Cap-N-TradeTax Follies

This is why they should read the flippin' bills before voting on them!!!

Under the new democratic cap and trade legislation all US homes will have to meet strict government eco-standards before they can be sold. This will cost homeowners thousands of dollars before the home can even be put up for sale.
CNS News reported, via Free Republic:

The 1,400-page cap-and-trade legislation pushed through by House Democrats contains a new federal policy that residential, commercial, and government buildings be retrofitted to increase energy efficiency, leaving it up to the states to figure out exactly how to do that.

This means that homeowners, for example, could be required to retrofit their homes to meet federal "green" guidelines in order to sell their homes, if the cap-and-trade bill becomes law.

The bill, which now goes to the Senate, directs the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop and implement a national policy for residential and commercial buildings. The purpose of such a strategy – known as the Retrofit for Energy and Environmental Performance (REEP) – would be to "facilitate" the retrofitting of existing buildings nationwide.

"The Administrator shall develop and implement, in consultation with the Secretary of Energy, standards for a national energy and environmental building retrofit policy for single-family and multi-family residences," the bill reads.

It continues: "The purpose of the REEP program is to facilitate the retrofitting of existing buildings across the United States."

The bill leaves the definition of a retrofit and the details of the REEP program up to the EPA. However, states are responsible for ensuring that the government's plans are carried out, whatever the final details may entail.

"States shall maintain responsibility for meeting the standards and requirements of the REEP program," the bill says.

Related... 56% of Americans don't want to spend more on energy costs to green the environment.

So, not only will you be unable to drive anywhere because gas will costs will skyrocket, but you'll be stuck in your miserable house -- it's miserable because you can't afford to pay the skyrocketing cost of heat or air conditioning and have to sit around in the dark all the time -- forever because you can't sell it!

Now might be a good time to pick up the phone and call your Senators, who are the last chance to kill this disaster from becoming law.

But, as with everything liberal, it gets worse.  It appears that one reason the Dems didn't want anyone to have read the cap-n-tax bill before the vote was because of the naked paybacks in it:

When House Democratic leaders were rounding up votes Friday for the massive climate-change bill, they paid special attention to their colleagues from Ohio who remained stubbornly undecided.

They finally secured the vote of one Ohioan, veteran Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Toledo, the old-fashioned way. They gave her what she wanted - a new federal power authority, similar to Washington state's Bonneville Power Administration, stocked with up to $3.5 billion in taxpayer money available for lending to renewable energy and economic development projects in Ohio and other Midwestern states.

House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry A. Waxman, California Democrat, included the Kaptur project in a 310-page amendment to the legislation unveiled at 3 a.m. Friday, just hours before the bill was to be debated on the House floor. The amendment was packed with other vote-getting provisions, both large and small, that had been sought by dozens of wavering Democrats.

Just to be clear:

In essence, Waxman and Markey bought Kaptur with our money. They spent $3.5 billion for a single vote in Congress, and Kaptur had willingly put herself up for sale.  Never mind that Ohio will get hard by caps on the use of coal.  Ohioans will lose jobs, their energy bills will skyrocket, and that will have an inflationary effect on all goods and services as the jobless rate escalates. Kaptur, at least, doesn't mind that at all; she got her pet project, and it only cost the rest of us three times more than the Obama administration demanded cut from missile defense in 2010.

This prompts the question again of what that handful of Republicans gained by voting yes, does it not?  And what about those other fence-riding Democrats who eventually fell in line?  If you live in Ohio, I suspect you'll want to have some words with Kaptur (and maybe others) about their price for destroying your state's economy.

But, no, we're not done yet.  Did you know that passing cap-n-tax is just like freeing the slaves?  It is, according to Obama:

Just a quick reminder that clinical narcissism works two ways: the narcissist belittles the accomplishments of others when they're beyond his reach and he elevates what he's accomplished to their level. Which one's going on here is a little unclear but it's definitely one of the two:

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) enlisted two senior committee members to help assemble the House energy bill... The authors' bottom line was a cap that would gradually reduce greenhouse gas emissions... When Obama entered the fray on May 5, summoning all 36 committee Democrats to the White House, he didn't make a single demand. Rather, participants say, he pointed to a portrait of Abraham Lincoln and said, "He had a chance to affect history. You, too, have a chance to affect history."

At first I was inclined to view this as Obama cynically tapping into the MSM's idiotic Lincoln comparisons. But then I remembered that in addition to supporting Cap and Trade, Lincoln also would have supported the stimulus bill." So this seems legit.

But we're still not done yet!  Remember that placeholder provision that meant we just had to trust Congress to fill in later?  Sounds hard to believe, right?  Here's the proof:

Rep. Joe Barton mentioned it was unprecedented to have such a mechanism (allowing bill-writers to insert language to be determined after the law was approved) in a bill up for final passage. Later, I noted that Barney Frank explained on the floor on Friday that the placeholder in the cap and trade bill apparently will deal with regulations of financial derivatives market associated with reducing carbon emissions. Frank said he was confident a "good system will be in place."

Well, I looked up the placeholder in Waxman's late-night, 300-page manager's amendment.

Here it is. First, in the table of contents:

Trust them?!  They just got done screwing your unborn descendants out of their very own American dream!  There is no trust left for these people.

How about that phone call?

There's my two cents.