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Tension Between Profit and Loss - “The Climate Protection Act Of 2013”

by Tomas DiFiore
Domestic and Foreign Corporations Doing Business As World's Worst Polluters Will Begin Paying Debt To Future Generations as Senators Bernie Sanders and Barbara Boxer are set to lead the Nation in bringing to the Floor of the Senate “The Climate Protection Act Of 2013”. What happened In Australia should be avoided in the “The Climate Protection Act Of 2013” in the US, and any proposed Climate Regulation around the rest of the World. China is watching.
Tension Between Profit and Loss,
Birthing “The Climate Protection Act Of 2013”
Like the tension between sky and earth before the sky releases the rains.

What is needed is a completely new business paradigm of responsible corporate accountability. Externalities of appropriate scale and nature pose a significant threat to the internalized profits of corporate dominated ownership of global economies, the products of nations. Citizens and consumers are not fully aware of market mechanisms and associated risks.

Re-Instating the Clean Air Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act
National News: February 14, 2013 - bored by more Congressional debilitating Natural Gas and Climate Change deliberations, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s came up with an agenda: A really comprehensive climate bill.

Well there's actually a big bit more to “The Climate Protection Act Of 2013” than that.
AMENDING THE CLEAN AIR ACT WITH A CARBON POLLUTION FEE
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/021413-2pager.pdf

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), the bill’s sponsor, says “the bill will try to offset spikes in energy costs for consumers.”
READ THAT AGAIN....

“Under the legislation, a fee on carbon pollution emissions would fund historic investments in energy efficiency and sustainable energy technologies such as wind, solar, geothermal and biomass. The proposal also would provide rebates to consumers to offset any efforts by oil, coal or gas companies to raise prices.”
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=2A869A44-1597-42A8-B625-1A88DB3FEBBC

The Sanders-Boxer bill would impose a $20 per ton tax on carbon or methane equivalent, rising 5.6 percent each year for 10 years, on the nation’s [2,869] largest fossil fuel producers. Imported fossil fuels from countries that do not impose a similar tax would also pay.

Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-California) has said in a news conference that she and her colleagues would move the Climate Protection Act to the floor by the summer.

The tax would raise an estimated $1.2 trillion over a decade and reduce greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent from 2005 levels by 2025. “Using three-fifths of the carbon (polluters) fee revenue, the Family Clean Energy Rebate would work off the model developed by Alaska's Oil Dividend to provide a monthly rebate. This is the most progressive way to insure that if fossil fuel companies jack up prices, consumers and families can offset price increases on fuel and electricity.”
READ THAT LAST PART AGAIN....

As a bonus, “The Climate Protection Act Of 2013” includes a payment of some 30 billion dollars a year for ten years to pay off the National Debt.

Does it matter if Conservative Democrats join Republicans in opposing a price on carbon with fears it would add to energy prices and harm an already unstable economy? “It’s not just energy prices that would skyrocket from a carbon tax the cost of nearly everything built in America would go up.” Ross Eisenberg
National Association of Manufacturers NAM

California Air Resources Board excerpts (of published) Oil Companies Profits:
In 2012, Chevron made $26.2 billion in profits. Exxon, $44.9 billion. Shell, $26.59 billion.
Americans spent 4 percent of household income on gas.

The Family Clean Energy Rebate, as part of the “The Climate Protection Act Of 2013” will work off the rebate model developed by Alaska's Oil Dividend. The Alaska Permanent Fund was established through a 1976 amendment to the state constitution. The fund collects a portion of state royalties from North Slope oil fields, which began producing in 1977 to provide a monthly rebate.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/18/us-usa-alaska-dividend-idUSBRE88H1EH20120918

Currently valued at $42.68 billion, according to state officials, the fund began paying out annual dividends in 1982. A person who received all 31 dividends since the program was created, including the year 2012 payout, will have collected $35,443.41, according to state Revenue Department officials.

