Since the 1930′s, Louisiana has lost over 2,000 square miles to coastal erosion – an area larger than the state of Delaware. Stabilizing the remaining marshlands requires massive projects, such as plantings, erosion control structures and mass plantings, but more than anything it requires masses of money.
Governor Bobby Jindal thinks he knows who might help foot the bill: you and me, pal, if Cap and Tax gets passed.
It turns out that projects for rebuilding marsh and the delta will score all kinds of points in the Carbon Offset game. If someone wants to build, say, a coal-fired electrical generation plant, they will be required under the Waxman-Markey abomination to purchase Carbon Credits from a “qualified project”.
Scientists working with Louisiana to develop a carbon-credit plan say the river delta is a factor in the greenhouse gas equation. They say the 2,000 square miles of Louisiana marshland lost since 1932 is equivalent to the carbon output of 80 million automobiles driving for one year.
So, you’re looking to keep driving that Suburban? Or using coal-based electricity? We in Louisiana are here to help.
From the Opelousas (LA) Daily World:
“We can tap that market to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars without making any modifications to our projects whatsoever,” said Garret Graves, Jindal’s top adviser on the coast and levees.
Here’s how it could work:
In coming decades, Louisiana and the federal government plan to spend billions of dollars planting cypress trees, piping mud into dying wetlands and diverting rivers to flush out salt water.
Saltwater intrusion is a major cause of erosion because it kills marsh grasses and other vegetation that buffer land from the Gulf of Mexico. An area about the size of Delaware has been lost to the Gulf since the 1930s.
Jindal’s advisers and scientists say the work should be regarded as construction of a huge “carbon sink” — a manmade wilderness that extracts greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide from the air while producing oxygen.
In turn, Louisiana could sell “carbon credits” to companies that invest in building up this carbon sponge and keep the planet cooler — credits that would make up the emerging cap-and-trade markets.
Of course, this is bound to be controversial — with both sides:
Environmentalists say Jindal’s interest in carbon credits is hypocritical in light of the governor’s silence on the issue of global warming. Also, some environmentalists are critical of market-based environmentalism because they feel that it allows polluters to perpetuate bad habits and avoid costly upgrades that curb their greenhouse gas emissions.
“They want to take advantage of the growing concern over climate change without saying we’re concerned about it,” said Randy Lanctot, executive director of the Louisiana Wildlife Federation.
And it could upset conservatives, too.
“(Cap-and-trade) is really just another tax. In this case, it’s a corporate income tax,” said Patrick Michaels, senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.
“Doesn’t it sound progressive that we’ll rip off industry? That will get a lot of Republican voters,” Michaels said with irony. “If Louisiana wants to lead the nation in levying an industrial tax that won’t do anything about climate, so be it.”
Personally, I have no problem with the governor’s investigating Carbon Credits as one way to help finance the state’s critically needed wetland projects. If it turns out that there is trading in Carbon Credits, better to keep some of the money in one of the reddest of Red States.
Moe Lane
Steve Maley
Dan McLaughlin
Neil Stevens
Daniel Horowitz
I'm glad Jindal has shown his true character
katesmith (Diary) Friday, September 25th at 12:03AM EST (link)There are many articles explaining how the carbon trading market operates It mostly involves the UN and a Kyoto era instrument called CDM.s which has netted and wasted billions already. Often the Chicago based CCX trading desk is involved, which last I read was 20% owned by Goldman Sachs. Global Warming doesn’t exist to begin with. Even if it did, cap and trade would not cool the planet. It only guarantees robbing the already half-dead taxpayer and lining the pockets of existing billionaires and other criminals. Good riddance to Jindal.
Cap and Trade? Can you say, "Enron?"
ColdWarrior (Diary) Friday, September 25th at 12:21AM EST (link)Jeesh!
Thank you.
ColdWarrior
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I have a HUGE problem with Jindal doing this.
Chemical Sam (Diary) Friday, September 25th at 12:27AM EST (link)This market legtimizes a currency, a medium of exchange, with no real value, except as a form of punitive redistribution. Which, lest we forget is the point .
The assets (or liability) on which carbon credits are based –a burden on the environment due to the anthropogenic emission of carbon dioxide– doesn’t exist. The value of this currency is completely arbitrary, determined by some notion of what levels of carbon dioxide should be.
And when it comes to pass someday in the near future that real scientists can demonstrate that AGW isn’t a real problem after all, the carbon market, the carbon trading, and the carbon credits themselves will collapse (again). And anybody holding a carbon credit will be unable to spend it, something like Confederate notes after the American Civil War.
And let us pray that the lion’s share of those worthless credits of paper will be equally distributed among the socialists currently hijacking the Democratic party and the Hollywood elite.
If Jindal buys into this stupid little scheme, in a semi-clever attempt to game the system, he’s lost my respect.
Criterion Chemical was in the black for FY2010!
Not bad considering the forces arrayed against small business these days.
Let’s see about actually making some serious profit this year. Shameless capitalism, by:
www.criterionchemical.com
Jindal's way past due for a visit from the Ghost of Conservatism Future.
Third Street (Diary) Friday, September 25th at 12:28AM EST (link)At this point, not only have I all but written him off as a desirable Presidential candidate in 2012 and beyond; I’m wondering seriously whether he’s even worth re-electing in 2011. Jindal did a fantastic job with the Gustav evacuation, and it’s nice not to have the state run by an outright criminal for a change, but I really expected more from this guy. And every so often we get stuff like this out of his administration, that really makes me wonder why we bothered.
