Reps. Henry Waxman and Edward Markey CAGW’s May Porkers of the Month

Washington, D.C. - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today named House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and House Energy and the Environment Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey (D-Mass.) its May Porkers of the Month.  They are the ringleaders behind H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACESA), the Waxman-Markey bill. 

As the negative economic realities of the bill have become clear, negotiations have degenerated into a circus as Reps. Waxman and Markey frantically jump through hoops, adding and altering provisions to placate special interests and buy the votes of appropriately skeptical members of Congress from states which stand to lose if the bill passes. 

The Waxman-Markey bill would purportedly do two things.  First, it would reduce greenhouse gases by having the government set annual carbon emissions limits which would steadily ratchet lower.  Second, the Environmental Protection Agency would distribute carbon permits to companies, and since some companies will be over the limits and some will be under, those whose emissions exceed the limits would have to buy more permits from the government or from other firms in this new government-created and managed “market.” 

Waxman-Markey is a job-killer, with estimates of job losses ranging from 1 to 2.5 million by 2030.  It imposes enormous cost burdens on companies and industries and will drain the nation’s gross domestic product by $9.6 trillion by 2035.  It will drive consumer utility bills up dramatically, a fact that President Obama himself admitted during the campaign when he stated that consumer energy bills “would necessarily skyrocket” and Director of the Office of Management and Budget Peter Orszag reiterated when he confirmed that “price increases would be essential to the success of a cap and trade program.”  Families will pay an average of $1,500 more in energy costs per year.  Waxman-Markey would create complicated new financial instruments similar to those that played an integral role in the collapse of the mortgage market.  Despite the authors’ claims that the bill would create jobs, the bill contains a provision that would grant any worker laid off as a result of the program a “climate change adjustment allowance,” three year’s worth of salary payments, health insurance premiums, up to $1,500 in a relocation allowance, as well as $1,500 for job search expenses. 

For cracking the whip behind this Cirque du Disarray and for ballyhooing a bill that deserves to collapse under the weight of its own faulty assumptions, byzantine structural flaws, and astronomical costliness, carnival con-men Reps. Henry Waxman and Ed Markey are CAGW’s May Porkers of Month.

Citizens Against Government Waste is the nation's largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.  Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.

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