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Missouri House Opposes “Cap and Tax”
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Recently, the Missouri House passed House Concurrent Resolution 46 and it was sent to it the Senate. HCR 46 opposes the Cap and Trade bill – urging Congress to stop their progress on the legislation and urges the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to put an end to the plan by that will create a massive hidden energy that will crush Missouri families, farmers, and businesses. The Wall Street Journal called the pending Cap and Trade bill the “biggest tax in American history.” As energy rates rise, everyone who flips on a light switch or drives a car will be affected. This will act as a regressive tax, impacting those who spend larger portions of their incomes on energy and other necessities.
This Federal legislation that I oppose has passed the U. S. House and is pending in the Senate. If the bill finally passes, energy rates will rise exponentially. In fact, the Missouri Public Utility Alliance estimated that electric bills could increase by 82% by 2030— they stress that this is an optimistic estimate. Estimates vary, but one thing is clear: Cap and Trade will cost Missouri thousands of jobs and raise electricity rates on the average family hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. President Obama proposed this legislation even thought he warned that the legislation would cause electricity rates to “skyrocket.” These facts have caused some commentators to call this bad legislation “Cap and Tax”.
By supporting the cap-and-trade energy tax, the President and Democrats in Congress have directly attacked Missouri’s two largest industries—agriculture and tourism—along with every business in the state. One version of the bill (H.R. 2454 in 2009) would have established a national building code for commercial and residential buildings, requiring a 30 percent reduction in energy use immediately after passage and an additional 50 percent reduction in energy use by 2014—meaning that bureaucrats in Washington will tell you how to build your house.
We are also asking that the EPA rescind the recent decision made regarding the formal endangerment finding on greenhouse gases, seeing as the evidence was deemed to be flawed by the scientific community. It is imperative that we allow proven scientific measures and technological advances to help guide us in our environmental decisions. Direction to the federal government from the EPA should not be the sole source – especially when they try to control legislative objectives coming out of Congress that have harmful effects on our state and our citizens. Incidentally, Congress has control over the EPA and could legislatively reverse this bad decisions if were willing to do the right thing.
By a bipartisan vote of 112 yes and 41 no, the Missouri House of Representatives took a stand against Cap and Trade, sending a clear message to President Obama and Congress. I urge you to contact Senator Kit Bond and Senator Claire McCaskill and let them know what you think about this pending Federal legislation.
I want to once again thank my constituents who took the time to respond to the survey mailed in February. There were almost 400 responses. On the issue of taxes, 51.7% of those who responded opposed the “Fair Tax” while 48.3% supported it. When asked if they prefer simplification of the current tax structure by having fewer tax brackets, 82.4% supported this option. When asked if they everyone should have a personal deduction for the purchase of health care, 91% favored this option. Although this survey is unscientific, the results, especially the comments, were helpful to me. I did take the time to personally read all comments. Thanks again for taking the time.