You know, last year I shared with you a bumper sticker that certainly describes me. The sticker said “Not as lean, not as mean, but still a Marine.” And I qualify on all counts. While we’re talking about the Marines, let me also share with you a quote from one of my coworkers, a Marine Vietnam veteran. He likes to say that the Marines are a department of the Navy. Then he quickly says, “The men’s department.” With apologies to the sailors…Semper Fi, Marines.
And speaking of sailors, let me use them to make a comparison. Most of us, I’m sure, have heard the phrase, “spending money like drunken sailors,” to describe people who are recklessly spending money. Well, with all due respect to our current President and our former President and to the U.S. House and Senate, their spending makes drunken sailors look like fiscal conservatives.
It is beyond my belief the amounts of money that we have used in the name of bailing out banks, Wall Street, auto makers—and a stimulus package that’s not, which will go to states that have spent beyond their means—as well as a number of irresponsible individuals who now are going to be bailed-out of mortgages they should never have gotten.
There is so much pork spending in the stimulus package and the budget that it resembles a sausage factory. In fact, to emphasize the amount of pork spending in the stimulus package, there is actually $1.7 million for “pig odor research” in Iowa...Folks, I can’t make this stuff up. That, and thousands of equally stupid earmarks are funded by our taxpayer dollars.
And now, that same group of elected officials wants to dramatically increase your cost of electricity through a number of schemes described as climate-friendly initiatives. But I will get to all of that shortly.
As some of you will recall from last year, I titled those comments “The Bad, The Ugly, and The Good” — a take-off on Clint Eastwood’s movie “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.”
In that speech, the “Bad” was the status of electric energy supply in Florida and in the nation. The “Ugly” was the rising cost and the projected dramatic increases in costs of electricity due to climate-change mandated constraints. And, finally, the “Good” was the results of that year’s consumer satisfaction survey. This year’s was even better. Unfortunately, price and reliability haven’t gotten any better and I will spend the next few minutes talking about those topics.
Before I go any further let me stress that this is not a political speech — although some of you will think it is.
This is not an anti-Republican speech — but some of you will think it is.
This is not an anti-Democrat speech — but some of you will think it is.
And, finally, this is not an anti-environment speech — but some of you will think it is.
This is just a statement of my sincere belief that we are on a collision course toward rapidly escalating electric rates and diminishing reliability.
The driving forces toward this collision course are climate-change zealots and a government that sees climate-change legislation as a huge revenue opportunity — aka TAXES!
Among reasonable people, there is still debate about just how dire the climate situation will become, how big an impact man has made on it, and how best to deal with it. Unfortunately, the most zealous climate-warming alarmists have tried to convince us that the debate is over and dire measures must be taken to reverse the course.
Chief among these are former Vice President Al Gore and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — certainly no friends of the USA.
And, of course, there’s our own Governor Crist, who, for reasons known only to him, seems intent on making Florida just like California. Of course, that’s not going so well for California either, since they are effectively bankrupt and will be receiving huge amounts of taxpayer money through the stimulus plan. Nevertheless, the media continues to embrace the doomsday predictions of this group while virtually ignoring the growing number of scientists who are debunking the global-warming consensus. In fact, honest, honorable, and scientifically astute people who dare to disagree are labeled “obstructionists,” “deniers,” and members of the “flat-earth society.”
Democratic leaders in the House and Senate with jurisdiction over climate-change legislation have pledged that Congress will work with the President to develop strong climate-change legislation this year. And they have vowed that costs will not be allowed to be considered.
In the Senate, it is Senator Waxman from California and, in the House, Senator Markley from Massachusetts, who has said, “Congressional leaders are ready to enact strong legislation this year that will follow the science and lead our economy into a cleaner, more prosperous future.” He made these statements following a meeting in Poland of the parties to the Kyoto Protocol which the U.S., for a number of reasons, failed to join in the past.
