The Energy Citizens rally in Elkhart, Indiana was packed with people eager to voice their concerns about the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill. And rightly so. Like many states, Indiana’s economy relies heavily on the manufacturing and agriculture industries for jobs. We heard from several speakers, mostly small business owners, who grasped the negative impact higher energy prices would have on local enterprise and the negligible impact cap and trade would have on the environment.
One reason cap and trade would have very little impact on global CO2 emissions is “carbon leakage.” The term refers to the phenomenon where one country’s CO2 emissions rise as a result of carbon regulation in another. A small business owner named Jim Gartman gave a very clear explanation of carbon leakage, saying:
“We are about to drive hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs out of our country…And in result, what we’ll have, is hundreds of thousands of people unemployed, so we can bring products from offshore, that will produce more carbon than if we would’ve produced if we had done it here ourselves. It makes no sense.”
Isabella Chism, a VP of the Indiana Farm Bureau with a long family history of farming, echoed Jim’s sentiments and spoke to the negative effects on farming resulting from cap and trade. Excerpts from her speech are below.
Teams AEA/AEX/IER,
As an avid fan of your mission – and constant “backseat driver” via your outstanding website ever since you set sail on your voyage (to you, seemingly an eternity ago) – I write to commend each of heartily for the tremendous service you’re doing for the nation. You are providing, day in and day out, a lucid, well-articulated reminder to an obviously receptive American public – and through them and the positive news coverage you’ve been receiving locally and now internationally, the Democratic majority in Congress – of the unrepealable laws of Economics 101, Accounting 101, supply and demand, gravity, and the direct and immediate impact of increased taxes of any kind, no matter their disguise or sweet-smelling label, on consumer behavior and spending and investment decisions that businesses of all size confront daily.
Your calm, rational, and persistent proselytizing of the truth and the dangers of cap-and-trade snake oil is having an undeniably positive effect on the public debate on national energy policy (witness the opposition’s increasing shrillness in response). What’s more, you’re turning the tide. God bless the fact that the public has a lot more common sense than the congressional leadership and certain committee chairmen give them credit for. May their clear-eyed collective judgment help not only to derail pending legislation but ultimately change the composition of the next and future Congresses. If and when that happens, your smart, well-spoken, energetic, and courageous team rightly may take a lot of the credit.
Godspeed to you, and happy trails. Drive safely.
Jim Bayless