Here's one for the "Plain as the nose on your face" files.
Government study: climate bill could cost jobs
By Stephen Dinan
August 4, 2009,
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/200 ... cost-jobs/
Despite President Obama's prediction that it will create new jobs, the global warming bill passed by the House of Representatives will mean fewer jobs by 2030 than if Congress did not act at all, according to the first comprehensive study of the measure by the federal government.
The Energy Information Administration report, requested by the two Democrats who wrote the House bill, says the short-term economic consequences are small, but "after 2025, the rapid increase in energy prices causes the economy to contract" as more rigid requirements kick in...
The study by the EIA, an Energy Department agency that is the government's official analyst for energy issues, does not say how effective the bill would be in reducing global temperatures or in lessening U.S. reliance on foreign sources of energy -- two other primary goals its Democratic sponsors have laid out.
The Democratic authors of the global warming bill -- Rep. Henry A. Waxman of California, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, a subcommittee chairman -- requested the EIA study to look at the consequences of their bill. EIA says the bill will hurt the economy.
The climate measure "increases the cost of using energy, which reduces real economic output, reduces purchasing power and lowers aggregate demand for goods and services. The result is that projected real gross domestic product (GDP) generally falls relative to the reference case," according to the EIA study.
