President Obama skipped out of Washington on the eve of the dreaded “government shutdown” to hold a “town hall” meeting on his energy policies at a Pennsylvania wind farm. At the same moment, Republicans are fighting a desperate battle in Congress to save America from those policies.
The President’s cap-and-trade legislation died in the Senate last year, but he simply handed it off to the Environmental Protection Agency, which transformed the same ideas into a barbed-wire cage of regulations for energy producers. The President gives crowd-pleasing speeches to friendly audiences full of focus-group-tested language about “growth” and “energy,” while his regulatory apparatus works to tax American energy production into oblivion. One day he’ll give his empty speeches in front of an empty hall, because his audience is stuck on the side of the road with empty gas tanks and dead batteries in the little “green” cars he forced them to drive.
Both the House and Senate are working to restrain the EPA today. The House is considering the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011, one of those rare pieces of legislation that does exactly what its name says. The Senate is voting on an amendment from Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell that serves a similar purpose. Here’s some video of Energy and Commerce chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) kicking off the debate in the House:
In both cases, the goal is to block the EPA from imposing a tithe on American businesses, in the name of the “climate change” religion. Of course, energy producers pass these regulatory burdens along to consumers… and that would be everyone, because when the cost of energy rises, and its supply dwindles, the engine of the American economy stalls.
No fanatic ideology should have the power to impose such costs upon an unwilling population. We have seen the fraud and delusions of the climate change industry, and we are not impressed. We reject their demands, and do not consent to their agenda. Our representatives already refused cap-and-trade when it was presented to us openly. Now they must fight to keep it from being forced upon us in secret. Every word the President has ever said about job creation has been a hollow lie. The EPA has been conducting his real agenda, and working to meet his true priorities.
If congressional Republicans can block this power grab, the President might actually be forced to live up to his promises. He’s been trying very hard to create jobs in Brazil, and I’m sure they’ll be disappointed… but it’s time we reminded the President and the EPA that they work for us.
The Wall Street Journal called McConnell’s amendment “One of the best proposals for growth and job creation to make it onto the Senate docket in years.” While the President tilts at windmills in Pennsylvania, congressional Republicans are working to fuel the American economy today.
Update: the McConnell amendment failed in the Senate, with 50 votes out of the 60 required.
