CO2 Is A Danger To You ... and your Wallet

As the Copenhagen Conference on the Climate opened, the Obama Administration announced that Carbon Dioxide (CO2) was endangering the public health and welfare of US Citizens. This finding by the EPA, opens the door to more regulations and more bureaucracies.

Lisa Jackson, the EPA Administrator, admits that our new efforts to regulate Carbon Dioxide will have no effect on climate change. Additionally, our climate has been cooling since 1998, despite the dire predictions. So why is the EPA doing this?

Let's look at who is emitting CO2: Globally, as well as in the US, the largest reason for CO2 is the burning of fossil fuels. The chart to the left is from the EPA and shows statistics as of 2006.

In the US, the largest reason for burning fossil fuels is electricity generation. By far, the fuel most used by power plants is coal. (See below.)

The second largest consuming segment of fossil fuels is transportation, which uses petroleum most. Then industrial uses has a pretty even mix of coal and petroleum and natural gas as you can see from the chart below, also from the EPA.

This finding by the EPA and the resulting regulation will undoubtedly cause the costs of oil, natural gas and power to increase dramatically to you and me, as President Obama has predicted, since the governmental-caused increases in operating costs are always passed on to the consumer.

Rationally, if one were trying to pare back on the use of something -- say, coffee in the morning -- then one would replace the offending commodity with another option -- say a smoothie.

That is not the way of the government, however. They enact a punitive tax which always ends up being paid by the citizens of this country -- and today, there are less and less taxpayers and more and more tax consumers.

Wouldn't a better methodology for the Government be to encourage new substitutes for the offending commodity? Grants to entrepreneurs, prizes, competitions, encouragements to private enterprise -- rather than the very tired cry of "regulate, Regulate, REGULATE."

Back to the question of why the Government would cause another cost to the consumer in a dangerously down economy. I submit that it is self-perpetuation of government disguised as "protecting the people from a dangerous gas." More bureaucracy, more regulators, mean more positions for appointment.

Our Constitution, in Article 1, Section 8, gives Congress the right to levy taxes, duties, imposts and excises -- not the Administrative Branch. I ask you to consider whether or not rising costs caused by Government decisions should be considered taxes -- and if generated by the Administrative Branch, are therefore prohibited under the Constitution which gives that activity only to Congress, which is elected.

The EPA is not an elected office. If my electricity costs go up because of their action, then I am being taxed to pay for something.

Stop it!