[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15118-15119]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       CAP-AND-TRADE ALTERNATIVE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Inglis) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. INGLIS. Madam Speaker, today I had interesting discussions in 
Greenville and Spartanburg, South Carolina. They were entitled, 
``What's wrong with cap-and-trade and what's right with using free 
enterprise to solve the challenge that we have?''
  So what's wrong with cap-and-trade? We came to pretty solid agreement 
on that, Madam Speaker. It's a massive tax increase in the midst of a 
recession; it's a Wall Street trading scheme that really would make any 
trader on Wall Street that led us into this recent debacle blush; and 
it's really a proposal that's going to end up decimating American 
manufacturing because the tax on energy would be applied just 
domestically, it wouldn't be applied to imported goods. And the result 
is that we would export productive capacity from the United States to 
other countries that don't have a price on carbon. So it's a real 
problem, and it is something that we have got to stop in order to get 
to the better.
  The better that we discussed is a proposal--actually, a bipartisan 
proposal at this point--that Jeff Flake and Dan Lipinski and I are 
supporting, which is a plan to basically do a revenue-neutral tax swap. 
It involves changing what we tax and causing free enterprise to fix the 
problem that some are trying to fix with cap-and-trade; but as I just 
pointed out, there are real problems with cap-and-trade.
  So the way this revenue-neutral tax swap would work is we would 
reduce taxes on something we want more of, which is payroll, by 
reducing the payroll tax. That's 6.2 percent from the employer and 6.2 
percent from the employee on the first $106,800 worth of income. We 
would reduce that, and in an equal amount swap the tax, if you will, in 
an equal amount put a tax on carbon dioxide emissions. The result would 
be no additional take to the government, so it's revenue neutral. It 
would just

[[Page 15119]]

free of from taxation something you want more of, which is income and 
labor and industry, and impose a tax on something you want less of, 
which is carbon dioxide.
  The point that I was making in Greenville and Spartanburg today is, 
even if you think climate change is a bunch of hooey and there is no 
need to reduce carbon dioxide, I think conservatives can jump at the 
opportunity to reduce taxes on income. Because if you reduce set 
payroll tax, you free up employers to employ more people and you free 
up the employee to have more of their own money. This is something 
conservatives should be very excited about. Even if we were switching 
to, say, a tax on sweet gumballs or sycamore balls, or acorns, it would 
be better than taxing payroll.
  The problem with taxing payroll is you're punishing work. So what we 
do is free up from taxation payroll, impose a tax on carbon dioxide, 
and watch the free enterprise system, with that price signal, change 
where we are such that we would fix the national security problem we 
have--which is great exposure to OPEC and its control of our oil 
markets--and we would also create jobs by creating new industries in 
new kinds of technologies, and we would clean up the air.
  The point that I was making in these meetings in Greenville and 
Spartanburg is, even if you think climate change is hooey, still the 
small particulates in coal would cause you to want to take action. The 
cleaner alternative of nuclear power will come to the market when the 
market says, oh, coal is now paying the full freight of its cost. If it 
is, nuclear becomes possible and we start building nuclear power 
plants.
  Madam Speaker, the key to this is getting the economics right. If we 
do that, we can fix this problem. But it starts with stopping this cap-
and-trade because cap-and-trade isn't the way to fix this problem. The 
free enterprise system is the way to fix it. And to win the triple play 
of this American century we can improve the national security of the 
United States, we can create jobs, and we can clean up the air. Madam 
Speaker, I say we come together and get that done after we stop cap-
and-trade.

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