Libertarian ping! Click here to get added or here to be removed or post a message here!
(View past Libertarian pings here)
Posted on 10/01/2009 2:58:09 AM PDT by markomalley
A libertarian non-profit organization in Washington today announced it was filing suit against the Obama administration for failing to adequately disclose global warming documents.
As we reported two weeks ago the Competitive Enterprise Institute deemed inadequate the Treasury Department's response to a Freedom of Information Act request for documents on cap-and-trade.
Months after the FOIA request, Treasury responded by giving CEI five documents and emails, when the group had expected 50.
"Your response fails any reasonable test for compliance with FOIA and constitutes an effective denial of our request," CEI's Christopher Horner stated in the notice of appeal filed with Treasury today.
Moreover, Treasury redacted portions of the documents. One internal memo on cap-and-trade said that "given the administration's proposal to auction all emission allowances, a cap-and-trade program could generate federal receipts on the order of $100 to $200 billion annually," but the Department blacked out the $100 billion-$200 billion figure. Horner said Treasury redacted the figure because it was "highly embarrassing" for the administration.
Days later, Treasury re-released the same documents without any portions redacted.
Treasury said they are currently considering the appeal.
In a statement two weeks ago on the issue, Treasury's Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy Alan Krueger said, "The reporting on the Treasury memo is flat out wrong. Treasury's summary is consistent with public analyses by the EIA, EPA, and CBO, and the reporting and blogging on this issue ignore the fact that the revenue raised from emission permits would be returned to consumers under both administration and legislative proposals. It is time for an honest debate about how to solve a long-term challenge and deliver comprehensive energy reform, not for misrepresentations of the facts."
According to SourceWatch, CEI has historically been one of the leading opponents of government action to reduce greenhouse gas emission. The group, SourceWatch notes, has been "well funded" for their endeavors by companies like ExxonMobil. According to SourceWatch's figures, in 2005 CEI received $180,000 from ExxonMobil Corporate Giving and $90,000 from ExxonMobil Foundation, all in the name of "general operating support."
Good grief! We are not so dumb as they want us to be. Everyone's utility bills are going to go up a lot. These emission permits will raise a lot of money for the government. Yes, some of it will be returned to consumers. But, only after 40% to 50% of it gets stuck in Washington to pay for the bureaucracy that is required to administer the program. Just imagine how many new government union workers we will have to hire.
Another thing about "returning the money to consumers". The funds that are left, after government takes its share, will be distributed to the "poor" to offset the huge increase in their utility bills. More Democratic compassion! It is redistribution of wealth, plain and simple! Take money from the "rich", use half of it to hire gov't workers, then give the rest to the "poor".
Breaking News: Treasury Admits Global Warming Cap-and-Trade Costs Could Hit $300 Billion Annually
Obama Treasury Dept Still Hiding Info on Global Warming ‘Cap-and-Tax’ Costs
Admissions of Job Losses & Hundreds of Billions in Cost Insufficient; CEI to Sue
Washington, D.C., September 29, 2009— The Competitive Enterprise Institute today notified the Treasury Department of CEI’s intent to sue for the administration’s inadequate disclosure of documents addressing its expectations of and intentions for a global warming “cap-and-trade” plan. CEI’s notice of intent to sue was contained in an appeal filed today with the agency.
The cost estimates running as high as $300 billion per year contained in the few documents released by Treasury two weeks ago set off a political firestorm. Such cost estimates were far above the government’s public estimates and previously hidden from the public. The higher figures and other expected impacts were revealed only after a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) documents request by CEI Senior Fellow Christopher Horner.
The agency responded to CEI’s requests, after months of delay, by producing a mere five documents. Initially, even those documents were released with politically embarrassing portions blacked out. Days later, the same documents were re-released without the blacked out portions, but still not in their entirety.
“Your response fails any reasonable test for compliance with FOIA and constitutes an effective denial of our request,” stated Horner, in the notice of appeal filed today.
Documents released by Treasury on September 18 revealed:
• Internal agency estimates of a crushing blow to manufacturing jobs and that a global warming cap-and-trade plan could hit $300 billion annually, while raising billions in revenue to fund various programs.
