On June 26 An expensive new “energy tax” bill was approved by the House of Representatives by a vote of 219 to 212 (click here to see how your rep voted). This bill is known as the “American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009,” H.R. 2454, also known as the Waxman-Markey climate change bill.

Most Americans know this bill as a “cap-and-trade” bill for the purpose of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and global warming by creating a system of pollution permits that energy companies must buy before releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Now the 'cap and trade' debate moves on to the Senate where a vote is expected to occur this fall. However, sufficient pressure to defeat any form of 'cap and trade' bill must be developed as soon as possible in case Senate consideration is scheduled earlier. Committee hearings on a Senate bill based on H.R. 2454 are planned for early July.

There are several very important reasons for Americans to oppose any form of 'cap and trade' bill:

(1) At exactly the time when more and more Americans are realizing that our federal government is out of control, a cap and trade bill would establish a whole new unconstitutional activity of the federal government and give it yet another regulatory tool for increasing the cost of doing business, which would necessarily translate into higher costs for consumers.

“[U]nder my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” -- Barack Obama, 2008 (click on photo to see video of this statement)

(2) A cap and trade bill would lead to increased expenses for American households of thousands of dollars per year. A recent Congressional Budget Office report estimated that the cost per household would be as little as $175 per year. However, the Heritage Foundation has responded with “CBO Grossly Underestimates Costs of Cap and Trade,” in which they point out that the CBO study assumes nearly 100% of the increased costs for businesses will be rebated to consumers by the federal government (when has this ever happened?) and omits consideration of negative impacts on the economy of thousands of dollars per household. Bottom line, don’t rely on the CBO report to be an accurate forecast of the additional costs you’ll be paying each year due to passage of a cap and trade bill.

For additional analysis of the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill, see "The Waxman-Markey Global Warming Bill: Is the Economic Pain Justified by the Environmental Gain?" Furthermore, on June 26 the Wall Street Journal published an excellent article that says this bill would likely "be the biggest tax in American history."

(3) The whole reason for existence of expensive cap and trade schemes is based on the global warming myth that man’s activities are producing significant temperature increases. Take a cold bath in reality by reading "A Cooling Trend Toward Global Warming."

We must not provide the federal government with new powers to regulate businesses that would lead to at least hundreds of dollars of new expenses per household each year and more likely to thousands of dollars of new expenses per year.

Help preserve your freedom and prosperity by telling your senators that you are strongly opposed to any form of cap and trade bill!

Take action now by clicking here and sending an email to your senators in vigorous opposition to any cap and trade energy tax.

Let's draw a line in the sand. We must defeat this huge energy tax!

'Skyrocketing Energy Costs' vs. 'Clean Energy Bill' -- Which Cap and Trade Obama Video Do You Believe?

Last year candidate Barack Obama said, "[U]nder my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." Here's the video:

This week President Barack Obama said, "This week the House of Representatives is moving ahead on historic legislation that will transform the way we produce and use energy in America." Here's the video:

If you pick the first video, congratulations!

But now you need to work fast!

The House is expected to vote on a cap and trade bill, H.R. 2454, which amounts to a several thousand dollars per household per year energy tax, as early as Friday, June 26.

The vote is expected to be close.

Click here to learn more about H.R. 2454.

Click here to send an email to your representative in the U.S. House.

We need your help!

Sufficient numbers of Americans simply must begin to band together to convince Congress to bring the federal government back under the control of the Constitution.

Help us to build the huge constitutionalist, grassroots movement that is required to preserve our freedom and prosperity by joining the JBS Community.

Thanks.

This one’s not going to sit well with the couch potato crowd and several generations of viewers whose physical and social development and behaviors have been greatly impacted by television programming and who insist on buying the ever larger and fancier TV models that dominate homes, but California regulators have now targeted the family television set. And how California and the industry goes, so goes the nation.

It seems that plasma and LCD television sets are energy hogs. The California Energy Commission says a 42-inch plasma TV uses more energy than a large refrigerator. The Commission will go after manufacturers to reduce the energy usage by setting energy limits for all new TVs by 2013.

You weren’t thinking the government was going to regulate the length of time one could view their main access into the homes and minds of the people, were you? Oh no. Network programming is too easily a propaganda tool to forego; through careful crafting, the medium of mainstream media can mold opinion on a massive scale, in favor of the government’s perspective, of course. Besides, there’s something to be said for the escapism value as well -- the masses have to be able to be lulled and pacified somehow.

For five-hours-a-day usage, the average television consumes 10 percent of a household’s electricity. But specifically, based on that five hours a day, a plasma TV will use 688 kilowatt hours a year, an LCD will use 275 kilowatt hours a year, and the old-fashioned cathode ray tube TV will use 183 kilowatt hours per year.

By making a few changes in technology such as reducing the brightness of the picture, the reason people buy the plasmas and LCD’s in the first place, some energy reduction can be achieved, but only saving about $104 to $164 over the lifetime of the appliance, with the actual extra cost of “a few tens of dollars.” Not much feasibility there.

The Consumer Electronics Association conducted a study and found that retail sales will probably fall as a result of the increase in prices with the corresponding drop in tax revenue to the tune of $50 million, so the whole effort may be self defeating in the end for the state of California. Nonetheless, the regulators cannot resist regulating.

Of course, they’re all missing the obvious: shut the thing off or throw it out altogether, thereby saving a lot of energy and one’s sanity to boot. Wouldn’t this be the only truly “green” thing to do?

For nigh unto two decades Americans have been told that China, Russia, and other totalitarian nations traditionally hostile to freedom, closed to free markets, aggressive towards the West and the U.S., and murderous in their conduct towards their neighbors and own people, have mellowed.

"They've changed. They're embracing freedom," we're reminded by academics and news pundits over and over again.

So, after endless bailouts and the deliberate transfer of U.S. industry and technological know-how to those socialist countries, what are we getting in return?

"Venezuela will buy combat and training aircraft from China this week," Breitbart recently reported.

Chavez, “a staunch foe of the US government,” the report continues, “confirmed that while in Beijing he will arrange the construction of tanker vessels in Chinese shipyards, with the aim of installing a shipyard in Venezuela in the near future.”

If we think we’re hurting at the pump right now, “Caracas,” which “provides 500,000 barrels of oil per day to Beijing,” is about to ramp that up to “one million barrels a day by 2012.” Chavez’s petro-Marxist regime is also poised to benefit from the “construction of a refinery in China to process oil from Venezuela.”

Increasing our refining-capacity is something Americans have been led to believe we can do without, because, after all, as the junk science press incessantly reminds, with all the scientific backing of a fairy tale, our consumption of fuels is causing “global warming.”

So, while we base economic policies on environmental myths, our nations’ traditional enemies have used our trade deficits, generous economic concessions, and technology transfers to gear up for cornering the supply of easy oil across the globe.

And just to let us know that they still can’t be pushed around, Russia is now gearing up for military exercises near Venezuela.

The cost of empire-building, with the middle class footing the bill, just doesn't make the ROI worth it, does it?