Detroit, Mich. – Michigan and other Midwestern states will be the big losers from cap-and-trade legislation imposed by Washington, but something called the Climate Protection Action Fund (a Gore-funded group) has enlisted Michigan’s very own Rep. Gary Peters (D., Oakland Co.) as its poster child for leadership in supporting DC’s massive Midwest energy tax.
Peters stars in a CPAF radio ad that is blanketing Michigan airwaves this month as part of a Green lobbying effort to pressure Michigan’s Senate leadership to follow their House brethren in passing the Clean Energy and Security Act and strangle Midwest manufacturing.
Peters supports “using fuel that’s free and won’t run out,” preaches the ad’s narrator. And all this “free” wind power will create 53,000 jobs in the state while cutting consumers’ utility bills by “$110 a year.”
This is poppycock and Peters knows it. Never mind that windmills can’t power 80-acre auto plants. Never mind conservative think tank studies that predict a doubling in utility rates and a 74 percent increase in gas prices if cap-and-trade should pass. President Obama himself knows that cap-and-trade would be costly to consumers — which is why candidate Obama promised that the proceeds from the tax would be redistributed to consumers.
So why is Peters shilling for legislation that draws a target on his constituents’ backs? Power. And not the megawatt kind.
Peters and other Midwest Democrats have cut deals that distribute the cap-and-trade windfall — not to their constituents — but to their favorite special interests: Big Auto and Big Labor. Reports the Detroit News:
The 932-page climate change bill would provide the struggling auto industry with billions of dollars in funding for advanced vehicles as part of a proposed plan to limit carbon emissions. The bill would grant automakers 3 percent of the federal government’s revenue from carbon emissions permits starting in 2012 — allowances that could be worth $12 billion to $17 billion. That money will be routed through a series of government programs to encourage advanced technology vehicles.
And as the brokers of this billion-dollar windfall, pols like Peters will skim their own campaign cash fees.
The UAW strongly supports the effort “to help auto manufacturers and parts companies retool facilities in the United States to produce advanced technology vehicles,” says the UAW’s Alan Reuther. “Taken together, these provisions will help to accelerate the introduction of advanced vehicles, thereby reducing oil consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.”
The Climate Protection Action Fund couldn’t have put it any better. The green-industrial complex brought to you by Gary Peters. Iron Triangle anyone?