Report from the GOP Whip Team bloggers' conference call on "cap and tax"

Take a look at that picture on the right. It's a Burlington Northern coal train running through rural Nebraska, most likely headed to Omaha, and from there probably to some other Midwestern cities.

Most of that coal ends up in power plants. The computer you're using now, particularly if you live in America's Heartland, is very likely powered by coal.

It also provides the energy for factories, such as the string of steel mills 50 miles from me in Northwest Indiana.

I'm mentioning this because this afternoon I participated in the bi-weekly GOP Whip Team bloggers' conference call, which is organized by Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).

Joining McCarthy was Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE), who lives in Omaha, and Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH), who represents a northwestern Ohio district with quite a bit of heavy industry.

The Bakersfield congressman, as he always does, began the call, but this time I was thrown for a loop, when he explained that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi decided to put cap-and-trade legislation on the fast track--"her number one priority." According to McCarthy, she plans to utilize legislative maneuvers to get the job done.

As that famous Nebraskan Johnny Carson used to say, "I did not know that."

Ironically, Pelosi was in China last month, where she failed to get the ChiComms to agree to any cutbacks on their carbon emissions. Surprise, surprise.

Earlier this week, a Chinese group purchased Hummer. Interesting.

Cap and trade, sometimes called emissions trading, is a complicated scheme where utilities and manufacturers buy credits which allow them to burn carbon fuels such as coal. Those credits are bought from the federal government. Cap and trade should really be called cap and tax, or simply an energy tax, and if passed, it will break Barack Obama's promise not to raise taxes for people earning less than $250,000.

The legislation, formally known as Waxman-Markey, was approved "even though the chairman Mr. (Henry) Waxman actually admitted he didn't know what was in the bill," McCarthy said.

Waxman is a Beverly Hills Democrat.

McCarthy then turned the call over to Terry, who said we should instead strive for a comprehensive energy plan, and reminded the bloggers that we import 14 million barrels of oil per day. Terry then discussed the need for additional electricity, declaring, "We need about 260 new power plants of one gigawatt to meet our energy needs for the next 25 years."

Waxman-Markey does not address these issues.

Calling the bill "punitive to coal," Terry used the example of the utility in his district, Omaha Public Power, which will have to spend at least $74 million dollars the first year cap and trade becomes law. By 2020 that amount will be as much as $400 million a year. That money will be spent on coal credits, not in investing in cleaner energy technologies, Terry explained.

Cap and trade is friendly to wind and solar power, but of these sources Terry says "they do have a part," but they can only be a supplement to our energy needs. Having them do more is "a fantasy" the Nebraskan said.

What about nuclear? Republican suggestions to promote this energy source--from which most electricity comes from in Barack Obama's Chicago (I'm bringing that local bit in, Terry didn't take his discussion that far), is simply off the Democrats' table.

Ohioan Latta then took over, and he immediately brought up the Heritage Foundation's Manufacturing Vulnerability Index ranking of Congressional districts based upon how cap and trade would effect industry in each. Latta's district came in third. But being near the top is not where you want to be--remember, it's the vulnerability index.

Latta explained of the first twenty districts in that index ranking, "Sixteen of the twenty are in Ohio and Indiana." Both are big coal-using states, and Latta rattled off a dozen plants in his district, including a General Motors assembly facility and a Whirlpool factory that are dependent on affordable electricity.

Among the least effected districts Latta said, are Waxman's and Pelosi's. The speaker represents a San Francisco constituency.

It appears to be a pincer movement of the East Coast and the West Coast against the Midwest, but the end result will be a blackout for American workers everywhere.

Latta ominously guarantees "job losses by the millions across the country that will not be made up by green jobs" if cap and trade becomes law.

This is not change that I can believe in.

Click here for California Conservative's take on the call.

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