Energy companies launch nationwide campaign against climate-change legislation

We have noted that energy companies have been waging a public relations campaign in an effort to combat growing concerns about global warming that have derailed or delayed plans for coal-fired power plants. With climate change legislation pending in Congress, energy companies and other business interests are now funding a 17-state "Climate Change Dialogue" tour that argues the new bill would "could cost millions of jobs, drive gasoline prices sharply higher and suck thousands of dollars from household incomes," reports Matthew Brown of The Associated Press.

The effort is a response to the bill sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.) that has been approved at the committee level. It would create a nationwide cap on emissions and create a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas emissions. On the tour, which began this week in North Dakota and Montana, industry-sponsored economists said such a plan would mean a loss of three or four million jobs. "A recent study commissioned by the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Council for Capital Formation estimates that the U.S. economy would have fewer jobs and face at least $631 billion in costs by 2020 should Congress institute an emissions reduction program," Brown writes. The Environmental Protection Agency's own analysis said the economic cost could be $238 billion. (Read more)

Last Wednesday, Billings, Mont., "was the latest stage for an ongoing national debate about the potential costs of curbing carbon dioxide emissions linked to the earth's warming climate," reports Mike Stark of The Billings Gazette. The Montana Chamber of Commerce hosted a conference — sponsored by industry groups — in which speakers said the Lieberman-Warner bill would mean a loss of 3,700 to 5,900 jobs in Montana by 2020 and a jump in gasoline prices by as much as 140 percent, Stark reports.

"Claims of dramatic job losses and rising prices for consumers were quickly dismissed by environmentalists, Gov. Brian Schweitzer's office, Montana economists and others," Stark writes. "Those forecasts fail to account for new technology and emerging economies that will reduce carbon emissions and keep Montana's economy humming." (Read more)