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Capps Calls Climate-Energy Bill First Step to Job Creation
Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara, on Saturday hailed the House passage of sweeping legislation meant to curb greenhouse gas emissions and create an energy-efficient economy.
The bill, a priority of President Obama’s, squeaked through the Democratic-controlled chamber on a 219-212 vote Friday. Eight Republicans voted for the bill, while 44 Democrats voted against it. The American Clean Energy and Security Act calls for the use of more renewable energy sources, the significant lowering of carbon emissions, and the creation of new jobs. The legislation now moves to the Senate, where its prospects are unclear.
“We’ve got a good president now and we’re trying to pass good legislation, and now we’re creating jobs in the renewable energy field,” Capps told Noozhawk at Saturday’s Roosevelt-Hamer Democratic Party Dinner.
Capps said that by using more alternative fuel sources — such as wind, solar and biomass — the nation will be less dependent on foreign energy sources and will be more effective in combating climate change.
Many Republicans are skeptical about the claims of new job growth, however. Although Capps did not have an exact number for the new jobs she says the bill may create, she said the figure could be unlimited depending on how many alternative energy sources the nation decides to tap into.
Capps said the initiative will help reduce carbon emissions by 17 percent in 2020, and by 80 percent by 2050. In addition, she said, the initiative will help fight global warming and lead America into the future.
The legislation also includes Capps’ Climate Change Health Protection and Promotion Act (H.R. 2323), which would improve the public health response to climate change through research, surveillance, planning and interagency coordination.
“The Democratic-led Congress has taken this critical first step,” Capps said.
Capps said it’s now time to shift the nation’s focus to health care reform, which she said “is too expensive not to do.”
— Noozhawk intern Kenny Lindberg can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
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» on 06.27.09 @ 11:11 PM
Did you read this bill? Because we both know you didn’t read the stimulus package legislation, and this latest crap sandwich was rushed to the floor in less time than that one.
» on 06.28.09 @ 02:23 AM
Am I expected to believe that Lois really knows what is in the bill. Did she mention anything about the additional increase in the cost of electrical over and above what is already occurring? No, she merely repeated all the phrases given her to trumpet by the democrat leaders.
» on 06.28.09 @ 03:56 AM
This is absolute madness. 80% reduction of CO2 emissions corresponds to setting our industry back to the Colonial era. Waxman-Markey will be the Smoot-Hawley legislation of the 2010 Greater Depression.
There is a growing number of real scientists who believe anthropogenic global warming is a complete fraud.
“The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N.—13 times the number who authored the U.N.‘s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world’s first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak “frankly” of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming “the worst scientific scandal in history.” Norway’s Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the “new religion.” A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton’s Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists’ open letter.)”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124597505076157449.html
The Democrat’s embrace of the CO2/climate change religion is much like their religious embrace of racial preferences and open borders. Declare the matter is settled, refuse to have real debates on the facts, and demonize your opponents as global warming deniers, racists and nativist xenophobes. Way to go Lois!
» on 06.28.09 @ 04:40 AM
THIS IS THE FIRST OF MANY OBAMA TAX INCREASES.IT WILL BE THE LARGEST TAX INCREASE WE HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED ON ENERGY.AS FOR THE JOB INCREASES,BE SKEPTICAL.WHE OBAMA PUSHED THE STIMULUS BILL, HE SAID IT WOULD STOP UNEMPLOYMENT AT 8%.IT IS NOW RUNNING CLOSE TO 10%.WE DO NOT NEED THIS TAX ON FUTURE GENERATIONS.
» on 06.28.09 @ 05:41 AM
Spain has tried this approach, with abysmal failure, and it has contributed to 20% unemployment rates there. Drill here, drill now. Build nukes, mine coal.
» on 06.28.09 @ 06:15 AM
Vote NO on the proposed climate Bill. Please stop this madness before America suffers the ultimate price!!!
I Thank you and my children Thank You!!
