Harper’s carbon tax smokescreen
By Paul Wells - Friday, September 21, 2012 - 0 Comments
Paul Wells on the Tories’ NDP smear campaign
Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images
The Conservatives could not possibly have made it more obvious that they were itching for a week’s worth of headlines about the NDP’s environmental policy. They could not be happier that the NDP has obliged them. Eventually the NDP will figure all of this out.
On Sept. 2, Ottawa newsrooms received copies of “a memo from Conservative campaign manager Jenni Byrne to the Conservative caucus.” I put that last bit in quotation marks because Byrne, like her predecessor Doug Finley, doesn’t ever “write to the caucus” unless she wants to see what she writes appear in the newspapers. Leaking a “secret memo” is cheaper than buying ad space and guarantees better play.
Byrne’s message to Canadians was that it was “important to ensure Canadian middle-class families understand the threat posed by Thomas Mulcair’s risky and dangerous economic plan.”
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House Democrats release climate and energy legislation
By Luiza Ch. Savage - Tuesday, March 31, 2009 at 2:14 PM - 8 Comments
Remember Henry Waxman, the congressman who wanted to ban the US government and military from purchasing oil sands oil? He is now the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and has co-authored and today released a draft of the Democrats’ new climate and energy legislation. You can read the text on the committee’s web page.The draft legislation includes a cap-and-trade system and requires the US to cut carbon emissions by 20 percent by 2020. American utilities will have to source one quarter of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025. The draft legislation does not answer the key question of whether industry will have to buy carbon permits or whether some will be given to them for free. That will be up to the committee to decide.
Reuters also reports that the legislation would “give industry ‘rebates’ so U.S. firms can remain competitive with overseas companies.” I haven’t seen an analysis yet of how this proposal affects Canadian producers or renewable and non-renewable energy.
Hearings on the proposed law begin the week of April 20th. House leaders tell the NYTimes that they hope to pass the law by fall. Given high economic stakes involved at a time of recession (and regional interests that cut across party lines) that sounds a tad optimistic.
