Thank GOD Daniel Mongiardo is standing against cap and trade. This legislation would devastate Kentucky's economy and Virginia's economy as well. We need leaders who will not follow the DC crowd blindly. Mongiardo will take a stand and stick with it. It is refreshing that we have a Lt. Governor and a leading Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate who has the guts to take a stand.
With Mongiardo sounding off strongly against cap and trade, what will Jack Conway do? He absolutely must support cap and trade because his constituents would hang him if he didn't. So listen up Rural Kentucky, Daniel Mongiardo is on your side.
Mongiardo Takes Strong Stand Against ‘Cap-and-Trade’
Says it will significantly increase electric rates on Kentucky families
and devastate large portions of Kentucky’s manufacturing base
FRANKFORT – Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Daniel Mongiardo announced his opposition today to the “Cap-and-Trade” provisions of H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009.
Citing the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Mongiardo said the bill would dramatically increase electric rates in Kentucky on working families and businesses over the next ten years. Mongiardo said, “While I believe global climate change is real, placing a huge energy tax on the backs of Kentucky’s working families and businesses is not the answer.”
Mongiardo’s opposition to the bill’s ‘Cap-and-Trade’ legislation is founded on five fundamental concerns:
Will substantially increase electric rates, placing a disproportionate share of the cost to comply with the legislation on the backs of Kentucky families and businesses
Will destroy large segments of Kentucky’s manufacturing base – coal, steel, aluminum smelters and other energy intensive industries or industries that use these products such as the auto and appliance industries – and devastate the communities in every region of the Commonwealth where these industries are located
Will result in massive job layoffs for Kentucky’s working men and women in those industries that are most adversely affected
Unfair to Kentucky’s electric utility companies, particularly the 26 non-profit electric cooperatives which currently supplies affordable energy to hundreds of thousands of families and small businesses in rural communities throughout the Commonwealth
Benefits speculators on Wall Street – not Kentucky families and businesses on Main Street
A CBO analysis concluded that reducing Co2 emissions, which account for 85% of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions in the United States, to the level required by the ‘Cap-and-Trade’ legislation, would be accomplished mainly by decreasing demand for carbon-based energy by increasing its price.
Mongiardo said, “Call it what you will, but for all practical purposes the ‘Cap-and-Trade’ Bill places a huge energy tax on Kentucky coal which is used to power more than 90% of Kentucky’s homes and businesses. It will not only destroy the family budget, it will devastate significant portions of Kentucky’s manufacturing base and the communities in which those businesses are located.”
Referring to the CBO report’s Transitional Costs, Mongiardo declared, “We cannot stand idly by or quietly go along in the spirit of political correctness, when we know that – if this bill passes – communities throughout Kentucky’s eastern and western coal fields and Kentucky-based manufacturing companies spread across every region of Kentucky (AK Steel in Ashland, Gallatin Steel in Warsaw, and aluminum smelters like those in Russellville, Hawesville, Lewisport and Sebree) will suffer tremendously.
“These companies use coal or large amounts of electricity to produce their goods and employee thousands of men and women in the process. If this ‘Cap-and-Trade’ legislation passes, these businesses and the communities they call home will begin a slow economic spiral downward in the coming decade, because they will not be able to compete internationally with similar businesses located in other countries who do not incur the additional costs associated with a ‘Cap-and-Trade’ system like that being proposed in this bill,” Mongiardo added.
If enacted, the ‘Cap-and-Trade’ legislation will significantly increase electric rates on Kentucky consumers and businesses. Mongiardo called the ‘Cap-and-Trade’ Bill unfair to Kentucky’s rate payers and utility companies, especially the 26 non-profit rural electric cooperatives who strive to provide affordable electricity to hundreds of thousands of homes and small business throughout rural Kentucky.
Mongiardo said, “It is fundamentally unfair to punish Kentucky’s electric utilities and by extension the end user, as this Bill does, when there is no technology currently available that will allow them to comply, other than by purchasing ‘allowances’ at a price that may very well be dictated by Wall Street investors and speculators.”
Mongiardo expressed concern that the legislation’s ‘Cap-and-Trade’ system is designed to benefit Wall Street, not Main Street. Mongiardo said, “By creating Billions of Co2 emission ‘allowances’ that can be bought and sold on the open market to the highest bidder, this Bill essentially creates a vast, new energy derivatives market for Wall Street investment firms that could easily lead to price speculation resulting in artificial spikes in energy costs for rate payers. These are the same Wall Street investment firms largely responsible for developing mortgage-backed security derivatives that ultimately led to the economic meltdown in the housing market, wiped out trillions of dollars of capitol representing the life savings of millions of Americans and put our nation in the worst economic recession since the Great Depression.”
Mongiardo asked, “If the true purpose of this legislation is to reduce Co2 emissions that are believed to be responsible for climate change, why does the Bill put the profits into the pockets of Wall Street speculators instead of reinvesting those profits or revenues back into research and technology so that we may develop new methods to reduce Co2 emissions, save manufacturing jobs in Kentucky and America’s heartland, and improve our environment?”
