Palin's editorial attacking President Obama's cap-and-trade plan is terribly misinformed and/or purposefully misleading. Unfortunately, in today's infopropegainment (one of my favorite Jon Stewart words) news style, Sarah Palin gets a lot of air time, and as much cannot be said of her opponents.
First, some general points.
We must remember that this is a woman who does not believe that humans are causing global warming. Her arguments for further use of dirty energy sources is tainted by her inaccurate concepts.
It's also significant that Sarah Palin is building a base founded on controversial issues in what I consider to be her early campaigning for the 2012 Presidential Race. It is classic Republican campaign strategy to be against taxes (although their actual track record tends to suggest otherwise).
Let's break down her arguments, shall we?
"The Americans hit hardest will be those already struggling to make ends meet... So much for not raising taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year."
The Cap-and-Trade (TRADE, not TAX) plan generates $650 billion in federal funds over the course of seven years, $80 billion of which will be contributed towards middle-class tax cuts. [1]
"Job losses are so certain under this new cap-and-tax plan that it includes a provision accommodating newly unemployed workers from the resulting dried-up energy sector, to the tune of $4.2 billion over eight years. So much for creating jobs."
The proposal would create jobs in a new rapidly growing clean energy sector. The proposal promises that new jobs created will not be outsourced [2- pg 100]. Pew reports that between 1998 and 2007 job growth in the clean energy sector has progressed at nearly three times that of the economy in general -- even though the government has favored making financial contributions to fossil fuel energy over green alternatives [3- pg 3]. The report goes on to say that by giving clean energy a boost through President Obama's plan, new lasting jobs (this is significant because we know that fossil fuel is non-renewable) will be generated. This projection is supported by Pew's research on state energy programs. [3- pg 40-41].
"In Alaska, we are progressing on the largest private-sector energy project in history. Our 3,000-mile natural gas pipeline will transport hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of our clean natural gas to hungry markets across America."
Projected cost of the Alaskan Highway Pipeline project is over $20 billion and will not begin producing revenue until 2016 [4]. Obama's plan begins producing revenue in 2010. The pipeline plan will only further entrench our economy in an extremely harmful energy culture whose days are numbered. While natural gas is preferable to coal in emission levels, it still is not clean. Environmental impacts of actually building a 2,140 mile long pipeline to Canada and then distribution pipelines from there is yet to be determined.
"We can safely drill for U.S. oil offshore and in a tiny, 2,000-acre corner of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge if ever given the go-ahead by Washington bureaucrats."
The 2000-acres only refers to the land on which the rig supports actually touch the ground. The actual area affected would be much greater due to multi-directional drilling technology - "horizontal production wells" [5]. Plus, drilling crews need to build roads through the nature reserve to bring them to drilling sites, and then carry very heavy equipment along these roads which harms the ice shelf.
The Energy Information Administration reports that there is a 95% probability that ANWR contains 5.7 billion gallons of recoverable oil [6]; that would fuel the USA for less than a year at current rates.
Bottom line, Palin's arguments are simply inaccurate.
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Citations:
1. Samuelsohn, Darren and Bravender, Robin. "Obama's draft budget projects cap-and-trade revenue." Scientific American. 02/26/2009. <http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=cap-and-trade-obama-budget>.
3. The Pew Charitable Trusts. "The Clean Energy Economy." June 2009. <http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/uploadedFiles/Clean_Economy_Report_Web.pdf> [PDF]
4. "Alaska Highway Pipeline". 2009. <http://www.jobmonkey.com/oilindustry/html/alaska_highway_pipeline.html>
6. Energy Information Administration. "Potential Oil Production from the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge". <http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/analysis_publications/arctic_national_wildlife_refuge/html/execsummary.html>
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Further Reading:
great headline. thanks for the research!
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