Many people and lawmakers are only now recognizing the magnitude of these costs. But Senate majority leaders Harry Reid and Barbara Boxer are determined to enact punitive climate legislation. They have the support of numerous activists, banks, scientists and corporations, who call it landmark “green” legislation – as in $$$$ for research, complex cap-and-trade tax deals, government handouts, renewable energy mandates and subsidies, and opportunities to gain advantages over competitors.

The climate bill “would make an unprecedented investment in conservation of wildlife and habitats,” the National Wildlife Federation recently told outdoor writers – by preventing fanciful computer-generated climate disasters. Notes the Wall Street Journal: the $3.32 TRILLION in cap-and-trade auction revenues that Senator Boxer “expects to scoop up” by 2050 are exceeded only by the $6.7 TRILLION “in revenue handouts” she has thus far promised to friends in Congress, companies and green activist groups.

Certain politicians are promoting a 3-month gasoline tax holiday. But it could easily be followed by 30 years of energy and climate tax slavery. Gasoline could hit $6 or even $8 a gallon, and the soaring cost of electricity and natural gas could more than double by 2030, according to the American Council on Capital Formation and other analysts.

The impact on services for elderly, disabled and other homebound people – and the entire airlines industry – would be disastrous. In impoverished Third World countries, the effects would be catastrophic and lethal, as global warming pacts are translated into ever higher prices for food, and a permanent dearth of affordable electricity for economic growth, refrigeration and sanitation.

Make no mistake. Warner-Lieberman and its unsavory kin have nothing to do with saving the planet. They are about the taxation – and prevention – of energy. They are about power to control – and curtail – the power we rely on: for homes, offices, hospitals, food, consumer products, transportation and modern living standards.

They are about who gets to decide: how much energy we will have … where that energy will come from … what it will cost … whether there will be enough to lift more families out of poverty … and who will be the winners and losers in the new world of government-mandated energy scarcity. They are about creating a massive, regressive tax and regulatory scheme – to take the hard-earned incomes of millions, and redistribute it to constituencies that politicians judge are most likely to keep them in office.

It’s truly ironic. Fifty years ago, Democrats were defending the Jim Crow laws they enacted to keep blacks from schools, lunch counters, buses and drinking fountains. Today, Democrats are leading the fight to impose what Congress of Racial Equality chairman Roy Innis aptly calls “Jim Crow energy policies” that block access to energy, drive up prices, and keep minorities from achieving economic civil rights.

Even more ironic, four decades ago, Republicans led by Senator Everett Dirksen wrote and enacted landmark civil rights bills. Today, a biracial Democratic presidential candidate and Senate Republicans like John Warner and John McCain are championing Jim Crow energy and climate policies.

To me, these policies are criminal – far more so than anything Mark Twain ever dreamed possible.