Hot Air has a good analysis at what’s at stake with the two bills making their way through the House and Senate to keep the EPA from implementing a backdoor cap-and-tax scheme.
As early as today, Congress will be taking up two different matters, both of which seek to prevent the EPA from effectively passing a back-door version of Cap and Trade by regulating greenhouse gas emissions. First, the House is scheduled to vote on HR 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011. You can read the full text of the bill here, but the summary pretty much says it all.
To amend the Clean Air Act to prohibit the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from promulgating any regulation concerning, taking action relating to, or taking into consideration the emission of a greenhouse gas to address climate change, and for other purposes.
At nearly the same time, the Senate will take up Mitch McConnell’s EPA amendment, attached to S. 493, the SBIR/STTR Reauthorization bill, which seeks to effectively accomplish the same thing. So why is this important to you?
Once congressional Democrats saw public support for cap and trade eroding and lost their taste for a battle on the hill over it, the Obama administration moved to sidestep the legislative process and essentially accomplish the same goals through EPA regulatory fiat. And make no mistake, nothing has changed. This still works out to be a de facto tax, where energy companies will incur major new costs to comply with the rules which they will then pass on to consumers.
The rest here.