. These higher energy prices will also boost what Americans pay for most goods and services. Finally, higher prices are supposed to incentivize inventors and entrepreneurs to develop and deploy lower carbon energy sources like solar and wind power. Sounds simple, but ACES is anything but simple.
The bill is replete with tax breaks, subsidies, and mandates aimed at buying off various special interest groups and industries. For example, it authorizes $60 billion for carbon capture and sequestration projects, $15 billion in subsidies to small and medium sized businesses to finance the cost of clean energy manufacturing products, and $2.5 billion for residential energy efficiency block grant programs to states. The bill also puts $150 million in an Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Worker Training Fund, and so on.
The new 50-year energy plan leaves little to chance. Congress has issued a flood of mandates large and small. For example, utilities must purchase 20 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2020, states and utilities are obliged to build regional infrastructures to support plug-in electric vehicles, new homes have to be 30 percent more energy efficient and—since no detail is too small to escape congressional notice—requires rising energy efficiency standards for outdoor lighting.
Will Americans tolerate such sweeping interventions into their lives and workplaces? Perhaps not. The American Clean Energy and Security Act is even bigger in scope and complexity than President Bill Clinton's 1993 Health Security Act. Clinton's 1,364-page bill would have created over 100 new federal bureaucracies, hundreds of new regulations, and massive changes in the tax code. At the same time, President Clinton in 1993 proposed a tax on the heat content of various fuels, known as the BTU (British Thermal Units) tax. This tax aimed to reduce pollution and encourage conservation. It was estimated that the BTU tax would increase energy costs for the typical household by 4.5 percent or about $105 in 1996. The price of gasoline would have risen by 7.5 cents per gallon. Public and business opposition effectively killed both the health care scheme and the BTU in 1994. Even supporters of ACES, who are eager to low-ball its costs, admit that it will eventually boost gasoline prices by 25 cents per gallon and household energy bills by $175 per year. Other estimates suggest that ACES will force energy prices far higher.
In 2009, a Democratic president and Democratic Congress are once again proposing costly and intrusive changes in both health care and energy supplies. The 1994 mid-term election became a referendum on big government and ushered in Republican control of both the Senate and House of Representatives for the first time since the early 1950s. Given the Republican Party's current disarray, it's unlikely that 2010 will see another "Republican Revolution." However, as the new energy policies slow economic growth and impose vast new costs on consumers, it will be the Republicans who are quietly saying, "The worse, the better."
Ronald Bailey is Reason magazine's science correspondent. His book Liberation Biology: The Scientific and Moral Case for the Biotech Revolution is now available from Prometheus Books.
|6.30.09 @ 3:06PM|#
Gosh dang it! Naomi Klein promised a crisis would bring Libertopia. We've be screwed. Again!
|6.30.09 @ 3:21PM|#
Warren, Billy Mays is dead thus ending the final opportunity for libertarianism to be sold to the masses.
DHS Thinks I\'m a Terrorist|6.30.09 @ 3:24PM|#
When incandescent light bulbs become illegal I plan to create an underground incandescent light bulb factory. This will be my contribution to the future of agorism.
|6.30.09 @ 3:24PM|#
How long 'til Chad shows up and starts pulling numbers out of his regularly violated ass?
|6.30.09 @ 3:27PM|#
BTW, I just saw that it's finally over and Stuart Smalley is the
new Senator from Minnesota.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/30/franken.ruling/index.html
|6.30.09 @ 3:32PM|#
Anyone know what Naomi Klein is saying now that progressives are
using the "Shock Doctrine" to push through their agenda?
I bet she's all for it.
mark|6.30.09 @ 3:33PM|#
Speaking of that, J sub D,
Sometimes when you watch pundits on TV, you hear the word "crisis"
tossed around a lot. In the words of Inigo Montoya, "You keep
saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it
means."
As best as I can tell, when someone from Washington uses the word
"crisis" they really mean, "Get ready to bend over and take
it".
|6.30.09 @ 3:35PM|#
John-David beat me to the Chia comment. I did see a Chia Obama advertised on TV.
|6.30.09 @ 3:45PM|#
I did see a Chia Obama advertised on TV.
