Liberal logic embodied in the words of Obama

[_bcspace]

Spalding’s comments, made at the Beyond Pesticides’ 30th National Pesticide Forum March 30-31, mirror those made by then candidate Obama in 2008. In which he explained that under his cap and trade system coal would suffer.

“[I]f somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can,” the president said while campaigning. “It’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted. That will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in solar, wind, biodiesel, and other alternative energy approaches.”

http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/04/region-1-epa-administrator-obama-coal-rules-painful-every-step-of-the-way/

Knowing they will be bankrupt for so doing, who would build such a plant? The [liberal-led] government? And if a plant is not built, where will the "billions of dollars" in "greenhouse gas" charges come from?

[_Drifting]

Spalding’s comments, made at the Beyond Pesticides’ 30th National Pesticide Forum March 30-31, mirror those made by then candidate Obama in 2008. In which he explained that under his cap and trade system coal would suffer.

“[I]f somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can,” the president said while campaigning. “It’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted. That will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in solar, wind, biodiesel, and other alternative energy approaches.”

http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/04/region-1-epa-administrator-obama-coal-rules-painful-every-step-of-the-way/

Knowing they will be bankrupt for so doing, who would build such a plant? The [liberal-led] government? And if a plant is not built, where will the "billions of dollars" in "greenhouse gas" charges come from?

Don't worry, Romney's company will step in, buy it for a song, rip the @rse out of it, take a load of money out and then fold it at the expense of lots and lots of jobs.

[_Analytics]

Spalding’s comments, made at the Beyond Pesticides’ 30th National Pesticide Forum March 30-31, mirror those made by then candidate Obama in 2008. In which he explained that under his cap and trade system coal would suffer.

“f somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can,” the president said while campaigning. “It’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted. That will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in solar, wind, biodiesel, and other alternative energy approaches.”

http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/04/region-1-epa-administrator-obama-coal-rules-painful-every-step-of-the-way/

Knowing they will be bankrupt for so doing, who would build such a plant? The [liberal-led] government? And if a plant is not built, where will the "billions of dollars" in "greenhouse gas" charges come from?

There are at least several reasons for your confusion.

First, you didn’t listen to what Obama said in context.

Second, you didn’t listen to what Curt Spalding (the EPA administer who spoke at Yale) said in context.

Third, you have no understanding of the economic rationale of cap and trade (if you did understand cap and trade, you’d understand why it is fundamentally a conservative solution that uses free-markets to encourage companies take responsibility for the harm they cause the environment in their pursuit of profits for themselves).

Forth, you don’t understand the Clean Air Act (signed by George H. W. Bush in 1990) which the EPA is enforcing.

President Bush signing the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. Standing left to right are EPA Administrator William K. Reilly, Energy Secretary James Watkins, and Vice President Dan Quayle.

The Clean Air Act requires the EPA to set increasingly high standards of pollution requirements for power plants. In compliance with that law, the new standards dictate that new power plants need to be at least as clean as a modern power plant that burns natural gas. Industry is totally free to make new coal power plants, provided the new coal plants are as least as clean as natural gas plants.

This has nothing to do with so-called “liberal logic.” It’s the EPA doing its best to follow the laws that congress passed.

[_EAllusion]

Cap and trade is a solution that came out of relatively libertarian behavioral economics as a solution for environmental regulation. It used to be supported widely by conservatives as an alternative to more direct bans and taxes. I once supported it on many air pollution issues, but no longer do so on some of them. Not because of BSCspace screw the environment! Take that liberals! Yaaargh! reasons, but because I think it would be effective for many air pollutants only if you can get global buy in and you can't. The environmental costs of pollution have to be dealt with though.

The idea behind cap and trade is simply to build into the price of the product being produced the cost of the environmental damage it caused. By allowing an exchange of pollution credits, it allows for market innovation to hopefully more rapidly come up with efficiencies to reduce business costs and therefore reduce the environmental damage of production.

A very libertarian solution would be to leave the issue of environmental damage, which is real, to contract law. You get to [class action] sue businesses for the damages to your air as it is a form of property damage no different than a business damaging your house by mistake. There's a host of problems with that given the way the world works, not the least of which is that this would require privatization of common property to a degree that seems politically unattainable.

BCSpace's apparent solution of letting businesses destroy everyone else's property at will in exchange for miniature American flags is pretty cool, though.

[_Bond James Bond]

Knowing they will be bankrupt for so doing...

Speaking of bankrupting the US of A:

[_bcspace]

It's really and truly a case of trying to have one's cake and eat it too. Obama continues to impress us with his Newspeak, Today for example:

Private sector doing fine. Economy NOT doing fine.