CNBC hosts fail to challenge Pence's debunked cap-and-trade claim
SUMMARY: CNBC's Power Lunch hosts failed to challenge Mike Pence's debunked Republican claim that a cap-and-trade program would cause "the utility rates of every American household go up by more than $3,100 per year."
On the April 20 edition of CNBC's Power Lunch, co-hosts Sue Herera, Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, Bill Griffeth, and Dennis Kneale all failed to challenge Rep. Mike Pence's (R-IN) debunked claim that the Obama administration and Capitol Hill Democrats are planning to introduce cap-and-trade legislation "which literally could see the utility rates of every American household go up by more than $3,100 per year." Pence's assertion echoes a claim by the House Republican Conference that the administration's FY 2010 budget included "a light switch tax that would cost every American household $3,128 a year"; the conference's staff reportedly pointed to a 2007 study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to support its claim. But MIT professor John Reilly, one of the authors of the study, has disputed the GOP's calculation, stating that his study "has been misrepresented" and that the Republicans' claim of an average household cost of $3,128 is "nearly 10 times the correct estimate" based on his study's cap-and-trade model.
On April 1, Reilly wrote a letter to House Republican Leader John Boehner (OH) (which Think Progress posted on its website) stating that there were "several things wrong with [the Republican] calculation," that Republicans' methodology was flawed, and that the study "has been misrepresented." Reilly wrote that this talking point "claims our report estimates an average cost per family of a carbon cap and trade program that would meet targets now being discussed in Congress to be over $3,000, but that is nearly 10 times the correct estimate which is approximately $340." Reilly then detailed several reasons why the Republican conclusion was flawed.
Reilly further wrote that in arriving at their estimate, the study's authors "assumed in the analysis we did that the revenue is returned to households" and that "[m]any of the proposals currently being considered by Congress and as proposed by the Administration have been designed to offset the energy cost impacts on middle and lower income households and so it is simplistic and misleading to only look at the impact on energy prices of these proposals as a measure of their impact on the average household." According to Obama's fiscal year 2010 budget proposal, from 2010 to 2019, $120 billion of the revenue collected from his cap-and-trade proposal would be "[d]edicated to climate policy (clean energy technologies)," while $525.7 billion would be "[d]edicated to Making Work Pay," indefinitely extending that refundable tax credit for workers and their families that was first implemented in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Further, as detailed in footnote 5 of the budget proposal's table on Mandatory and Receipt Proposals, "[a]ll additional net proceeds will be used to further compensate the public."
From the April 20 edition of CNBC's Power Lunch:
KNEALE: Let's talk cap-and-trade.
PENCE: Yeah.
KNEALE: I'm really alarmed and worried about this EPA action where just overnight they decided that pollutions and carbon dioxide that I breathe out of my mouth -- a lot of hot air -- are now hazardous to your health. What do you think?
PENCE: Well, we're very concerned about it. And we commented on this, you know, abrupt decision last Friday, which seems to many of us on Capitol Hill to be a precursor to a massive national energy tax. Now you've got the EPA essentially saying that carbon dioxide represents, you know, a threat to the environment. And that's going to set into motion Democrats on Capitol Hill and in this administration bringing forward a cap-and-trade bill which literally could see the utility rates of every American household go up by more than $3,100 per year. I've been asked to lead a working group among Republicans to come up with alternatives to the cap-and-trade deal. Look, we all want cleaner air --
GRIFFETH: Can you give us a for instance?
PENCE: Well, I don't want to get ahead of our team, but I'll tell you, we really, you know, we're for cleaner air. We think you can -- you can pursue policies that'll promote clean air technologies without passing, essentially, a national energy tax, that -- let me tell you, being from Indiana, guys, you know, when you look at the details of this cap-and-trade proposal and you realize that the majority of the financial impact is going to be borne in the Midwest where I'm from, this amounts, literally, to, you know, an economic declaration of war by the West Coast and the East Coast on the Midwest.
Republicans are determined to offer positive alternatives to this cap-and-trade bill, but the first thing we're going to is not allow liberals on Capitol Hill and in this administration to raise a national energy tax that falls principally on the industrial Midwest that relies so much on coal.
KNEALE: Which could least afford it.
GRIFFETH: I wish we had more time. Congressman, thank you for joining us today.
The entire premise of this article is biased. Has anyone at Media Matters taken the time to see how many times liberal viewpoints go unchallenged? My goodness, Obama doesn't have to answer any questions. <step off soap box>. OK...
All the debates on this subject are without facts. Cap and Trade is a horrible solution. It does not reduce pollution...it makes the polluters buy a "pass", essentially taxing them...which is passed on directly to us, the consumer.
And YES, Obama himself said utiity rates would "necessarily skyrocket" (that's a quote, look it up!!). Whether it's $3,000, or $300 per year...its a tax on the citizens of this country. Period. People of this country need to wake up, and educate themselves.
The entire premise of this article is biased. Has anyone at Media Matters taken the time to see how many times liberal viewpoints go unchallenged?