Um, the Chia growth looks suspiciously like an afro, Vic.
What kind of racist are you, anyways?
hammeredHead|6.30.09 @ 3:46PM|#
I need to get a job where one of these bills passes through my
hands before it gets to congress.
I would love to insert a couple sub-sections in to one of these
too-big-to-read bills. Prepare for statues and posters in my honor,
an annual tribute payment, and the national anthem replaced by a
Hammered Heads song.
That would embarrass the hell out of congress.
|6.30.09 @ 3:47PM|#
What's wrong with Chia Lenin? I have one in my front yard, along with several others from the Chia Tyrants series.
Xeones|6.30.09 @ 3:48PM|#
That would embarrass the hell out of congress.
Those people are well beyond shame, Head.
|6.30.09 @ 3:49PM|#
That would embarrass the hell out of congress.
I'm not sure it's possible to embarrass Congress.
Peter|6.30.09 @ 3:50PM|#
Um, the Chia growth looks suspiciously like an afro, Vic.
What kind of racist are you, anyways?
I think he's the Hitler kind. Uh oh...
PC|6.30.09 @ 3:50PM|#
"Pro Libertate | June 30, 2009, 3:47pm | #
What's wrong with Chia Lenin? I have one in my front yard, along
with several others from the Chia Tyrants series."
What Chia series was Chia Obama in?
hammeredHead|6.30.09 @ 3:50PM|#
Those people are well beyond shame
Sadly that is so true. I guess I would then just have to settle and
be happy with the other stuff.
|6.30.09 @ 3:50PM|#
That would embarrass the hell out of congress.
I'm not sure it's possible to embarrass Congress.
See I can too do html.
Mike|6.30.09 @ 3:51PM|#
I would like to think this bill will cause problems for the
Democrats, but I doubt it will. The costs of the bill are too well
hidden for most people to notice. People's energy bills will go up,
but not many will trace it to this bill. It would be nice if
everyone's utility bills said in big red letters: "This is the
extra amount you have to pay thanks to the Democrats", but that
won't happen.
It is also so complicated that people don't have a single part of
the bill to especially rally against. Many will simply feel, "It's
so nice we are doing something for the Earth."
Alan Vanneman|6.30.09 @ 3:52PM|#
"Congress has issued a flood of mandates large and small."
Actually, Congress hasn't done anything. The House passed the bill.
There's a good chance--a very good chance--that the Senate won't.
No mandates have been issued, large or small. The bill as it stands
is mostly a "stimulus" bill, handing out money, subsidies, and tax
breaks right and left.
Getting the bill through the Senate, if the Republicans don't kill
it outright, will require more subsidies and fewer mandates. The
bill would create an even fatter environmental bureaucracy, with
more cash to hand out, with fewer strings attached. Which is why a
lot of "real" environmentalists are pissed. The bill isn't going to
"get tough" with anyone, but will pay farmers not to do things they
don't do anyway and also pay them to do things they do do anyway.
See Nick's post on Steven Pearlstein's column in the Post. My bet
is that 50 years from now, our energy policy, whatever it is, won't
look anything like this bill.
hammeredHead|6.30.09 @ 3:59PM|#
He's in the Young Tyrants Series
I was thinking the Spiritual Leader series with Jesus and
Budda.
As an aside, it does appear from these comments that the majority
of us have all given up on discussing politics. I guess five months
of Obama will do that to you.
Rich|6.30.09 @ 4:05PM|#
"The ... plan leaves little to chance."
Well, you know what they say about death and ...
Paul|6.30.09 @ 4:05PM|#
The bill would create an even fatter environmental
bureaucracy, with more cash to hand out, with fewer strings
attached. Which is why a lot of "real" environmentalists are
pissed.
So business as usual.
My bet is that 50 years from now, our energy policy, whatever
it is, won't look anything like this bill.