Alaska paid nearly every one of its residents $878 in October 2012 as an annual dividend from the state's oil-wealth trust fund, the lowest yearly amount since 2005, state officials said. The reduced payout, announced by state Revenue Commissioner Bryan Butcher in Anchorage, reflects stock-market losses in recent years, as the dividend is calculated using a five-year weighted average of investment earnings.

The dividend is lower than the $1,174 paid out last year and is the lowest since each Alaskan got $845.76 in 2005. The highest dividend paid was in 2008, when the state paid $2,069.

If the Boxer-Sanders’ “Climate Protection Act Of 2013” proposed carbon fee were adopted, it would generate $US 1.2 trillion from the 2,900 largest carbon polluters in the United States by 2024 (12 years after date of enactment), according to the Congressional Budget Office. Sanders has said “60 percent of that revenue would subsidize the higher bills of U.S. energy users.”
PLEASE READ THAT AGAIN....

Then the rest would be invested in job-training programs and research and development related to renewable energy and energy efficiency, as well as debt reduction.

10 years, 2900 polluters, 1.2 trillion dollars...
1.2 trillion dollars divided by 10 years is $120 billion per year

And $120 billion divided by 2900 is a meager $41,379,000.00
An average of $42 million dollars in fees per each individual world's worst polluting company.
Here's a dollar and sense perspective from the 2012 California Air Resources Board published Oil Companies Profits; Americans spent 4 percent of household income on gas. In 2012, Chevron made $26.2 billion in profits. Exxon, $44.9 billion. Shell, $26.59 billion.
Subtract $42 million from any of those....
http://www.arb.ca.gov/lispub/rss/displaypost.php?pno=6444

That's A Frac, Jack
As good as The Climate Protection Act Of 2013 already sounds, it gets better as it adds an Amendment to the 2005 Clean Air Act Section 101, that includes “all language” in the previously proposed FracAct, introduced first in 2009, then again in 2011.

The Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act of 2011 which sought FULL Disclosure of chemicals used in fracking, and basically ends the 'Halliburton Loophole (exemption) to the Safe Water Drinking Act.” is back.
S. 587 (112th): FRAC Act
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/s587#summary/libraryofcongress

3/15/2011--Introduced.
Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act or the FRAC Act - Amends the Safe Drinking Water Act to repeal the exemption from restrictions on underground injection of fluids or propping agents granted to hydraulic fracturing operations relating to oil and gas production activities under such Act. Requires:
(1) state underground injection programs to direct a person conducting hydraulic fracturing operations to disclose to the state (or the Administrator if the Administrator has primary enforcement responsibility in such state) the chemicals intended for use in underground injections before the commencement of such operations and the chemicals actually used after the end of such operations; and
(2) a state or the Administrator to make such disclosure available to the public.
Requires the applicable person using hydraulic fracturing, when a medical emergency exists and the proprietary chemical formula of a chemical used in such hydraulic fracturing is necessary for medical treatment, to disclose such formula or the specific chemical identity of a trade secret chemical to the state, the Administrator, or the treating physician or nurse upon request, regardless of the existence of a written statement of need or a confidentiality agreement.
Authorizes such person to require the execution of such statement and agreement as soon as practicable.

"The Climate Protection Act Of 2013" is so exciting and comprehensive a Bill, read it's full text.
AMENDING THE CLEAN AIR ACT with a Carbon (polluters) Fee
ENDING THE HALLIBURTON EXEMPTION to the Safe Drinking Water Act.
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/0121413-ClimateProtectionAct.pdf

Four 'fracking' important reasons to pass the “The Climate Protection Act Of 2013”
1) “This is the most progressive way to insure that if fossil fuel companies jack up prices, consumers and families can offset can offset price increases on fuel and electricity.”
2) “The proposal also would provide rebates to consumers to offset any efforts by oil, coal or gas companies to raise prices.”
3) Sanders has said “60 percent of that revenue would subsidize the higher bills of U.S. energy users.”
4) Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), the bill’s sponsor, “says the bill will try to offset spikes in energy costs for consumers.”

