Report: House climate bill will hurt more than help the economy

Whoops:

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 House passed its bill June 26 on a 219-212 vote, and a week later Mr. Obama said the legislation “holds the promise of millions of new jobs — jobs, by the way, that can’t be outsourced.”

The Senate still is drafting its version of the climate bill.

But the EIA report, in a chart examining employment, reports that if the bill were implemented, employment actually would be a quarter of a percent lower in 2030 than would otherwise be the case, with the manufacturing sector suffering a 2.5 percent drop in jobs.

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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.

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EIA analysts said there is a lot of uncertainty about how the program will play out, and looked at six different possible scenarios for how quickly technological advances will bring reductions in greenhouse gas levels and how easily U.S. companies will be able to pay those overseas to offset U.S. emissions.

According to the worst-case scenario — if technology doesn’t materialize and other countries refuse to cooperate on offsets — consumer prices could be 14 percent higher in 2030 than they would otherwise be without the global warming bill.

Gosh, what with this news, and – among other things – the news about how ObamaCare will not generate savings but instead increase the deficit, and the report which noted how many states were not putting their stimulus funds towards any idea that would help create jobs but instead were using them to shore up their budget shortfalls, I’m feeling really good about things right now. You?

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