Of course it won't. Even if the Senate passed this bill without
making any changes.
Y'see, here's how this here political thing works. Put a
biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig pile of cash on the House and
Senate Floor, tell the country's business interests it's there and
they can have some if they just follow a few simple rules. Amazing
how quickly the rules get amended, changed and massaged by those
same interests, and a willing and receptive Democratic party-- the
Party of Corporate Welfare.
Rich|6.30.09 @ 4:12PM|#
> I would love to insert a couple sub-sections in to one of
these too-big-to-read bills. Prepare for statues and posters in my
honor, ..."
I like the way you think, hammeredHead.
Another version, to inspire citizens to peruse their
congresscreatures', um, products: "Find the secret woid and win a
trillion dollars!"
TEA Party Day is coming|6.30.09 @ 4:26PM|#
Are you fed up with our insane, out of control government? Do
you feel like you're Taxed Enough Already?
This Saturday, July 4th is National TEA Party day, with
demonstrations scheduled to take place in over 1,300 cities. Go to
a TEA party near you and let this administration and Congress know
that you're Taxed Enough Already!
lunchstealer|6.30.09 @ 4:26PM|#
I read somewhere that Chinese kanji for "crisis" the same as the one for "oportunism".
Misha|6.30.09 @ 4:33PM|#
This is very amusing because anybody who has experienced the Soviet system knows how close in mentality American libertarian are to Leninists. You have the same flawless ideology that always trumps reality, the same doctrinaire suredness about your economic dogmas, the same contempt for anything that deviates from libertarian orthodoxy. Thank G-d you lack organizational skills.
|6.30.09 @ 4:37PM|#
Misha,
Yes, and I intend to usher in an era of libertarian tyranny right
after I dismantle 75% of the federal government.
PantsFan|6.30.09 @ 4:37PM|#
Misha | June 30, 2009, 4:33pm | #
This is very amusing because anybody who has experienced the Soviet system knows how close in mentality American libertarian are to Leninists. You have the same flawless ideology that always trumps reality, the same doctrinaire suredness about your economic dogmas, the same contempt for anything that deviates from libertarian orthodoxy. Thank G-d you lack organizational skills.
2/10
|6.30.09 @ 4:44PM|#
I would love to insert a couple sub-sections in to one of
these too-big-to-read bills. Prepare for statues and posters in my
honor,
No kidding. I'd make myself the Female Porno Star Czar.
And where can I get a Chia Ron Jeremy? That outta be pretty
furry.
hammeredHead|6.30.09 @ 4:44PM|#
Yes, and I intend to usher in an era of libertarian tyranny
right after I dismantle 75% of the federal government.
I'll see your 75 and raise you to 90.
Andrew|6.30.09 @ 4:52PM|#
Electricity produced by coal, generates about a ton of carbon per megawatt, if you want to know how much your electricity will go up, divide the cost per ton by 1000, and multiply by your kilowatt usage. Now remember this is just your home usage not, everything else you do that requires energy, that's not made by elves or fairies.
|6.30.09 @ 4:57PM|#
Misha, someone else who fails to understand
libertarianism.
Never mind, Misha, a lot of libertarians do it too. :)
DHS Thinks I\'m a Terrorist|6.30.09 @ 5:00PM|#
"You have the same flawless ideology that always trumps
reality"
Libertarians are not attempting to create a uniform utopia where
everyone thinks alike. Go to an LP meeting and you will discover
that libertarians do not even all think alike among
themselves.
"the same contempt for anything that deviates from libertarian
orthodoxy."
Unlike Leninists we do not want to kill or even throw in jail
people we disagree with. We defend the free speech rights of those
who disagree with us. In fact we sometimes get lumped in with
undesirable groups because we are willing to defend the rights of
people most people would not even want to be within a hundred feet
of.
Given the fact that you do not entirely spell out the word G-d may
I assume you are Jewish? Remember the poem "First they came". We
take that to heart and defend the rights of everybody.
