WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Kit Bond today called on Democrats to tell the American people the truth about the cost of their cap and trade legislation to family budgets and lost jobs.

 

            “The American people and my Missouri constituents deserve to know how the legislation we consider will impose new energy taxes upon them, kill their jobs, punish the Midwest and South, help China and India, and construct a new bureaucratic nightmare to implement a carbon cap and trade program,” said Bond.                             

                                                           

            At today’s Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on global warming legislative tools, Bond stressed that the American people deserve to know the truth about the Democrats’ costly cap and trade bill.  The Democrats’ lack of transparency has made it difficult for the American people to get straight answers.  Bond pointed to the recent House passage of a 1,472–page cap and trade bill and the confusion over the final legislative language.  In total, the Democrats produced 6,706 pages – or 15 inches – of legislative material in their consideration of carbon cap and trade legislation.  Even worse, more than 300 pages were added at 3 AM in a committee hearing before the final vote on the House floor – leaving little time for any member to even read the entire legislative package.

 

            “The American people and my Missouri constituents deserve to know why it takes 1,427 pages to address energy issues.  What needles are the Majority trying to hide in this haystack?  What backroom deals were made to buy support?  What provisions were added in the middle of the night?  How will the bureaucratic nightmare this bill creates work?” asked Bond.

 

            Unfortunately, if signed into law the Democrats’ costly proposal will be no clearer to the American people.  Instead, the legislative proposal creates a bureaucratic nightmare with the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) at the center of a great web of government mandates, programs and taxes.  EPA will have help from nearly 2 dozen other federal agencies implementing government programs that will tax and spend trillions of dollars.  This web of bureaucracy is so massive the chart Bond used at today’s hearing had to be held by two staffers. 

 

            Even worse for the American people than dealing with Washington bureaucrats will be the high costs these bureaucrats impose on them.  Bond emphasized that particularly families in the Midwest and the South will face higher power, cooling, and heating bills; higher food prices; higher gasoline prices; and lost jobs.  

 

            Bond called on his Democratic colleagues to quit trying to obscure these costs that will be imposed on the American people and to hold Congressional hearings on the actual text of the legislation Democrats want to be signed into law. 

 

The Senator’s entire statement before the EPW Committee, bureaucratic maze chart, and photo of the 15-inches of legislative materials can be found here.

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