Quoting Markley further— he said, “Our intention is to help President Obama arrive in Copenhagen next year in a position of strength where the U.S. is again the leader.” Continuing to show his contempt for those of us less enamored with his plans to cripple our economies, he said, “The conference in Poland will go down in history as the retirement party for the flat-earth society of the United States of America.”
His reference to Copenhagen is the next meeting of the climate change gang later this year and he and his supporters want us to surrender our autonomy to them and the UN.
He continued by saying “The world is excitedly anticipating the first climate-friendly administration in eight years,”and, “The U.S. Congress is ready to work with President Obama to ensure that next year’s negotiations will go down in history as a celebration of the rebirth of U.S. leadership and the salvation of the planet.” Wow…that’s a bit off the charts overly dramatic.
Ladies and Gentlemen, as you all too well know, we are in a severe economic crisis here in Florida, the Southeast, and, indeed, the entire nation.
Let me be absolutely clear…It is certainly not one of my primary objectives to make the rest of the world happy that we will further cripple our economy by imposing unrealistic restrictions on energy production that serve to dramatically increase the cost, reduce the reliability, and do very little to affect the climate.
In fact, the greatest beneficiaries of those actions will be China and India, as they continue generating electricity from coal-fired plants with virtually no pollution-control equipment while using our exported coal to do it with.
So what’s creating all the furor about climate change and the production of electricity?
Basically the disciples of the climate change religion have determined that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are the culprit causing the planet to warm, and that if we don’t curb CO2 emissions, there will be an irreversible effect on our climate.
It should be noted that many prominent scientists disagree that CO2 has any impact on climate and, in fact, have studies that indicate that historically the planet has warmed in advance of the rising levels of CO2, instead of the reverse. And, in fact, [the planet] has not warmed in the past decade. Nevertheless, the alarmists are rushing to enact rules and legislation to limit the output of CO2.
Probably the best known and major alarmist is Al Gore, who recently told a British audience that if we do not enact climate- change restrictions right away, we will soon be tying boats up to the top of the Washington Monument as ocean levels rise due to global warming.
It is very important to understand that a large number of reputable scientists contend that carbon dioxide is not the major contributor to global warming that it has been portrayed to be.
CO2’s effect as a greenhouse gas is minuscule as compared to other significant sources. Water vapor, volcanoes, and animals produce far more CO2 than any of the man-made sources like power plant generation.
Let’s put CO2 in its proper context: Each of us is exhaling CO2 at this very minute, and plants require CO2 to live and grow. Nevertheless, I’m sure at this moment some bureaucrat in Washington is trying to figure out a way to tax each of us on the amount of CO2 we produce each time we exhale.
Of course, I guess, there might be some good news there. If you choose not to exhale…you won’t be taxed. On a more serious note, all greenhouse gasses account for one-tenth of one percent of our total atmosphere and man-made greenhouse gases, in total, account for less than one-half of one percent of that minuscule total. Nevertheless, the single-minded drive to reduce CO2 emissions dominates the energy discussions of politicians and regulators in Washington and Tallahassee.
Our speculation has now become reality, as President Obama has included approximately $650 billion dollars in his budget for “energy revenues.” Candidly, the “energy revenues” are Washington code for energy taxes that all of us will pay.
Frankly, I would have much more respect for the politicians proposing these energy revenues if they would be honest and call them taxes, which is what they really are. Instead, they are using a term called “cap and trade” which sounds very complicated and confusing to all of us.
Don’t be confused…If it walks like a tax, talks like a tax, penalizes like a tax…it’s a tax.
Basically, here’s how it works. The government determines a finite number of CO2 allowances that will be auctioned by the government and the government will get all of the proceeds to use as the government sees fit. We’ve all seen how well that works in recent months. But that’s another story.
Back to “cap and trade.” Generating utilities who are creating CO2 as part of the combustion process in coal-fired and natural gas-fired generating stations must buy sufficient allowances to cover their output. Unfortunately, the sale of the allowances is not limited to utilities.
