Posted by
Arnie on Thursday, June 21, 2007 5:47:10 PM
They call it the
Renewable Fuels, Consumer Protection, and Energy Efficiency Act of 2007.
The first thing that ought to get your cockles stirring is the phrase “
Consumer Protection”. Whenever a government official mentions consumer protection or protecting consumers or protecting the rights and freedoms of consumers, be on the watch, get your glasses out and examine the fine print.
The next is the use of the word “
efficiency”. How many government programs do you know of that are efficient? How many mandates upon private industry and upon the individual states operate efficiency? The federal government does not operate efficiency, and never will.
S. 1419 has 707 sections and includes a list of ten studies to be made, a section on price gouging, talks about fuel economy standards, carbon capture, public buildings cost reductions, setting energy efficiency goals, promoting high efficiency vehicles, advanced lighting technologies, and things like setting renewable fuels standards. And guess who is the author and lone sponsor of this bill. None other that Harry Reid. The people of Nevada should be proud.
Now remember, this is all for our protection and efficiency of our use of energy.
Well, the Heritage Foundation has a few choice words for this efficiency part of the bill. How efficient is it for you to pay over $6.00 for a gallon of gas? How does that protect you? Are you wiling to let Harry and company impose more and more governmental controls over your choices?
“
A review of S. 1419, including the just-completed section on tax changes, reveals that the bill could increase the price of regular unleaded gasoline from $3.14 per gallon (the early May national average) to $6.40 in 2016--a 104 percent increase.”
“Many times over the past 100 years, well-meaning efforts to cap prices in order to protect U.S. consumers resulted in unintended reductions in supply and higher prices. A simple economic truth is that high prices spur producers to increase supply, which ultimately lowers prices for consumers. When policymakers set price caps to combat "price gouging," the result is the opposite of the one intended. Consumers increase their demand as a result of the capped price, but producers do not face any incentive to meet that demand. Supply fails to keep pace with demand, resulting in rationing or supply "brown outs."
Hey,
you can read it all yourself, but the bottom line is that this bill must not go any further than the nearest shredder.