The objective is to kill Cap and Tax now, kill it real dead before we even start entertaining discussions about how to turn it to our advantage. Against all odds, it’s actually being kept at bay. It is therefore not helpful, especially when C&T seems to be on the ropes in the Senate, for a rising-star Republican governor to float a trial balloon that amounts to a tacit endorsement of carbon-trading.
Jindal of all people should understand the enormity of the threat C&T represents to the State of Louisiana. If I have to choose between the total economic destruction of this state and owning coastal property in Lafayette in 2050, I’d much rather take my chances with the latter.
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.” –Wilkins Micawber, “David Copperfield”
Cap and Trade is a Rip-Off, But...
ssohara (Diary) Friday, September 25th at 12:42AM EST (link)AS he is willing to speak out about the idiocy of cap and trade and do nothing to help the bill pass…
It’s like Social Security. I think it’s a huge Ponzi scheme which should never have been legislated, and I want to see it privatized, etc., BUT, if it’s still in place when I retire, yes, I will accept and deposit my checks.
Of course, if Jindal does this, he will be seen as an opportunist and not “pure”, but anyone who is a politician with a few exceptions is an opportunist.
oops....
ssohara (Diary) Friday, September 25th at 12:45AM EST (link)I mis-typed… here is what I meant to say:
I don’t have a problem with Jindal doing this AS LONG AS he is willing to speak out about the idiocy of cap and trade and do nothing to help the bill pass… once it passes, however, despite every effort to help it fail, then I don’t have a problem with him using the funds vs. letting a more liberal state get the money.
It’s like Social Security. I think it’s a huge Ponzi scheme which should never have been legislated, and I want to see it privatized, etc., BUT, if it’s still in place when I retire, yes, I will accept and deposit my checks.
Of course, if Jindal does this, he will be seen as an opportunist and not “pure”, but anyone who is a politician with a few exceptions is an opportunist.
Now, if Jindal allows federal funding of abortion, at that point I would write him off… I guess that is where I personally draw the line.
Bobby Jindal outsmarts the environmentalists
Finrod (Diary) Friday, September 25th at 12:55AM EST (link)Personally, I don’t have any problem with a carbon market and carbon credits, with one important caveat: participation must be optional. So think of it like this: would you rather see the money that’s being thrown away buying carbon credits going to rebuild Louisiana, or go into the pockets of someone like Al Gore?
Bobby Jindal has figured out how to take a liberal cause and co-opt it into actually doing something useful and good. He should be praised, not vilified.
Let’s get down to brass tacks here. How much for the ape?
Exactly. He could sell carbon credits now and get beaucoup bucks from Hollywood
Beaglescout (Diary) Friday, September 25th at 1:54AM EST (link)Those Hollywood dorks are tripping over their own feet to buy carbon credits to offset their decadent hobbies.
“A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.”
What, Finrod?
basalt_conservative (Diary) Friday, September 25th at 1:57AM EST (link)“Personally, I don’t have any problem with a carbon market and carbon credits, with one important caveat: participation must be optional.”
Does anyone here think for a second that the government (local, state or federal) would do something like this on an optional basis?!
No way they’re gonna do that! Unless it’s like health care…”you can either do it our way or pay a fine. It’s YOUR choice!”
Life is hard; it’s harder if you’re stupid. – John Wayne
Man is not free unless government is limited. – President Ronald Reagan
Wall Street is optional...
yoyo (Diary) Friday, September 25th at 8:52AM EST (link)And so is the commodities market. No one says that you HAVE to buy or sell any shares in any market.
Just “make” carbon credits in LA, SC, GA, TX, MS, AL, and FL, the States put them on the Commodities Market and sell them to idiots like Algore, Leo D. Caprio, and … who is that idiot actor that kinda looks like Phil Donohoe and has that stupid “Green” house in CA? Anyway… If they want to fund our coastal and marshland reclamation projects, well, ‘ok’.
Now, I am not going to buy any of them, and I would not suggest them as a wise investment to anyone either. Let the Market set the market.
“A fool and his money are soon parted.” -George Buchanan, 1535
Nemo me impune lacesset
“No one will provoke me with impunity!”
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Pukin’ Dogs – The Fighting 143
Sans Reproache
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The ‘yoyo’ replaced my cigarettes January 22, 2006….
Carbon Market = Market for Trading "Tax" for belief in Global Warming.
Rod_Patrick (Diary) Friday, September 25th at 5:33AM EST (link)Personally, This is a minus for Jindal on my book.
I think this is great
Neil Stevens (Diary) Friday, September 25th at 7:42AM EST (link)Given the choice between giving the Cap and Tax money to Al Gore or to Bobby Jindal, I know who’d I’d rather see it given to.
Eat it, green left.
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Hmmmm, can I get money for
izoneguy (Diary) Friday, September 25th at 7:49AM EST (link)a Solar Shingle Factory? A few billion should do it.
I can hire all the XCORN workers and pay them
the Federal Minimum Wage. All of them can go
on the government health plan.
The point cannot be made often enough: Modern liberalism, as embodied in the Obama presidency, is the defender of the status quo. And the status quo is a road to economic ruin. Political forces cannot redistribute the wealth that the economic system does not produce.
then again, the USA could use
larryp Friday, September 25th at 10:02AM EST (link)Stim money to buy the entire state of Louisiana and push it into the sea.
Think how much that would save on Cap and Trade. No State -No emissions. The entire calculation could be re-sold by the FEDs.
Throw in New Jersey
hickorystick (Diary) Friday, September 25th at 10:44AM EST (link)and have a two-for-one corrupt state sale.