Please read MMFA's mission statement. They cover conservative misinformation, so right off the bat you should know that means no liberal misinformation will be covered. Right off the bat you know that they are a left-leaning in their coverage. They aren't pretending to
Whether it's $3,000, or $300 per year...its a tax on the citizens of this country. Period.
Yeah...they're both taxes, but...$3,100 is a hell of a lot more than $300. How allergic to taxes do you have to be not to notice such a huge difference? Anyway, Pence used the incorrect figure in the discussion. That's conservative misinformation and that's why it's here.
"Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket."
Energy costs will go up does anyone dispute that? The unfortunate thing is that the document the EPA published that described the reasoning was one of belief and feeling with no reasoning of cause and effect. Mostly, correlation is mistaken for causation. There are no presentations of concrete cause and effect relationship between automobiles and global warming. There are no specific indisputable examples of negative effects to health and welfare. Basically, our government now is respecting the establishment of religion -- the Church of Human Induced Global Warming. The percent of people that believe this religion is less than the percent of people who are Christians in America, but we are going down the path of blessing a religion.
What's really disturbing is the fact that the "Administrator" is not required to consider the consequences of regulations. Regulating [eliminating] DDT is what has killed millions of people world wide, but such considerations do not enter into the EPA thinking. She feels that regulating CO2 is the right thing to do and she is going to do it.
I believe the issue will be litigated again and when the EPA trys to explain that we are doing this because a computer weather model tells us that awful things will happen, the jury will become interested in the weather model and how it works. What happens to the prediction if you adjust this parameter 10%? Can it predict the weather in July of this year? Does it accurately predict the past? I cannot see any jury of non-predisposed people granting such extraordinary power based on the reasoning of a weather model running on a computer.
I can't wait to see the language the House or Senate put into their bills.
Reality IS. It is not dependent upon your belief. Feel free to worship at the alter of the Limborg instead of listening to the VAST majority of scientific evidence on this subject. Then show us you really dont seem to understand the difference between weather and climate.
I think they should tax all you Global Warming deniers then take the money and put a monument in the Grand Canyon for whichever species replaces us when we go the way of the Dodo by being so shortsighted. It can be letters carved in the side of the walls 50ft high saying
WE COULD HAVE SAVED IT BUT IT WOULD HAVE COST TOO MUCH MONEY
Oh the DDT ban killed millions is rightwing propaganda that you guys just keep saying. We did NOT ban DDT worldwide only in the US and only here AFTER we had eradicated Malaria here. Mosquitos quickly became resistant to DDT. If we hadnt banned DDT there would be NO peregrine falcons today for certain and very likely NO raptors at ALL that eat fish. Thats ok. We know it is what you have been TOLD to think
Glad to see you're back solon, but I see you haven't been hitting the books while you were gone. DDT while not banned everywhere, has been banned ALMOST everywhere. Now you are correct that it basically eradicated Malaria in the US, Latin America and Sri Lanka for instance, but you're wrong about the resistance. It was the WAY DDT was applied (broadcast) that mosquitos developed a resistance (Sri Lanka). South Africa has led the way for using DDT in a limited and specific use, mainly indoors for mosquitoes that are in the home thereby eliminating the impact to the environment. Other African countries are now reconsidering it's use. Mosquitoes have not shown a resistance yet where they have with pyrethroid sprays.
The reason is simple; it's effective and it's cheap. Sixty million people have died because of the ban. If we had used DDT in a smart way the Peregrine's wouln't have suffered. To dismiss this as some right wing talking point doesn't address the issue.
Yes, you are correct. Limbaugh, Hannity, and Beck are definitely there to challenge progressive viewpoints. Now...the other team has: ABC, NBC, CBS, all newspapers, all union leaders, Hollywood...need I say more? Do progressives go on Hannity, Beck, or Limbaugh? No. They will NOT go on their show...and therefore go unchallenged.
C&T will result in higher costs to the consumer. There is a big difference between gasses that account for less than 0.1% of all greenhouse gasses, and CO2.
But, this is not a thread to discuss global warming. Besides...its Earth Day. :)
I would like to update my fellow bloggers: The MIT professor that claimed the actual cost is <$300 has recently admitted the error in his calculations. In a statement, Prof Reily said:
"The annual cost would be “$800 per household”, he wrote. “I made a boneheaded mistake in an excel spread sheet. I have sent a new letter to Republicans correcting my error (and to others).”
Additionally, fuzzy math was used to estimate the $800, with Reilly saying the following:
Reilly estimates that “the amount of tax collected” through companies would equal $3,128 per household–and “Those costs do get passed to consumers and income earners in one way or another”–but those costs have “nothing to do with the real cost” to the economy. Reilly assumes that the $3,128 will be “returned” to each household. Without that assumption, Reilly wrote, “the cost would then be the Republican estimate [$3,128] plus the cost I estimate [$800].”
So, based on this additional information...the total cost to consumers will be $3900 PER FAMILY.