Tell Your Senators to Vote Against the Tax, Spend, and Regulate Energy Bill!
On Thursday, December 6, the House of Representatives approved H.R. 6, the “Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.” This bill is more than 1,000 pages long and virtually no member of the House, other than those who crafted the legislation behind the closed doors of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) office, had time to read the bill and discuss its ramifications before voting on it!
H.R. 6 raises taxes on oil and gas companies, which will be passed onto consumers like you. It mandates that by 2020 15 percent of the electricity provided by private utilities come from renewable energy sources, such as wind or solar. However, many renewable energies are not technologically efficient enough to meet the utilities’ demands. H.R. 6 requires that 36 billion gallons of ethanol and other biofuels be blended with gasoline by 2022, a policy that will only aggravate the problems created by the 2005 energy bill, which mandated that 4 billion gallons of renewable fuel, mostly corn ethanol, be added to our gasoline supply. The 2005 ethanol mandate has cost us $14 billion in higher food prices and $2.7 billion in taxpayer subsidies. What’s more, studies are increasingly showing that producing ethanol harms the environment, rather than protects it.
H.R. 6 is touted as the answer to America’s energy woes, but it will not increase our nation’s energy independence or security. What it will do is tax, spend, and regulate. If H.R. 6 becomes law, you will spend more money at the pump, to heat and cool your home, and at the grocery store. To top it off, you will also pay more in taxes! The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that H.R. 6 will increase mandatory spending by $2.93 billion and will increase revenue by $3.25 billion over the fiscal 2008-2017 period! [C1]
For more than 30 years, Congress has manipulated the domestic energy market. The result: America’s dependence on foreign sources of energy rose from 37 percent in the 1970s to 66 percent today. Domestic energy supplies remain untapped because Congress has forbidden using additional federal lands for energy exploration and production.
The Senate is expected to vote on the energy bill as early as this weekend.
Tell your Senators to stop meddling in the energy marketplace and vote NO on H.R. 6!