» on 06.28.09 @ 07:19 AM
Capps is a joke. But we’re not laughing. Just another liberal who got her job on their husband’s coat tails (or in this case, untimely demise.) Absolutely pathetic. In the ring with Sonny Bono’s wife!
Ms. Capps - tell us what ARE your qualifications???
» on 06.28.09 @ 08:12 AM
Lois,
You are a nice nice lady, but you aren’t helping us by running with this crowd. This is not serving California or the U.S.
Your political ambition has to be about over, so STAND UP! Read, listen & don’t follow this President down these rabbit holes of ideology and misguided ambition.
Serve us! Not him.
» on 06.28.09 @ 08:26 AM
This job killing legislation will keep America in recession for years. It is the biggest tax inrease in history disguised as an energy bill. It hits the middle class right in the wallet, especially in states that depend on coal to produce energy. Utility bills will skyrocket. But, hey, how else will Obama fund his government takeover of healthcare?
Hopefully the Senate will see through this ruse.
» on 06.28.09 @ 08:30 AM
As I have pointed out in many blog responses, our way of life and very survival depend on an abundant supply of cheap energy at the base load level. It is not our fault that the human population of the world has overreached its sustainability at the hands of the petroleum civilization. But we will go down in history as the biggest idiots the world has ever known if we pursue an energy policy with no base load supplies to replace petroleum. It is a laudable goal to wean ourselves from petroleum as we develop the next paradigm energy supply. Unfortunately, this is where many realists and the environmental community split and, regrettably, where intelligence and logic seam to disappear in the fog of ideological obfuscation.
Base load energy is the energy that we can produce continuously without interruption. Most of this power is produced via fossil fuels, hydro-electric, nuclear-electric and geo-thermal electric sources and are referred to as base load because the fuel sources are continuous. Renewable bio fuels have the potential for a small base load capacity but also compete with food for arable land and water supplies. Solar and wind are not base load supplies because they are only produced when the energy sources are available. The environmental community has erroneously hitched its entire alternative energy program to non-base load supplies. Nuclear and geo-thermal have all but been left off the table for the pets of the left and one really should be asking why. Most alternative energy advocates I have talked to and researched admit that non-base load supplies have a serious storage issue that makes these supplies much less efficient and much more expensive than the three top base load alternatives to fossil fuels, hydro, nuclear and geo-thermal. So why have these top contenders been left out?
One reason is the environmental community has long invested in the defeat of these energy sources on environmental grounds. Hydro obviously has large scale impacts on the physical environment, changing river valleys into reservoirs. Though destructive at first this method is more likely an environment changer rather than destroyer. Nuclear has some clear safety issues none of which is insurmountable and like with all technology involving high risk and dangerous materials gets safer and cheaper with more use. Geo-thermal has some impacts to the local extraction areas but largely has negligible bio impacts and unknown geologic impacts.
So if these sources are so great and offer the cheapest and most reliable new sources of energy why are we not pursuing them with extreme aggression? Because they do not concentrate power over your behavior in a few hands. They do not make our modern world too expensive and out of reach by all but the very wealthy. The environmental community has been hijacked by social engineers and elitist who view any policy involving the environment must require you to live and austere and minimalist life of slavery and drudgery. These people view current human behavior in the petroleum civilization as bad (driving cars, commuting, convenience, in effect all the modern technology we enjoy). What they do not realize is that cheap abundant energy is also responsible for the information age and for making science and technological innovation available to the masses. Take that away and all those screaming for expensive energy will be spending their time screaming about the deplorable conditions they have to work in while picking tomatoes out in the field.
Yes cheap energy is responsible for all of you having the free time to pursue you intellectual desires and with out it the world goes dark.
» on 06.28.09 @ 12:05 PM
The liberals are chasing millions of jobs to other country’s, this is another liberal job killing mess—Capps—-needs to go—
» on 06.28.09 @ 12:57 PM
SB Native you make me LOL…...........I was with you until you compared Lois to Mary Bono—-then it hit me—-wait a minute—-does being a mediocre pop star make one MORE eligible for Congress than being married to a mediocre pop star? and it went from there…
» on 06.28.09 @ 01:09 PM
This is just a necessary first step, not a cure, nor the end of market capitalism as we
know it.