Four points, all coincidental to energy price hikes and the false promise of the shale bubble.

Why?
US Domestic Natural Gas Prices Expected To Double by 2016
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/03/01/18732922.php

“It is expected that Future U.S. LNG imports would be competitive even if domestic natural gas prices were to double, and rise above even $8 per million Btu.” Current price is $3-$4. Friday Mar 1st, 2013, Global Market Spot Prices (FERC)

It is important for every American to understand the costs of the loss of biodiversity and the associated decline in ecosystem services and related breakdown of the social infrastructure by the overburden of 'bail outs' and support the “The Climate Protection Act Of 2013”.

“There are two spheres of economics unfolding: day-to-day in-field shale oil and gas production economics ... and Wall Street high finance economics. It's the insane economics of Wall Street investors fueling the economic decisions of those working in the field, in what Deborah Rogers describes as a "financial co-dependency."

Go to http://shalebubble.org/wall-street/
for the full report by Deborah Rogers, or download here in PDF:
http://shalebubble.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/SWS-report-FINAL.pdf

Ms. Rogers served on the Advisory Council for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas from 2008-2011. She was appointed in 2011 by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to a task force reviewing placement of air monitors in the Barnett Shale region in light of air quality concerns brought about by the natural gas operations in North Texas. She has worked as a financial consultant for major Wall Street firms, including Merrill Lynch and Smith Barney.

Does your calculator have enough zeros?
World’s Biggest Companies Cause $2.2 Trillion in Environmental Damage
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2010/02/22/worlds-biggest-companies-cause-2-2-trillion-in-environmental-damage/

The true figure is likely to be even higher because the $2.2 trillion does not include damage caused by waste; or "social impacts" like the migration of people driven out of affected areas” (climate refugees), or evacuations due to spills, industrial accidents, illegal dumping, industrial generation and mining and disposal of nuclear or otherwise toxic industrial waste impacts whether accidental or permitted, impacts regionally of National Sacrifice Areas such as “The Four Corners Coal Fired Plants” in the US, or the cost of pumping water for the coal transport stolen from Southwest rivers and Native Peoples access rights [fraudulent tribal councils, tricked by mormon lawyers in the 1940's], and currently the issues of the immense water use, then drinking water contamination, and groundwater aquifer contamination that surround Hydraulic Fracturing or Fracking.

“The figure $2.2 trillion does not include the long-term effects of any damage other than that from climate change.”

The figure $2.2 trillion, equates to an average of one-third of Corporate profits, which would be lost if firms were forced to pay for use, abuse, damage and loss of the environment, and/or ecosystem services and functions.

Another report, led by economist Pavan Sukhdev, “Nature's Economic Model” argues for the “abolition of billions of dollars of subsidies to harmful industries like agriculture, energy and transport, tougher regulations and more taxes on companies that cause the damage.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2010/feb/10/pavan-sukhdev-natures-economic-model

“Evaluating the costs of the loss of biodiversity and the associated decline in ecosystem services worldwide, and comparing them with the costs of effective conservation and sustainable use, tends to sharpen awareness of the value of biodiversity and ecosystem services and facilitate the development of cost-effective policy responses and better informed decisions.”

Now that we know that -
What happened In Australia should be avoided in the “The Climate Protection Act Of 2013”

In July 2011, Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced that Australia’s proposed carbon tax would apply to half as many carbon gas polluters as promised. Just 500 companies that are among Australia’s worst carbon polluters would pay the tax starting July 2012. The government had promised to make 1,000 companies pay for every ton of carbon emissions.

While the Government promised a revenue-neutral package, the compromises mean the scheme will cost $4 billion over the first four years. The Aussie Government has also promised nine out of 10 households will be compensated for cost-of-living increases. Based on a $20-per-tonne carbon price, calculated it would cost the average family about $400 a year.

