House of Representative Democrats announced a plan to reshape energy use in the United States today. The plan includes tax breaks for investments into renewable energy like solar panels and wind fans.
The plan calls for a system to limit for the first time the amount of global warming pollution — mainly carbon dioxide from coal and oil combustion _that’s permitted from utilities, oil companies and large-scale industries, which make up 85 percent of the U.S. economy. They’d have to buy permits for each ton of emissions.
The total emissions amount would be lowered each year until it was 83 percent below 2005 levels in 2050. That’s the amount that science suggests will be needed as part of a global effort to prevent irreversible problems from steadily increasing warming.
If energy companies are paying more for energy by having to buy permits for emissions, you can almost be sure that they will pass the “inconvenience charge” to you. When gas was around $4 a gallon, my electric company was charging a gas fee on top of inflated per kilowatt hour charges. A gas fee…to offset the price of natural gas (so they say) for my electric bill…not my gas bill. If the electric company is making electricity from natural gas, aren’t they just the gas company? The gas charge also had something to do with gasoline prices to have the meter reader come out to our house…ridiculous.
I am all for providing and obtaining renewable energy, however, I don’t think that energy companies should be left to decide what they want to charge customers for their inconvenience.