Anyone with sufficient funds can buy the allowances at auction and then, through a market similar to Wall Street, sell them to the utilities that require them to operate. So, once the government has collected the first round of dollars for the initial sale of the allowances, market forces will take over and determine the price. And we have seen how wildly markets can fluctuate and can be manipulated — ENRON, for example.
So, what’s the impact of a “cap and trade” system on each of us?
Our trade association, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, estimates that the impacts of various levels of CO2 tax per ton will be:
•$20 per ton — about $200 per year
•$30 per ton — about $360 per year
•$60 per ton — about $500 per year
•$75 per ton — about $725 per year
On average, we’re using $50 per month as the initial impact. Now keep in mind that’s just the impact on your electric bill. Virtually everything else we purchase or use will also be affected because of the higher energy cost of producing it.
Another thing to keep in mind regarding the carbon tax is the fact that it does nothing to reduce the amount of CO2 being produced — not one ounce! It simply makes it more expensive to produce it and creates more tax revenue for the government.
The proponents will tell you that the objective is to make generating with natural gas and coal so expensive that we will be forced to go to wind and solar power. Ladies and Gentlemen, I have nothing against wind and solar and, certainly, agree that there are locations in the country where those applications have merit. However, the bottom line for now is they are very expensive and they produce electricity intermittently, which means that we either have to have sufficient back-up generation or be willing to be without electricity when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining. Neither of those is particularly attractive to me.
So, continue to keep in mind that the huge expenditures and huge amounts of tax increases are being proposed based upon hypothesis or consensus of a group of scientists led by Al Gore.
But again, there is an equally impressive number of scientists who disagree with the hypothesis. They just don’t get much press coverage. There simply is no scientifically provable consensus on man being the guilty party where so-called “global warming” is concerned.
Still, as I have already discussed, Congress is already hard at work to push your electric bill to unheard levels in the name of saving the planet.
You and I — the thoughtful, tax-paying citizens of this nation — are in trouble. We’re playing by the rules, but Congress keeps throwing additional burdens on us.
The time is now to challenge Congress and your Florida legislators about the true effect of their proposed climate actions and what that is going to cost each and every one of us.
We can achieve a thoughtful and balanced approach to our energy needs in this nation, but we must use some common sense in doing so. And, yes, renewables can and should be part of the fuel mix as we move into the future. In fact, they already are! However, right now we are looking at a potential train wreck and only the American public can stop it.
This morning in our Tech Tent, we invited you to send e-mails and postcards to elected officials expressing your concern on these matters.
I also encourage you to visit a special website set up by NRECA to help communicate with our elected officials. That website is: www.ourfloridaenergy.com. And it can also be accessed from our own SECO website:
www.secoenergy.com.
The bottom line is that we need to demand answers from our elected officials to the following questions: What will it cost to meet our nation’s electricity needs and your climate change goals? How do you plan to spend the carbon tax dollars?
As Americans, we deserve to know the impact any legislation will have on our family budgets and they need to be honest regarding the cost of the programs they support. What we absolutely don’t need are unrealistic mandates and taxes that simply increase the cost of electricity, decrease the reliability, and do very little to impact worldwide carbon emissions.
Let me close this part of my comments with a very candid explanation. I am devoting so much of my time and SECO’s communication efforts to this topic for a somewhat selfish reason: When your electric bills go up because of the impact of carbon taxes or “cap and trade” or whatever exotic title they give it, I want to be able to truthfully say that I warned you what was coming and did all that I could do to stop it.
Now, it is your turn to demand answers from our elected officials. After all, they are supposed to work for us.
Thank you and I sincerely appreciate your attention this morning. I’m Jim Duncan and I approve this message. So, in closing, — I know that’s the word you’ve been waiting for — let me just emphasize that it is a privilege and an honor to work with our Board of Trustees and our tremendous employee team to deal with the challenges of providing reliable electric service and trying to keep the cost affordable in an extremely challenging environment. I want to thank you for your attention this morning and certainly hope that you enjoy the rest of your morning with us.
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