Thread: Some Republicans say open to U.S. climate bill

Originally Posted by DarthIllegal

Originally Posted by Judy

Originally Posted by DarthIllegal

Soooo, what's wrong with protecting the environment? I would assume that some of you have kids, and would like a decent planet to live on when we the people die. We are doing nothing for our children. Republicans and Democrats have made sure that our kids are going to suffer our consequences. Personally, I would rather the generation that caused the mess to suffer, not my kid. The people that don't care about the environment should be ashamed, because it is so obvious that it is a problem, but as usual, you reduce it do a Left vs Right political issue. You kids will be PROUD!!

I for one totally support protecting the environment, but paying companies to stop polluting in one area by selling credits to other companies to pollute another area and then having the government profit from taxing the transactions, isn't how I would solve the problem. We have a Clean Air Act already that like our US immigration laws, just needs to be cleaned-up a little bit and then enforced.

Agreed! But, coming from a state that thinks pollution is a right (Texas) and have a kid that has asthma, I think ANY help would be appreciated. It's all fine and dandy until you have someone that is directly effected by it. Bush DESTROYED our environment while he was governor, and hurt it even further when he became president. Something needs to happen and it needs to happen now.

Yeah, I agree, but the cap and trade deal won't fix the problems in SE Texas. The Clean Air Act was passed in 1970 with amendments in 1977 and 1990. We've had decades to enforce these laws, yet so much still needs to be done. Most industries want to but, for so many it is so expensive still, to do what they need to do.

What would be better for our country? To continue taxing corporations to hand out food stamps to people with a Lexus or pass the FairTax, protect our trade, tell the guy with the Lexus to go get a job and feed himself, and then tell our companies:

"Companies, we're no longer taxing you $339 billion a year and we're no long forcing you to spend another $100 billion a year in compliance costs. We want to enforce the US Clean Air Act, and that's the law and that's what we're going to do. We realize there's some crap in the law and we're going to fix that immediately, then we're coming after you because we've fixed the economy, freed you from tax, protected your trade, and given all your employees a FairTax Rebate to offset the cost of taxation up to the family consumption allowance. Now, it's your turn to abide our laws and install your scrubbers over a period of time, not to exceed 12 years starting in 2014, and if you don't do it, we're going to send in crews under a warrant to film every nasty thing you're doing and put it on the news every single day so both your customers and shareholders know what you're doing to our air. Then we're going to do the same thing with our Clean Water Act. You've had plenty of time, now you have plenty of money, you're out of excuses, we're out of patience, and it's time to clean it up once and for all."

That's all it takes to solve this problem in a very short period of time.

Originally Posted by 4thHorseman

Soooo, what's wrong with protecting the environment? I would assume that some of you have kids, and would like a decent planet to live on when we the people die. We are doing nothing for our children. Republicans and Democrats have made sure that our kids are going to suffer our consequences. Personally, I would rather the generation that caused the mess to suffer, not my kid. The people that don't care about the environment should be ashamed, because it is so obvious that it is a problem, but as usual, you reduce it do a Left vs Right political issue. You kids will be PROUD!

Cap and Trade (and its assorted variants) is a tax scheme, not an energy / environmental solution. Nobody in the government gives a tinkers dam about the environment. It is about money. When you hear the establishment talk about the "green" movement, they really mean "greenbacks". In the mid-70's, during the Nixon administration, OPEC imposed an oil embargo. You would have thought warning bells would go off and we would want to protect ourselves from that. Nope. Never happened. We are just as dependent on foreign oil today, if not more so, than we were then. Not one administration since, nor one congress, has ever addressed this issue in a sane, comprehensive manner. It is either drill here, drill now or tax the bejesus out of users or build pregnant roller skates that are gasoline powered death mobiles in order to increase gas mileage, or drive hybrid cars which are an environmental joke, or grow food and burn it as bio-fuel. W

I agree with Judy. Most of us are concerned about the environment. In my youth we were called conservationists. Who doesn't want clean air and safe drinking water? The problem is that there is no easy answer and no quick solution. You want Cap and Trade? Fine, but understand it will do NOTHING for the environment. It will line the pockets of special interests, and it will give more political power to a select few. The fact is that an abrupt transition from fossil fuels to alternative energy sources cannot be done without killing our already damaged economy. The alternative energy sources do not have the capacity or infrastructure necessary. Excessive taxing of oil, gas, and coal will SLOW the process, not speed it up because the necessary investment will not be made. Higher taxes discourage investment, they do not invite it. What is worse, without a COMPREHENSIVE plan, it will not be done right anyway, and may create worse problems. Remember, this is the government that kept screwing up what should have been a relatively simple transition to digital television. What do you think they will do with something as complex as energy production, distribution, and development. Review their accomplishments for the last 35 years for a clue.

It's so true. Many of these alternative energies have their own bedlam of environmental issues. And if we rush or push these companies before these products are technically ready both from a results standpoint as well as from an environmental standpoint, we are in fact just transferring one set of environmental issues that we at least know and understand to an entire new set of environmental nightmares we've no clue about.

The best that the government can do is just enforce existing law, with a few problems in the laws corrected, after we fix our economy, pass the FairTax and protect our trade which allows our companies the means to comply which really over the years, they've really not been able to afford it in most of the cases. They've made a lot of improvements, but there is still so much more to do.