David Kurtz at TPM avers “It never stops”:
And, guess what? If you think that’s bad, just wait until we get to Climate Legislation proper, where the Petroleum Industry, some of the largest and most profitable corporations in the history of civilization — in no small part, thanks to enormous federal subsidies — have a direct financial stake in the outcome.
(Yes, the world’s most profitable corporations benefit mightily from U.S. government welfare, your tax-payer dollars, to the tune of some $72 billion over the last seven years in permanent subsidies. See the handy chart below the fold to see how those subsidies stack up against other energy industries, such as renewables. Never mind the worldwide recession. Exxon Mobil profited more than $45 billion last year, Chevron $23 billion, and the federal subsidies keep coming nonetheless, even as their stooges in the Tea Party denialist “ClimateGater” crowds have been duped into mindlessly continuing their dirty work for them.)
The Oil and Coal (Fossil Fuel) Industries have played no small part in ginning up the tea bagging fight against health care reform if only because it further serves to stall Climate Legislation.
It’s horrible, an abrogation of what the Founding Fathers likely had in mind (nowhere, to my knowledge, does the support for unbridled corporate spending as “free speech” come into play in the Constitution at last read) and yet all signs suggest it’s only going to get far worse before it gets any better — if it ever does.
See the chart below to understand how the federal welfare queens from Exxon Mobil and Chevron et al. make out, thanks to your hard-earned tax dollars, and keep it in mind every time you hear yet another global warming denialist out there — and even here in comments at The BRAD BLOG — hoping to punk the world for more such free money and endless, record corporate profits…
Source: Environmental Law Institute [PDF]
It is amazing how many people are denying climate change.But the cap and trade bill is not the answer to the carbon problem . As an example. Trading carbon credits. NC has a lot of coal fired power plants. The children have a high incidence of asthma. Old folks are advised to stay inside on bad air days. So with the new bill , Duke Power of NC can buy carbon credits from say Texas wind farms. AND KEEP ON POLLUTING. Does that seem like a solution to you?
Matt Taiibi thinks energy will be the next bubble…like dot coms and housing. He says the middle man will be cut out. The money will go straight to Wall Street. With Obama’s record…you have to give cap and trade a good hard look.
When has the obama administration done anything for the US?
All the usual suspects …
Molly @1
I’m not sold on cap’n trade either…I just don’t believe it’s a “new world order” play like most of the denialists who comment here do.
Climate change is happening…if you ask me it’s man-made. I’m just not sure how cap’n trade would change that.
Your explanation was cogent…
Thank you…
Hmmm , for some reason the link I posted didn’t show up. Oh well.
[ed note: I fixed it for you. –99]
You raise a valid point Molly , Cap n Trade sure ain’t the answer , especially when Blythe Masters (infamous for inventing Credit Default Swaps) is heading up JPMs’ new carbon trading efforts.
I am rather tired of the term cap and trade when it should be called “crap and trade”. Guess who gets the crap and who benefits from the trade.
Jesse Ventura takes a peek into 9-11
http://eclipptv.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=8839&title=Conspiracy_Theory__911_Episode_2_part_6_6&vpkey=69734da74e
I threw the link to part six up because it gets right to the meat of his story…take a look.
Are the corporatocracy agenda setters conscious that theirs is an imperial one at odds with the stated ideals of U.S. democracy?
Actually, what “cap and trade” can do is to reallocate monies so as to further benefit non-carbon producers vs carbon producers. For instance, those building solar cell power plants get to keep more revenue for the electricity produced, subsidized by, say, coal fired plants. It will raise the price of energy for those opting to keep their older, polluting generators. It puts the price where it belongs.
BTW, nuclear power plants are much more carbon intensive than a solar cell farm. per Scifi American. Nov.2009.
Don’t think deregulation of utilities would have ever happened if it had been known that eventually building power plants, transmission lines and maintainence would be paid by taxes and rate payers.The profits would be for gigantic multi national corporations.
Here in ME , where I live, Maine Central Electric and Maine Public Gas are owned by Iberdrola of Spain. Propaganda is “Get off of foreign oil, build a wind farm.” Iberdrola is funded by Abu Dhabi Energy.Most of ME’s power comes from hydro and bio mass. Both alternative. Iberdrola is the biggest wind farm corporation in the world.
Currently, ME is exporting energy to Canada. Any given day, we have way more energy than we can use. It will be a hard sell.
Correction…ME energy is mostly Natural gas, hydo and biomass.
Woah, Flo! (link @ # 6) Thankyouthankyouthankyou! You’re like a Floridiot-Sevant, our ‘Link-Whisperer.’
Tho’ I blanche to see 9/11 Truth couched as “conspiracy theory”, programmed alongside TRUTV’s “Top 20 Most Shocking Mid-Air Motorcycle Bungles” (or whathaveyou), still – OMG!!! Did I see beads of sweat foaming on the lip of that WTC Federal Investigator? He looks awfully squirmy-wormy – very ‘Nathan Therm-y’, to me.
Good use of TV, for once.
(Off Topic: just learned that one of the ISP addresses used to hack into of the Global Warming emails is in Turkey. Used ftp servers in Russia.
Not saying that’s significant, but what is far more telling is that for so much erroneous hooey flooding the net about this nimrod-named “Climate-Gate” – it’s being VERY hard to track down any data on the actual hack.)
Jeannie, What got me was the part where the guy said that the hijackers were already in the cockpit of flight 11 before takeoff, that means…(see the first 10 minutes of “Fabled Enemies”)…the hijackers were trained as pilots at bases around the US.
That was a jaw dropper for me.