The CapTimes has an interesting and reasonably-balanced article (the lead article no less) called ‘The cost of clean air’ today.  Once you get past the opening premise that customers of MG &E are ‘voting with their pocketbooks’ for cleaner energy (10% opting in is not what I consider a vote for something), the article accurately portrays what is coming down the road for Wisconsin if the Cap ‘n Tax bill is passed in Washington.

Getting right to the point, the chair of Gov. Doyle’s own ‘Global Warming Task Force’, Roy Thilly, clearly and accurately points out that such a bill would be a ‘huge wealth transfer’ from states like Wisconsin to the states on the coasts.  Similarly, the National Association of Manufacturers is also saying that the bill could cost the state of Wisconsin another 50,000 jobs.  These are some of the most accurate and telling statement I can remember reading from the local media on what this really means for our state.   The only thing I can think to add is to remind everyone that Tammy Baldwin, our Representative, helped pass this bill. 

So what are we going to do?  Rep. Spencer Black (D-Madison) is going to sponsor a ‘Clean Energy Jobs Act’ bill!  That’s right, in other words, the federal government, with Tammy’s help, is passing legislation to kill jobs in Wisconsin so the state government would like to pass legislation to try and replace those jobs – but only if they’re the ‘right’ kind of jobs. 

The bright spot in all of this is that there is a small nod to nuclear energy.  Lifting our state’s moratorium on nuclear power plants would provide cheap, abundant energy to our state.  One nuclear plant alone would provide as much or more energy than if we committed the entire state to wind energy.  That’s a lot of windmills to make up for a single nuclear power plant (side note: what’s the environmental impact of all those windmills compared to a single nuclear power plant? Just asking).  In addition, wind power only works when the wind is blowing.  Last time I checked nuclear power plants can work round the clock, with or without wind, with or without sun (since solar is on the list too).  Lastly, after fully committing to wind, there is no room to grow.  With nuclear power, we could add a second plant or third plant as needed. 

The drawback to nuclear power?  Some democrats have said they won’t support lifting a ban until the long-term storage problem is figured out, environmentalists will fight nuclear power, and the process takes too long.  First of all, while they’re not named in the article but I’m guessing they’re likely the same democrats suggesting we are in the midst of a climate change crisis and we need to act yesterday.  The fact is we can deal with the storage; it’s not ideal but compared to alternatives nuclear power is the most attractive, realistic solution on the table.  The second and third points go together.  Environmentalists are a huge part of why the process to create a new plant is so cumbersome and time consuming.  Again, like those democrats, environmentalists that warn of global catastrophe with no time to spare want us to gamble on ‘green power’ that is not proven or reliable at this stage.  Wouldn’t it make sense to allow nuclear power to fill that gap until such a time when green power is ready for prime time?  Or does ideology trump reality?

I recently wrote both Representative Baldwin and Senator Feingold on the Cap and Trade bill before Congress now.  While I’m not necessarily thrilled with either’s response, there were notable differences between the two.  At least Senator Feingold made a stand on not using reconciliation when considering this legislation.  Reconciliation is a fast track procedure intended for budget legislation and would be a stretch to use in this scenario.  It is appealing to Democrat-majority though since it short-circuits the normal procedures (including the possibility of a filibuster) for debating legislation.  I don’t see eye to eye with him on many issues but I’ll give him credit where credit is due.

Representative’s Baldwin’s response though contained no highlights whatsoever and was text-book propaganda for climate-change alarmists.  It bothers me that on such an important issue all I get is stock platitudes from my elected representative when I take the time to write her.  My favorite part was her claim that this legislation would “create 37,000 new jobs in Wisconsin, alone”.  No mention of how many jobs it will destroy or how much it will really cost the average family in Wisconsin though.  I hate to consistently use this phrase but it seems she must consider us too stupid to completely understand this issue and we’ll accept these statistics as facts from her without further thought. 

Coincidently I was driving through West Virginia recently and they’re not convinced Cap and Trade is not a good thing for their coal industry either.  As one caller I heard said: “If they pass Cap and Trade in the Senate, they can just put ‘West Virginia is Closed’ on all our road signs”.  I wonder if their representative would write them a nice letter to tell them how many jobs will be created by this bill? 

Since the Cap and Tax bill passed the House last week there has been more coverage about the damage this bill could cause to our economy and working families if it passes the Senate.  It occurred to me that this debate over forcing a “Green Economy” is like taking care of a new lawn.

In case you’ve never had the pleasure of starting a new lawn or patch of grass, the gist of it is this: you need to be patient.  In my case I’m working on starting a new lawn from scratch.  Seeds were planted last fall and we’ve got a good start this spring and early summer so far.  However we still have quite a few rough patches and a lot of weeds.  The normal reaction to weeds is to get some weed killer out there and take care of them.  After all, I want nice, green grass, not the weeds.  The problem is that the lawn is too new and too weak right now.  Throwing a bunch of weed killer on my lawn right now would likely kill everything – weeds and grass.  Like that new lawn, our economy is weak right now and the Cap and Tax bill is industrial-strength weed killer.  Green jobs, lowering pollution, all that sounds great but in the process we’re heading out there to kill the industry we have now without a strong, robust, and mature green industry to take its place.

The House passed the Cap & Tax bill today and we had a Representative from Wisconsin standing on the right side of this argument, unfortunately it wasn’t our local Representative Tammy Baldwin (D), it was Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R). I don’t have all the details yet but it sounds like it was an interesting day. The Democrats added 300 pages to the bill just this Friday AM and refused to allow extra time for anyone to thoroughly read that amendment and understand its implications before holding a vote.

Consider that, whether you believe in climate change or not, the Democratic majority in the House didn’t want to allow anyone time to read and understand the bill they were being asked to vote on. It was the same during the stimulus votes. Everything is too big of a crisis to allow anyone time to understand the implications of the bill before being voted upon. How is the stimulus looking now? We’ll be looking at this bill the same way in the weeks and months to come as we learn more about it after it has already passed.

Is it too much to ask for our representatives to read and understand the bills their voting on? At least some understand this now and our fighting for us. Too bad Representative Baldwin isn’t one of them, she appears content to push through legislation with little to public time for review.

In honor of the vote on "Cap and Tax" in the House this coming Friday I've posted some good ads from the Heartland Institute which is publishing some very common sense stuff on the global warming (climate change? I can never keep straight what they're calling it this week) debate.  Click on either ad to check out thier website.