Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Dear President Obama: More lies: "Electricity rates would necessarilly have to skyrocket." But you didn't say that last night.

MORE lies, Mr. President?

During the campaign, you said:

The problem is not technical, and the problem is not sufficient mastery of the legislative intricacies of Washington.

The problem is can you get the American people to say this is really important and force their representatives to do the right thing? That requires mobilizing a citizenry. That requires them understanding what is at stake, and climate change is a great example.

When I was asked earlier about the issue of coal…under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket…even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad, because I’m capping greenhouse gasses, coal power plants, natural gas…you name it…whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to retro-fit their operations. That will cost money…they will pass that money on to the consumers. You can already see what the arguments are going to be during the general election. People will say Obama and Al Gore …these folks...they're going to destroy the economy.

This is going to cost us 8 trillion dollars or whatever their number is. If you can’t persuade the American people that, yes, there is going to be some increase on electricity rates on the front end, but that over the long term, because of combinations of more efficient energy usage and changing light bulbs and more efficient appliances, but also technology improving how we can produce clean energy that the economy will benefit.

If we can’t make that argument persuasively enough, you can be Lyndon Johnson. You can be the master of Washington. You’re not gonna get that done.




The problem is that you said something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT last night:

When it comes to cap-and-trade, the broader principle is that we've got to
move to a new energy era, and that means moving away from polluting energy
sources towards cleaner energy sources. That is a potential engine for economic
growth.

I think cap-and-trade is the best way, from my perspective, to achieve some of those gains, because what it does is it starts pricing the pollution that's being sent into the atmosphere.

The way it's structured has to take into account regional differences. It has to protect consumers from huge spikes in electricity prices. So there are a lot of technical issues that are going to have to be sorted through.






Mr. President, it seems that in every day... in every way, more of your lies are coming to the surface.

Isn't it about time for you to stop?

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