How much will it cost your state?

[Tigermike 3,055]

The Heritage Foundation has done a little study on the impact of the Lieberman-Warner Global Climate Change Legislation (S. 2191) on each state. Living in GA, I naturally looked at their projections for it. A couple of charts do a nice job of summing it up:

May 22, 2008

Effect of the Lieberman-Warner Global Climate Change Legislation on States

by William W. Beach, Ben Lieberman, David Kreutzer, Ph.D. and Nick Loris

The Senate's leading climate-change bill, while aiming to combat global warming by reducing carbon dioxide in the air, actually poses "extraordinary perils" for Americans and the economy, according to a new study from The Heritage Foundation.

The study, produced by Heritage's Center for Data Analysis (CDA), forecasts severe consequences—including crushing energy costs, millions of jobs lost and falling household income—if Congress enacts the so-called Lieberman-Warner bill.

What follows are 50 state-by-state breakouts of the impact the bill would have on jobs and the economy.

Click here to see how this bill would/could affect your state.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Energyand...ment/wm1930.cfm

May 12, 2008

The Economic Costs of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Change Legislation

Members of Congress are considering several bills designed to combat climate change. Chief among them is Senate bill 2191--America's Cli­mate Security Act of 2007--spearheaded by Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and John Warner (R-VA). This bill would set a limit on the emissions of green­house gases, mainly carbon dioxide from the com­bustion of coal, oil, and natural gas.

Since energy is the lifeblood of the American economy, 85 percent of which comes from these fossil fuels, S. 2191 represents an extraordinary level of economic interference by the federal gov­ernment. For this reason, it is important for policy­makers to have a sense of the economic impacts of S. 2191 that would go hand in hand with any pos­sible environmental benefits. This Center for Data Analysis (CDA) reportdescribes and quantifies those economic impacts.

Our analysis makes clear that S. 2191 promises extraordinary perils for the American economy. Arbitrary restrictions predicated on multiple, untested, and undeveloped technologies will lead to severe restrictions on energy use and large increases in energy costs. In addition to the direct impact on consumers' budgets, these higher energy costs will spread through the economy and inject unnecessary inefficiencies at virtually every stage of production and consumption--all of which will add yet more financial burdens that must be borne by American taxpayers.

S. 2191 extracts trillions of dollars from the mil­lions of American energy consumers and delivers this wealth to permanently identified classes of recipients, such as tribal groups and preferred tech­nology sectors, while largely circumventing the normal congressional appropriations process. Unbound by the periodic review of the normal bud­getary process, this de facto tax-and-spend program threatens to become permanent--independent of the goals of the legislation.

The recent experience with ethanol mandates illustrates some of the costs and risks created when a government imposes significant new regulations on the energy market. Ethanol production has been bedeviled by unintended impacts on world food prices, unexpected environmental degradation from expanding acres under cultivation, and frustratingly slow progress in commercializing cellulosic ethanol production. In spite of tremendous expense, the production goals set for ethanol are unlikely to be met, and the hoped-for environmental improve­ments are even less likely to occur. Yet the challenges posed by the ethanol program are a small fraction of those posed by S. 2191.

Overview

S. 2191 imposes strict upper limits on the emis­sion of six greenhouse gases (GHGs) with the pri­mary emphasis on carbon dioxide (CO2). The mechanism for capping these emissions requires emitters to acquire federally created permits (allowances) for each ton emitted. The cost of the allowances will be significant and will lead to large increases in the cost of energy. Because the allow­ances have an economic effect much like the effect of an energy tax, the increase in energy costs creates correspondingly large transfers of income from pri­vate energy consumers to special interests.

Implementing S. 2191 will be very costly, even given the most generous assumptions. To put a firm floor under the cost estimates, we assume that all of the problems of meeting currently enacted federal, state, and local legislation are overcome. A further unlikely condition is added; namely, that a critical but unproven technology--carbon capture and sequestration--will be ready for full-scale commer­cial use in just 10 years.[1] Making a more reasonable assumption about just this one technology leads to dramatically higher (but by no means worst-case) costs.[2] We use these two cases to bracket our cost projections of S. 2191:

Cumulative gross domestic product (GDP) losses are at least $1.7 trillion and could reach $4.8 tril­lion by 2030 (in inflation-adjusted 2006 dollars).

Single-year GDP losses hit at least $155 billion and realistically could exceed $500 billion (in inflation-adjusted 2006 dollars).

Annual job losses exceed 500,000 before 2030 and could approach 1,000,000.

The annual cost of emission permits to energy users will be at least $100 billion by 2020 and could exceed $300 billion by 2030 (in inflation-adjusted 2006 dollars).[3]

The average household will pay $467 more each year for its natural gas and electricity (in infla­tion-adjusted 2006 dollars). That means that the average household will spend an additional $8,870 to purchase household energy over the period 2012 through 2030.

Our analysis does not extend beyond 2030, at which point S. 2191 mandates GHG reductions to 33 percent below the 2005 level. However, it should be noted that the mandated GHG reductions con­tinue to become more severe and must be 70 per­cent below the 2005 level by 2050.

Click here for the rest of the study.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Energyand...nt/cda08-02.cfm

There seems to be a lot of jobs lost and personal income lost.

The net result? A depressed economy with no actual improvement in the reduction of the level of greenhouse gases world wide as other more populous developing nations go full-bore in building the energy generation capacity they need to fuel their economies.

And make no mistake, this will be a hidden tax on all, and especially hard hit will be those who can afford it least. If you don't believe that, consider this chart on the law's projected effect on the price of gasoline.

But, what the hell, Al Gore will be ecstatic.