Inhofe: Waxman-Markey Dead in the Water

Updates below.

Via Memeorandum and Michelle, U.S. Senator Inhofe says the cap and trade bill "is dead in the water" when it arrives in the Senate.

Do not let this lull us into complacency! I don't believe it for a minute. If you read the Politico piece yesterday about how Nancy Pelosi whipped up the necessary votes in the House, you would see why we need to be concerned. I expect the same shenanigans in the Senate.

Oh, Inhofe is encouraging, to be sure. He says “They are not going to get more than 35 votes.’’ We can hope. But in the meantime, call your Senators. This is a terrible bill. In fact, Inhofe even suggests the possibility that a criminal investigation should be launched regarding the suppressed EPA report but isn't "qualified" to make that judgment.

I wrote this yesterday about the cap and trade bill, which I've been trying to read:

And how will this bill affect you? It has regulations on every single aspect of your daily life. There are light bulb restrictions (no more than 60 watts in your candelabra); in fact there's a whole section that deals with lamps. If you decide to build a new home, it must meet new and specific energy requirements. If you decide to sell your existing home, a federal inspector must inspect your home, determine it's energy rating, and if your home is found to be unacceptable then you must retrofit and make changes before you will be able to sell.

There's an entire section on planting trees including guidelines on "scientific based measurements outlining the species and minimum distance required between trees planted...in addition to the minimum required distance to be maintained between such trees and building foundations, air conditioning units, driveways and walkways...". Do we really need the federal government telling us where we can plant trees?

There's a section dealing with outdoor lighting in which you are given instructions about landscape lights, lights in your swimming pool, lights on artwork and other architectural lighting. The federal government is going to tell you what wattage that light can be and how many you can have. In some cases the lights must be capable of producing two different light levels (100 and 60 watt).

There are new government regulations for water dispensers, hot tubs and other appliances. They're going to regulate water usage, and regulate wood stoves. Any wood stove that does not meet regulation must be "destroyed and recycled."

In addition, this article explains how lower income families will get cash via direct deposit to help offset their energy cost (it's in section 432).

I hope Inhofe is correct and this bill is dead meat. I'm not saying that saving energy is a bad thing, but this bill is bad. This bill will chase jobs out of the United States; they might be saying it's a "jobs bill" but it isn't.

And now we have "the clown" from Minnesota coming to the Senate just in time to lend his oh-so-wise voice to the Waxman-Markey debate and the health care debate.

2010 can't come soon enough.

Update: I want to clarify the statement on the housing energy standards. The government is not going to literally tell you that you can't sell your home unless it meets certain energy criteria but it does establish an energy performance labeling system that would rate your home's energy standards and this information would be available to any buyer. A full disclosure sort of thing. If your windows are leaky and your insulation poor, your appliances out of date, this would all affect your rating thus making it more difficult to sell your home. This is optional (at this time).

Here is a short article that clarifies this.

I've also posted this update on my original Waxman-Markey post.