Conservatives seem to find it so very hard to actually conserve anything. This bill could nudge them toward it.
They would find that an aggressive push to reduce wasted energy in all homes and
commercial buildings, coupled with better fuel efficiency in our motor vehicles would reduce America’s energy consumption by 30-40% within a decade, and move us down the path toward “energy independence”.
They would also find that these changes to improved energy efficiency in existing
vehicles and buildings, and incentives for newer, greener energy sources will create
millions of new jobs (and entire new industries), almost all of which will be in the
private sector.
But don’t fret too hard. In the U.S. Senate, where James Inhofe’s vote carries the
same weight as Dianne Feinstein’s, the leaders of an economic thought anchored
deeply in ... the 17th century, probably have the votes to delay this bill again (even
though it’s not that different from the McCain-authored version they passed 3 years
ago).
So, dear, fearful conservative Republican friends, try to master your panic, expand
your minds, and grow up. No matter what happens with this legislation, you will
still have Clarence Thomas and the NRA to protect you, day and night. Sleep well.
» on 06.28.09 @ 01:38 PM
Are you serious? Why does Lois continually insult our intelligence? This is the largest job destruction bill in history. All it does is increase the cost of doing business in the US with zero net gain in pollution, because it simply forces businesses overseas where there is no cap and tax bill. The pollution goes elsewhere with less jobs for us. If you think everyone will benefit from a few “green” jobs you must be smoking something.
NO tax on anyone making under $200,000 was it? This is an indirect tax on anything or anyone that uses energy, which means anyone who buys food or turns on a light bulb. You need to stop listening to the Democrat leadership and start listening to your constituents Capps, or you are sooo gone.
» on 06.28.09 @ 01:42 PM
CO2 is something you exhale. If Lois would do less of that and stop giving us so much hot air, perhaps the climate would cool.
» on 06.28.09 @ 03:06 PM
Long Time Resident, this is not a partisan matter but one of logic and reason. You are not going to get energy independence by conserving energy. Not that conservation is a bad thing. It is good, but not enough. The cap and trade bill is not about independence or conservation but more about knocking America down to the rest of the worlds level through economic fiat and what better way to do that than to make energy so damned expensive that our way of life grinds to a halt. You may think that having a large fascist nanny state is the only way to get people to change their life style and you are probably right. But since when was that what our country was about? Anyway think what you want, for now, when these nanny state policies become reality and you find that one commodity that cheap energy bought you, your free time, is gone and that the convenience that cheap energy bought you is now replaced by your long and tiring labor you might reflect on whether it was a wise proposition to scuttle humanity back to the dark ages.
» on 06.28.09 @ 05:28 PM
Point taken, that Sonny Bono had no qualifications either. But whatever Walter Capps’ were, they ARE NOT his wife’s! And she continues to prove that with her don’t worry be happy feel good votes and rhetoric.
I DON’T feel good about the Cap & “Tax” bill, do you?
» on 06.28.09 @ 05:38 PM
More re Cap & “Tax”
See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/28/AR2009062802955.html?hpid=topnews
It’s not insignificant that GE owns NBC, whose news division has been slobberingly friendly to ALL policies of the Obama administration. MSNBC has become a major propaganda arm of the Democrat party.
It’s also not insignificant that Al Gore is a major shareholder in GE, which will hugely benefit from bullshit “Cap and Trade” legislation, resulting in MUCH higher costs for electricity to consumers, a conversion of our energy grid to “new and green” technology (translating into new massive sales by GE), plus huge tax increase by the Obama administration.
As “Deep Throat” said in Oliver Stone’s “JFK” - “Follow the money!”
