Cap-and-trade: A Salon debate - Global warming - Salon.com

[Steve Everley] First, Roberts is astonished that I did not make any mention of global warming or climate change in my opening post. I am astonished by his astonishment. Why would I bother to discuss global warming when all the leading proponents of imposing cap and trade have given up trying to convince people of the benefits of an energy tax based on the idea of trying to control the Earth’s temperature 100 years from now?

Senator John Kerry, after all, said of his cap and trade bill, “It is not a climate bill.” President Obama did not once utter the words “global warming” or “climate change” in his recent Oval Office address calling for a new energy tax (but he did endorse taxing our way to prosperity.) He clearly shares Roberts’ bedrock faith in the federal government’s ability to conjure up a Goldilocks tax system – one that will impose high enough taxes to change behavior but not too restrictive to kill jobs – and then know how to reallocate the revenue to the best new energy technologies. It’s an endorsement of the federal government becoming the largest venture capital firm in the world.

Twitter / David Roberts

Bodes ill. RT @daveweigel: Hearing that tomorrow am's bipartisan energy meeting w/ senators at the WH has been canceled