Climate Change & Deficit Spending
The link between climate change and toilets can be found in the
Waxman-Markey cap & trade bill, HR 2454.
This bill establishes rules for a plethora of products including light
bulbs, search lights, light fixtures, water dispensers, portable
electric spas, warm air furnaces, faucets, toilets, clothes washers,
shower heads and urinals, among others.
It also goes into great detail as to how these items are to be tested.
It then establishes how the government is to pay dealers and
manufacturers for selling best-in-class products and for retiring old
products.
Not satisfied with establishing Best-in-Class products, the bill
establishes Superefficient-Best-in-Class products.
Here is the language for payments to manufacturers for the years
indicated.
“For years 2011 through 2013, the Secretary shall make bonus payments to
manufacturers of the products designated in paragraph (4)(A) for each
product produced in the following amounts:
(i)
$75 for each dishwasher.
(ii) $250 for each clothes washer.
(iii) $200 for each refrigerator or refrigerator-freezer
(vi) $300 for each water heater”
This will result in huge payments to manufacturers, in the order of
billions of dollars, when the government is already broke.
(This is in addition to the $300 million stimulus rebates.)
The bill States:
“There are authorized to be appropriated $600,000,000 for each of the
fiscal years 2011 through 2013 to the Secretary of Energy for purposes
of this section, and such sums as may be necessary for subsequent fiscal
years.”
It goes on to provide for payment of bounties:
“(2) BOUNTIES.—Bounties shall be payable—
(A) to a retailer upon documentation that the sale of a Best-in-Class
Product was accompanied by the replacement, retirement, and recycling
of—“
HR 2454 is over 1400 pages long, so the subject addressed here is only a
small snippet of what is contained in the bill.
Net Metering
Net metering requires an electric utility to pay twice as much, or more,
for electricity than if it generated the electricity at its power plant.
When only a very small number of customers take advantage of net
metering the extra cost to the utility is extremely small and the effect
on other customers is negligible.
If a large number of customers used net metering, the extra cost to the
utility would have to be covered by other customers. In other words,
people would be subsidizing their neighbors cost of electricity when the
neighbor uses net metering.
The purported purpose of net metering is to encourage people to install
distributed generation capabilities, primarily PV solar. The cost of a
PV solar rooftop installation is extremely high, especially when
measured by cost per kWh. The cost per kWh of electricity from a central
natural gas, coal or nuclear power station is much lower.
Net metering works by allowing the electric meter installed on a home to
run backwards. When the home owner uses electricity from the grid, the
meter advances and registers a sale for the utility.
When the home owner generates more electricity than he can use, the
meter runs backwards as the electricity flows to the grid. The meter
deducts the amount of electricity flowing to the grid thereby reducing
the home owner’s bill. The homeowner is, in effect, selling electricity
to the utility at the same price he would pay the utility when buying
electricity from the utility.
Advocates of net metering claim that net metering encourages the use of
renewables and reduces capital expenditures by the utility. Net metering
is different from conservation because it requires a large capital
investment by the home owner. The homeowner’s investment is less
efficient, as shown above, than an investment made by the utility.
In effect, inefficient use of capital is being encouraged by net
metering.
Section 152 of the Waxman-Markey bill specifically requires federal
buildings to use net metering.
This will reduce the cost of electricity to the government, but will
increase the utility’s costs that will eventually have to be borne by
the ordinary rate payer. Net metering by the federal government becomes
a hidden tax on consumers.
As seen in Bacons Rebellion, September 2009
In
the private sector, any manager who submitted a proposal to his boss and
then had to follow-up with 35 pages of corrections after the proposal
had been approved would probably be fired.
But enacting legislation with numerous errors is acceptable conduct in
Congress.
Congress passed the Energy Independence and Securities Act of 2007 which
seems to have been riddled with errors, because the House had to include
35 pages of “technical corrections” in HR 2454.
Passing legislation quickly, without adequate time for review,
contributed to creating these errors.
The apparent fact that few Congressmen or women read legislation before
they vote on it, is also is a contributing factor.
The Waxman-Markey cap & trade legislation is now being rushed through
Congress without adequate time for review.
There are many problems with the Waxman Markey cap & trade bill (HR
2454) but Congress isn’t taking time to review this bill that had been
quickly passed this year and that is 1428 pages long. Here is a snippet
of this bill.
‘‘(4) CUSTOMER FACILITY SAVINGS.—
The term ‘customer facility savings’ means a reduction in end use
electricity consumption (including recycled energy savings) at a
facility of an end-use consumer of electricity served by a retail
electric supplier, as compared to—
‘‘(A) in the case of a new facility, consumption at a reference facility
of average efficiency;
‘‘(B) in the case of an existing facility, consumption at such facility
during a base period, except as provided in subparagraphs (C) and (D);
‘‘(C) in the case of new equipment that replaces existing equipment with
remaining useful life, the projected consumption of the existing
equipment for the remaining useful life of such equipment, and
thereafter, consumption of new equipment of average efficiency of the
same equipment type; and
‘‘(D) in the case of new equipment that replaces existing equipment at
the end of the useful life of the existing equipment, consumption
by new equipment of average efficiency of the same equipment type.”
It’s questionable whether anyone knows what this sub-section means. When
someone finally determines what it means, new legislation correcting
this will have to be enacted … Or some bureaucrat will establish a rule
that defines the meaning of this section, thereby allowing Congress to
abrogate its responsibilities.
Congress is clearly out of control, and the need for 35 pages of
corrections to recently enacted legislation, proves this to be the case.