Subscribe
Jobs
Cars
Real Estate
Apts
Classifieds
Shop
WASHINGTON – Indiana jobs will flood to China, and residential electricity bills will skyrocket, Hoosier lawmakers warned their colleagues on the eve of House deliberation on a bill that would try to curb the pollution blamed for global warming.
Indiana consumes more energy per person than most states – for instance, it uses more coal per capita than any other state except Texas – primarily because of its large manufacturing sector. Factories rely on significant amounts of electricity.
As a result, said Rep. Mark Souder, R-3rd, anything that increases energy costs will hit Indiana particularly hard. And because the northeast Indiana region he represents has a quarter of all Indiana manufacturing jobs, Souder said, the area would be hurt worse than any other region in the country.
Rep. Mike Pence, R-6th, has called the bill an “economic declaration of war on America’s families.”
But urged on by President Obama, the Democratic-controlled House is expected to vote today or Saturday on legislation that aims to reduce greenhouse gases that scientists blame for global warming. The gases come primarily from coal-fired utility plants.
The approach – called “cap-and-trade” – sets limits on emissions of carbon dioxide, a byproduct of burning fossil fuels, and issues or sells pollution permits that can be bought or sold by people and companies.
The backers of the bill say that that if emitters have to pay for the carbon dioxide they produce, they would have an incentive to develop renewable energy sources and new technologies.
On Thursday, Obama described the bill as a jobs-creation measure that will help the environment and mostly pay for itself. He said the approach would lead to the creation of green-energy jobs and help the U.S. reduce its reliance on imported oil.
“Instead of increasing the deficit, it’s paid for by the polluters,” Obama said.
In addition to setting limits on carbon dioxide emissions, the bill would require electric utilities to produce at least 12 percent of their power from renewable sources such as wind and solar energy by 2020.
Hoosier electric utilities get 1.5 percent of their power from renewable sources, the government’s Energy Information Agency says; coal, which produces the pollution the bill is trying to reduce, accounts for 93 percent of the fuel that the state’s electric utilities use.
In a TV interview after Obama’s speech, Pence said the bill is a jobs killer.
“The last thing we need during this difficult national recession is to pass a national energy tax that will cost millions of jobs,” he said.
But how much it will cost – and who would pay – would vary by region.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated this week that it would cost the average household $175 a year in 2020.
But Souder and others argue that manufacturing plants in the Midwest would move overseas. Souder calls it the “cap-and-trade-our-jobs-to-China” bill.
He said the requirement for states to generate 12 percent of their power from non-polluting fuels is unrealistic in Indiana, which doesn’t have enough sunshine to make solar panels viable and not enough wind to make windmills a power source.
