House climate bill has laudable goals but negative impacts on consumers

The Waxman-Markey bill has laudable environmental and economic goals but its inequitable system of allocations would have a disproportionate adverse impact on American consumers, businesses and producers of gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, crude oil and natural gas.

There is time to get this right. As the bill moves to the full House, we ask lawmakers to study all the consequences of the bill, consider the impact on ordinary Americans at a time of economic hardship and come up with an equitable plan that will address global climate change and improve, not weaken, our nation’s energy and economic security.

As a recent independent analysis shows, this inequitable approach, by itself, will produce additional unemployment, driving annual job destruction totals related to the legislation to more than one million. Another independent study projects job losses more than double this – up to 2.7 million net jobs lost annually, even with new green jobs created. According to one of these reports, an average family will pay an additional $1,500 a year for energy and 74 percent more for gasoline alone. Today, that would mean gasoline prices above $4.00 a gallon, an increase nearly equivalent to a ten-fold rise in the federal gasoline tax.”