• Treasury estimates that “domestic policies to address climate change and the related issues of energy security and affordability will involve significant costs and potential revenues, possibly up to several percentage points of annual GDP (i.e. equal in size to the corporate income tax).”; and that
• Treasury believes that carbon regulation “may result in loss of domestic and international market shares for U.S. companies, and relocation of U.S. firms abroad, representing both a political problem and an environmental problem” singling out how “energy-intensive sectors, such as the steel, aluminum, paper, chemicals, and cement industries, where imports are ready substitutes and lower carbon technologies are not widely available, are clearly vulnerable.”
Heeding President Obama’s call for such a scheme, a cap-and-trade plan already passed the House as part of the Waxman-Markey bill. Senators Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and John Kerry (D-Mass) plan to introduce their version this week. Both approaches require Americans to purchase energy use “allowances” and amount to a large tax on energy and the cost of all goods, given the energy required to produce and bring them to market. As a candidate, Obama expressed his intention to use cap-and-trade to cause Americans’ energy costs to “necessarily skyrocket.”
Treasury’s response to date and CEI’s Appeal and Notice of Intent to Sue reveal how the administration is still not being straight with Congress and the American people about this.
> Read more about CEI’s Appeal and Notice of Intent to Sue
> Read more about CEI's FOIA request
> Read more by Christopher Horner, author of Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed
It is the leading growth sector...
Government-Run Health Care = thousands of new government workers with their.........
It isn't hard to figure out that the Dems are not operating from compassion. They are building a voter base. More government workers means more Dem. voters.
It is even worse when you consider the way these programs build union rolls. Even more Dem. voters!
WERE THE HELL IS THE GOP? WHAT, THOSE BIG GOVERNMENT BIG TAXES BIG BAILOUT REPUBLICANS DON'T HAVE LAWYERS???
We need a president that won’t play politics when it comes to the science...and cost...of “global warming alarmism”.
They are too busy funding the likes of Arlen Spector to actually advance the cause of liberty.
The cause of liberty is not theirs in any case.
Exactly, the RINOs are a plague upon the Republican Party, Reagan had Libertarian tendencies and that is what made him so great as a small government conservative.
Billions of dollars ripped from the coffers of the rich countries and showered on the developing nations, industries crippled, carbon sacrificing, electricity plants shut down, etc., etc., etc. .....based on 12 trees somewhere in Russia?
It's almost laughable, if it weren't so sickening. Is it just me....or have we been had?
“It’s almost laughable, if it weren’t so sickening. Is it just me....or have we been had?”
No, but we’ve been allowing celebrities to run the government and deciding the most crucial agenda.
BTTT!
The GOP is a nutless group of libs that only care about what country to bomb and how to beat the Democrats while offering the same form of governance.
Because the GOP is just another party of big government, aka... Dem-Lite.
Just witness it’s last presidential candidate, the Obama-Lite... ie: McCain.
And yet there are a ton of FReepers who dismiss libertarians as "liberaltarians" and "loserdopians." Not that I don't have problems with the big-L Libertarian party, but I get awfully tired of folks here dismissing the libertarians as an important conservative segment.
It's the GOP who is hand-in-hand with the donks pushing this crap (or at least quietly refusing to resist it).
Because Libertarians are true conservatives.
The Bum Rap on Biofuels
American Thinker | 5-13-08 | Herbert Meyer
Posted on 05/14/2008 3:59:06 AM PDT by Renfield
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2015711/posts
Campaign to vilify ethanol revealed
ethanol producer Magazine | May 16, 2008 | By Kris Bevill
Posted on 05/17/2008 9:22:13 AM PDT by Kevin J waldroup
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2017389/posts
Funding disclaimers like this are a standard part of every MSM story on anyone in opposition to the Left.
You'll never, ever see a funding disclaimer in an MSM story on Media Matters, ACORN, etc. How are donations from George Soros, Peter Lewis, and Peter Angelos not also "corporate"?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.