[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 53 (Monday, March 30, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H4105-H4106]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        CAP-AND-TAX ON AMERICANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Madam Speaker, even though the alarmist global 
warming crowd claim humans are the evil CO2 pollutants of 
earth, the jury is still out on the theory of global warming.
  At a recent meeting of the International Conference on Climate 
Change, as reported by the Heritage Foundation, 31,072 American 
scientists subscribe to this statement: ``There is no convincing 
scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or 
other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, 
cause catastrophic heating of the earth's atmosphere and disruption of 
the earth's climate.''
  Madam Speaker, how can this be? We're all told that global warming is 
a fact, and don't even argue this issue.
  Even though global warming is still a theory, it hasn't stopped the 
Federal Government from presuming it to be an absolute fact, and it now 
has an energy policy based upon the global warming theory. It proposes 
an energy consumption tax called the cap-and-trade, or the cap and tax 
on all Americans and all businesses that use any form of energy.
  Here's the plan. Every person and business that uses energy will be 
taxed for the use of that energy. For example, if a homeowner turns on 
the lights in their home, they will be taxed for the use of the 
electricity in that house.
  If a person wants hot water in their house and they turn on the hot 
water, coming from the hot water heater that's usually heated by 
natural gas, they'll be taxed for that use of that hot water because 
they're using the energy of natural gas.
  If you turn on the furnace in the winter in the Northeast, you'll be 
taxed because you're using home heating oil. All of these taxes are 
called the cap-and-trade, or cap-and-tax, as I call them.
  What this means is that it will increase the taxes of individual 
homeowners in this country, about 50 percent a year. And of course, it 
will raise

[[Page H4106]]

taxes on businesses. Businesses, as they normally do, will send that 
tax on down to the consumer, and the consumer will have to pay for that 
tax.
  How much are we talking about? Individuals will have to pay an 
additional $1,800 a year for this new energy tax, this new cap-and-tax 
that will be placed on Americans.
  Madam Speaker, Americans don't need or want any more taxes for any 
reason. Supposedly, this money's going to be used to subsidize green 
energy products. Now we're learning that so-called renewable energy may 
be more expensive than the use of nuclear power and fossil energy.
  Madam Speaker, remember how we were all told that ethanol was going 
to save us all; how it's not going to pollute like crude oil; how it's 
going to be cheap renewable energy? Now we're learning something 
opposite.
  We learned that it costs too much to produce ethanol without a 
Federal subsidy. It caused a food shortage not only in the United 
States but throughout the world, because we had the idea that we should 
burn corn for energy.
  And we also learned that ethanol was, in fact, a pollutant. Now 
people don't talk so much about the benefits of ethanol, although the 
Federal Government has spent millions and millions of dollars with the 
ethanol program.
  Madam Speaker, no question about it. We need to explore all types of 
energy, solar, hydrogen, wind and nuclear. But we should also use the 
resources we have, like clean coal and crude. We need them to provide 
energy for Americans.
  Madam Speaker, America's the only country that doesn't use its own 
natural resources for its energy, and that includes the fact that we 
should drill offshore because that will bring jobs to America. It will 
keep money in America, instead of going overseas. And that lease 
revenue that the oil companies pay will go to the Federal Treasury. We 
need to do all of the above until we can move to alternative energy.
  And that's just the way it is.

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