"We're going to be paying taxes -- higher taxes -- one way or the other. Is there anyone on the panel that would disagree that this issue, if we're to combat it forthrightly and level with the American people, that this doesn't concern taxation? I think it's a matter of leveling with the American people and getting beyond the nonsense. This is about taxing, and this is going to be about stepping up to the plate."
The environmental lobby is in full control of administration energy policy, and, from the beginning, its agenda has been aimed at bringing down the oil and coal industries through increased regulations and taxes. Obama's $4 trillion budget is filled with anti-fossil-fuel provisions that will weaken our economy, drive up energy costs and kill high-paying jobs these industries create -- making us more dependent on foreign oil.
The $629 billion that its cap-and-trade scheme will raise over 10 years "will crush American competitiveness by penalizing all companies that emit carbon as a byproduct of manufacturing. Every family in America will pay this, on average, $100 billion tax every year in higher energy prices," says Americans for Tax Reform.
When the price of regular gas hit $4 a gallon last year, there were calls for lifting the restrictions on further exploration and drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, and the Bush administration complied. But the Obama gang killed that initiative as soon as they took over.
Worse, they used the budget to tax 25 percent of all oil production and 15 percent of all natural-gas production in the Gulf that will drive up gas prices at the pump and eventually reduce jobs in the Gulf states during a time of rising unemployment.
Typically, though, the Democratic leaders running Congress are not willing to abide by the same environmental costs and mandates they want to impose on the rest of us.
Last month, the House of Representatives dropped its plan to make its offices "carbon neutral," breaking their solemn promise to cut greenhouse emissions to zero under its Green the Capitol program.
And today, the Capitol Power Plant's smokestacks, located a few blocks from the Capitol, are still belching out filthy pollutants from the 35 percent of coal it burns to heat the House offices and chambers. It accounts for the largest single source of air pollutants in the District of Columbia.
We now live under Nancy Pelosi's arrogant autocratic rule that tells us: "Do as we say, not as we do."