By August 8, 2011, the question remained... Who were the 500 polluters?
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2011/08/who-are-the-500-polluters

Rest assured,
official publications can ease
a tax revolt and without naming names
Twas published throughout the land
“Securing a Clean Energy Future” a fact sheet - “500 Biggest Polluting Companies”

around 60 are primarily involved in electricity generation;

around 100 are primarily involved in coal or other mining;

around 40 are natural gas retailers;
around 60 are primarily involved in industrial processes (cement, chemicals, metal);

around 50 operate in a range of other fuel intensive sectors; 
and
the remaining 190 operate in the waste disposal sector.

“The Parliamentary Library’s 500 list includes companies that exceed the government’s limit of 25,000 tonnes of Co2e, per annum and are listed in order of the amount of Co2e emissions that they emit or produce.”

But Only 294 Firms Will Be Liable - True News June 15, 2012
Australia levied a controversial carbon tax on about half the number of companies originally expected, which may limit the economic and political impact of the tax begun on July 1 2012.
Australia's Clean Energy Regulator has named 294 firms liable for the carbon tax, with electricity generators, steel makers and mining companies among the biggest emitters.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/15/australia-carbon-list-idUSL3E8HF2JJ20120615

Calculating the Aussie Carbon Tax Liable Entities Quiz:
Is it 1000, 500, or just 294?
What's the difference (in tons of Green House Gas emissions by the World's Worst Polluters) between half of 500 and three fifths of 500? Kids, ask your teachers.

If the “Climate Protection Act Of 2013” proposed carbon fee were adopted, it would generate $US 1.2 trillion from the 2,900 largest carbon polluters in the United States.

Give Thanks and Support
“Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) have introduced a new carbon tax bill (S. 332) called the Climate Protection Act of 2013. The bill would give EPA authority to impose a fee of $20.00 per ton of carbon dioxide equivalents on any manufacturer, producer, or importer of a carbon polluting substance. The fee would increase by 5.6% per year over a ten-year period. The bill aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 80% of 2005 levels by January 1, 2050. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the carbon tax would raise $1.2 trillion over ten years.”

“A portion of the revenue raised by the carbon tax would be split equally between EPA and the Department of Transportation and would be used to fund climate change adaptation programs and infrastructure projects, including electric vehicle charging stations and preferential parking for carpools. Carbon tax revenue would also be used for energy efficiency and sustainability projects, including weatherizing homes for low-income persons, job training to allow fossil fuel employees to work in the clean energy sector, and energy research. The bill would allocate 60% of the revenue raised to a residential environmental rebate program, under which legal residents of the United States would receive monthly rebate payments. Remaining revenues would be used for federal budget deficit reduction.”

“In addition, the bill would reinstate EPA's authority to regulate hydraulic fracturing under the Safe Drinking Water Act by ending the so-called Halliburton exemption. The bill would also require the disclosure of fracking chemicals before and after underground injection. The fracking chemical constituent disclosures would be publicly available, although proprietary chemical formulas would remain confidential.”

“Senators Sanders and Boxer also introduced a second bill (S. 329) on February 14, 2013, the Sustainable Energy Act, which would terminate various tax credits and subsidies for fossil fuel production. The bill would also extend certain energy tax incentives for renewable energy projects through 2021.” Thanks to the authors at:
http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=9e96290a-0df1-40f5-883e-8f5aabb22d19

Call or write your local State Senators and Representatives by name
http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

or by State

http://www.contactingthecongress.org/
Contacting the Congress is a very up-to-date and easy citizen's congressional directory for the 113th Congress. As of March 06, 2013 there are 538 electronic contact addresses (of which 535 are Web-based contact forms), and 538 home pages known for the 540 members of the 113th Congress. Traditional ground mail addresses are available for all current members of Congress.

Tomas DiFiore
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