Senator Thune Town Hall – Cap and Trade
Senator John Thune (R-SD) on the increased cost to one school district because of cap and trade.
In the continuing series of videos from a town hall meeting held by Senator John Thune (R-SD) at the Surbeck Center on the campus of the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, August 28, 2009, this question comes from South Dakota state senator Larry Rhoden of Union Center.
To paraphrase and shorten the question a bit:
I have many colleagues in agriculture who are otherwise conservative but have fallen into the mindset that because of carbon credits, etc. cap and trade would bring South Dakota a lot of “free” money. What is your opinion on cap and trade, carbon credits, etc.?
Thune responded, “I’m very concerned about cap and trade. I agree that the impacts are going to be disproportionately felt in rural and Midwestern areas of the country. The Public Utilities Commission in South Dakota said that under a cap and trade proposal, it would cost about 50 percent more for electricity for people here in South Dakota.”
Thune presented a slide which showed a sample electric bill from Black Hills Power for a typical school district. It showed a monthly increase of $7,756 which adds up to an annual increase of $93,072 (for one school district), or an increase of 49.8%.
This means that in addition to seeing your own electric bill go up 49.8%, you the taxpayer will have to kick in for higher electric bills to pay for the 49.8% increase for your school district (oh, and the same 49.8% increase for all your other government facilities). All to “solve” a problem that doesn’t even exist.
Some people in agriculture believe they can make a quick buck on the “offsets” or free money the government will take from other Americans to give to them, but says Thune: “But I think it’s going to be way exceeded by the additional cost for diesel, for electricity, for all the things that agriculture uses as inputs to make a living. I think it’s going to be very, very detrimental to the economy of South Dakota.”
Thune continued, “In fact, it’s going to transfer a lot of wealth out of the Midwest to the east and west coasts. Just to give you an example–and by the way, this has passed the House of Representatives, it passed the House a couple of months ago, is now before the Senate, it will be on the Senate agenda this fall when we get back.”
Rhoden asked a follow-up question about the chances of it being stopped in the Senate. Thune said, “We will do everything we can to stop it in the Senate. But they will have the health care bill, the cap and trade bill, they’re all going to be queued up this fall, and I suppose part of it depends on how the health care debate comes out. But we just flat have to stop this thing.”
Thune added that the stated purpose of the cap and trade bill is to reduce carbon emissions and deal with climate change, but we would be the only country doing that. China, India and other major polluters won’t be playing…putting us at a tremendous trade disadvantage internationally.
“We would be doing something that I think would have minimal impact in terms of carbon emissions, at great cost to the economy,” said Thune.
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