» on 06.29.09 @ 04:21 AM
If the nutjob liberals with too much time on their hands realized how this might eliminate leisure time along with all it’s associated decadent activities like the solstice parade and fiesta as we struggle merely to survive economically, they might think twice about supporting it…
» on 06.29.09 @ 10:03 AM
Wasn’t Sonny Bono the mayor of Palm Springs before he ran for the house? And by the way B.O. promised no taxes for anyone making 250K or less not $200K. He’s been revising it down ever since. Unfortunately, as long as the ribbon of shame that is the 23rd district exists in its present form we won’t be rid of Lois for a long time to come. There are just too many zombies that drink the kool aid, are jealous of other’s success, and are too attached to other people’s money.
» on 06.29.09 @ 11:41 AM
Glad to see the lively debate. Not sure where the angst and anger are coming from.
Lois Capps is an honest, caring public servant, not aiming for higher office. That in itself makes us lucky to have her, whether we agree with all her votes or not.
Imagine, we could be represented by Jim Ensign or Mark Sanford. Or that turkey Jefferson, from New Orleans, who had thousands of dollars stuffed in baggies and shoe-boxes in his freezer when Katrina wrecked the town. He helicoptered in to a beleaguered city not to help his desparate constituents, but to grab his graft money.
America used to be about work place innovation leading to new jobs, new markets, and financial success. So why the panic about a new Energy Bill?
America wastes lots of energy on old-fashioned infrastructure and design. To
upgrade should mean lots of new jobs - badly needed - and yield lots of energy
efficient homes, offices, plants, and vehicles.
Using less energy to maintain our current lifestyle should mean reducing our
expensive imports of oil and gas from some of the world’s nastier, repressive,
unstable regimes.
If we can do that, and reduce carbon emissions at the same time, where’s the harm?
A robust free market system leaps at opportunities within existing markets, and
openings to create profitable new markets and products. The Energy Bill seems to
offer profit potential in both areas.
Noozhawk readers must be aware that the American Petroleum Industry, and
the Coal Industry flacks, are flogging the fear factor non-stop to slow this down.
If we import less oil and gas, burn less coal, but get better fuel efficiency in sleeker,
more responsive homes and offices, they might sell less of their products, and make
less profits ... which in Bush II’s 2nd term, were the highest of any industry in modern world economic history. So their motivation for more-of-the-same policy is pretty clear.
But the rest of us should give Congresswoman Capps and the new Energy Bill a chance. If it works, we get a more efficient, productive, competitive America, and renewed leadership on the world economic stage. If it doesn’t work, we can tweak it or rescind it.
Either way, there’s little danger we’ll become some kind of Iranian or Russian dictatorship.
» on 06.29.09 @ 01:50 PM
If the nutjob liberals with too much time on their hands realized how this might eliminate leisure time along with all it’s associated decadent activities like the solstice parade and fiesta as we struggle merely to survive economically, they might think twice about supporting it…
» on 06.29.09 @ 02:53 PM
Publius, the anger comes from the realization that intellectuals like you still don’t get it. Global warming has become a religion and the first fatwa has been set down, every breath you exhale is now air pollution. Ya, that pisses me off alright. When you morons wake up tomorrow and realize the EPA made a natural and necessary component of life on this planet illegal and now have regulatory power over your very ability to breath you just might get pissed off too. This whole thing is absolute insanity. But hey, you idiots go bury your head in the sand and let your messiah be the dictator who brings you change.
» on 06.29.09 @ 05:05 PM
“America used to be about work place innovation leading to new jobs, new markets, and financial success.”
Exactly! And none of that was done by the government raising taxes and spending our money and our children’s money! “Used to be” is right. Until Obama stepped in. Now America is about handicapping the very businesses that provide all that!
» on 06.30.09 @ 03:58 AM
Obviously too many are (see Publius above) The anger comes from the deception from politicians like Capps - - the slight of hand of saying this will “create jobs” without giving the full story of how it will also destroy jobs, more than it will create. Sure it will create a few green jobs while others move overseas to a more business friendly environment, and while companies lay off as many as it takes to offset this new tax burden imposed on businesses.
» on 06.30.09 @ 07:45 AM
I understand why some women need Burka’s-The men just get tired of it…
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