The Angry Optimist|6.30.09 @ 5:01PM|#
in slight agreement to Misha, I have heard people
around here say "the worse, the better" in the hopes that the
current system collapses.
however, on the whole: Misha, you ignorant slut.
B|6.30.09 @ 5:04PM|#
The Democrats must be idiots. A huge amount of this country does
not like the Republican party, yet the Dems are doing their
damnedest to give them back the majority, at least in the House.
Any conservative Dem from a conservative district who voted for
this piece of shit bill is toast. Even several of the Dems who
voted against this said so before the ink had even dried on the
damn thing.
Now the Dems are set to try and pass a huge tax increase on
employee health benefits, providing the Republicans with a "read my
lips" moment that is a double-whammy because Obama specifically
hammered McCain for wanting to propose the same thing. When people
find out that Baucus is going to try and exempt unions from this, a
group that makes up a tiny fucking minority in this country, people
will be even more pissed. Most recent polls have shown that more
and more people are unhappy with Obama's deficits and the debt he
is going to rack up. Talk about sticker shock when the health care
bill comes out.
And then we have the stimulus. The thing is an obvious failure on
an epic scale. The only thing it accomplished is putting this
country a trillion deeper in debt. Obama himself said back in
February that if the stimulus fails, he will be a one-termer; we
can only hope. When unemployment hits 10%, and it will, and it
stays that way up until the midterms, the Democrats will get
killed. If they don't lose their majority in the House, I will be
surprised.
|6.30.09 @ 5:06PM|#
Since ACES is about emissions for c02, methane, and other stuff, who is going to get stuck with the Fart Czar job?
DHS Thinks I\'m a Terrorist|6.30.09 @ 5:07PM|#
"Since ACES is about emissions for c02, methane, and other
stuff, who is going to get stuck with the Fart Czar job?"
My guess is Al Gore
|6.30.09 @ 5:45PM|#
Now the Dems are set to try and pass a huge tax increase on
employee health benefits, providing the Republicans with a "read my
lips" moment that is a double-whammy because Obama specifically
hammered McCain for wanting to propose the same thing.
It doesn't matter, they have the MSM to tell them it turns out that
the "libertarian" Bush admin screwed things up so badly that poor
Obama had no choice. His being forced to break his promises just
shows how bad his predecessor was.
Rich|6.30.09 @ 5:58PM|#
> His being forced to break his promises just shows how bad
his predecessor was.
Read my lips, no new promises!
Peter|6.30.09 @ 6:02PM|#
Read my lips, seriously I got a tattoo of the entire book War and Peace on here, somebody come read it or that was the worst tax payer money I've ever spent!
kpl|6.30.09 @ 6:42PM|#
I have one in my front yard, along with several others from
the Chia Tyrants series."
I had to send mine back because the damn Chi-Mussolini won't grow
anything...
Some Guy|6.30.09 @ 6:45PM|#
In 1994, people believed that the Republicans would be
different. They believed that against all evidence until about
2006, when they decided it was only marginally less believable than
thinking the Democrats would fix things.
The important thing to look at is in 1994 and 2006 we got split
government, and it sucked far less than when we had unified
government. So take Obama's majority away (or at least make it much
smaller), but just please don't go unified [again] in 2012 either
way.
Douglas Gray|6.30.09 @ 6:46PM|#
Here is a quote from Ron Paul that says it all:
"The administration has pointed to Spain as a shining example of
this type of progressive energy policy. Spain has been massively
diverting capital from the private sector into politically favored
environmental projects for the better part of a decade, and many in
Washington apparently like what they see. However, under no
circumstances should anyone serious about economic recovery emulate
an economy that is now approaching 20 percent unemployment, where
every green job created, eliminated 2.2 real jobs and cost around
$800,000 each!"
Trouble with Paul is that he actually tries to llive in the real
world and look at things with common sense.
|6.30.09 @ 6:53PM|#
I have a cunning plan.
[Insert witty riposte.]
