Although it has been touted as a cost-effective bill replete with clean energy inducements, the “American Clean Energy and Security Act” of 2009 is in fact “the most profoundly anti-consumer legislation ever brought before a Congress,” Robert Michaels, an economist with the CATO institute declared in testimony.
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee introduced a draft version of the bill in March. In his testimony before the full committee Michaels said the “Waxman-Markey” legislation would do long term harm to America’s standing in the world.
“The bill’s effects start with scarcer and more expensive energy, but hardly stop there,” Michaels said. What happens in energy markets will to varying degrees increase the price of all other goods and services that use energy in their production. The higher prices mean lower standards of living for the American consumers who purchase them. They also mean that American goods become less attractive to foreign buyers than those from competitor nations that are attempting to develop their energy sectors rather than downgrade them. The bill’s entire thrust is to make energy needlessly scarce; and then somehow conclude that this action is good for the economy.”
