I will eat crow on the CBO stat and have posted a correction on the post itself. I misattributed the statistic to the CBO. It should have hit me wrong that such a statistic should come from the very body that provided numbers used in the legislation – although Waxman and his buddies will probably ignore other parts of the CBO recommendations.

[Correction: The CBO failed to analyze the total economic impact of this legislation on the US economy and, in fact, underestimated the impact. CBO admissions of job losses led to an outlay in the legislation providing billions of dollars for workers who would lose their jobs under this bill. The studies and statistics on job losses were provided by other sources. An upcoming post will present these studies.]

Even more amusing are recommendations by the CBO in their report on how to offset the hit in unemployment and reduced GDP that will be caused by this legislation. I will make a new post (because of all the necessary documentation and links required) that will detail statements by the CBO and OMB on job losses as well as other reports that actually quantify those losses (including the one I had meant to reference).

Please comment after you receive your electric bill precisely one year from now.

Also, claiming that the science behind climate change is false is like calling the 98 out of 100 doctors that tell you you have cancer liars. In spite of what pseudo scientists funded by ExxonMobil or whatever hack the Heritage Foundation dug up tells you, a science of this nature is absolutely consensus based. I think what really gets my goat is the fact that Newt Gingrich can do a commercial with Nancy Pelosi professing his desire to take action on the very real problem of climate change, then turn around and proclaim a call to arms over the Warner Lieberman bill, which is essentially two right wingers who also thought we should take action on climate change.

I think all the opposition that is being thrown up to this is very typical, corporatist, republicanism. The right would love nothing more that to see business as usual continue. They don’t want cap and trade, they want loot and pollute. Those who herald legislative action on this issue as economy killers are essentially saying that we as Americans are not innovative enough to provide energy that does not come from fossil fuels. It’s actually kind of insulting in my opinion to hold that view. We can take on challenges in this country, we always have. I strongly believe that these changes (while merely a good start) will drive innovation.

The sad irony in this is that had we stayed on the path that Jimmy Carter started us on, we would indeed have never used a drop more of foreign oil than we did in 1977. We would have actually seen 20% of our energy coming from solar power in 2000. But, leave it to Ronald Reagan to come in and tear the solar panels off the roof of the White House and embrace the Saudi oil lords, a practice that continues to this day…