My cunning plan is for the LP to drop running any candidates or
doing anything at all in 2010 except pushing for gridlock. Yes,
that means promoting the idea of a GOP Congress, but we're in real
trouble if we let one-party rule continue.
hammeredHead|6.30.09 @ 7:01PM|#
Yes, that means promoting the idea of a GOP
Congress
Can't do it. I promised myself to never ever ever vote R or D
again.
|6.30.09 @ 7:21PM|#
Hey, give Misha credit-on his last point. I've attended too many Libertarian party events, national, state and otherwise. Usually the otherwise was the least dysfunctional.
|6.30.09 @ 7:27PM|#
I have a cunning plan.
But is it as cunning as a fox that used to be Professor of Cunning
at Oxford University but has moved on, and is now working for the
UN at the High Commission of International Cunning Planning?
|6.30.09 @ 7:41PM|#
"Since ACES is about emissions for c02, methane, and other
stuff, who is going to get stuck with the Fart Czar job?"
My guess is Al Gore
My guess is he's able to determine the greenhouse gas and pollutant
content by smell alone, and that his senses have been honed by
practicing with his wife for the last 20 years.
DHS Thinks I\'m a Terrorist|6.30.09 @ 8:39PM|#
"Hey, give Misha credit-on his last point. I've attended too
many Libertarian party events, national, state and otherwise.
Usually the otherwise was the least dysfunctional."
Yes, but that pretty much disproves his claim that libertarians
have "the same contempt for anything that deviates from libertarian
orthodoxy." There really is no "libertarian orthodoxy". Just bring
up the topic of illegal immigration at a gathering of libertarians
and watch.
|6.30.09 @ 9:31PM|#
This is not going to make American businesses any cleaner. They
will remain as polluting as ever...
just in other countries.
Like most other regulatory act imposed on businesses, this will
only serve to make the businesses move to where the government is
not as hostile towards them.
JB|6.30.09 @ 11:44PM|#
That is pretty much Obama's plan for America: the worse, the
better.
Well, fuck him and the retards that voted for him. All of them will
be remembered.
Tim|7.1.09 @ 1:19AM|#
Why not pass a modest carbon tax and offset it with a cut in the corporate, income and payroll tax rates? Too rational...?
Bill|7.1.09 @ 2:31AM|#
In 2007, a Democratic president and Democratic Congress are once
again proposing costly and intrusive changes in both health care
and energy supplies
sorry did I read that properly?
|7.1.09 @ 11:18AM|#
TO: Ron Bailey, et al.
RE: What He Said
'The worse, the better,' Vladimir Lenin is said to have
observed. What Lenin meant was that the worse social conditions
became in Russia, the more likely he and the Bolsheviks could
foment a communist revolution. -- Ron Bailey
Very good observation. And informative too.
Especially when tied together with this other quote from
Lenin....
No dictatorship of the proletariat is to be thought of
without terror and violence. -- Lenin
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and
Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who
understands Marx and Lenin. -- Ronald Reagan]
|7.1.09 @ 5:31PM|#
Proponents argue that the wonderful thing about cap-and-trade is
that it gets the price of carbon about right at the margin and
leaves the allocation of free vs. auctioned permits to the
political system, thereby enhancing the chance of passage. As your
article aptly demonstrates, the politics goes much further by
introducing a panoply of mandates and subsidies. One political
essential is to buy out the coal companies. They get free
allowances, subsidies carbon-scrubbing and underground
sequestration without assurance of reliability, and coal-generated
electricity subsidies via electric cars. Hardly an economist's
dream. More at:
http://www.env-econ.net/2009/06/guest-post-.html
Nat Atkins|7.2.09 @ 7:55PM|#
At this point in 1993, any pundit who predicted a Republican recapture of either the House or the senate would be laughed off the air. It's too soon to say it won't happen.
|7.4.09 @ 12:53AM|#
What happens the day that Americans realize they can do for themselves in the energy dept., and don't need government 'help' anymore? That'll be an ugly day for socialism...
Leave a Comment
More Articles by Ronald Bailey
- The Methuselah Manifesto, Ronald Bailey, November 17, 2009
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