In recent years, carbon pricing policies have become an incentive for more and more “green energy” countries to reduce emissions. On April 2, people in Sydney, Australia, rallied against a carbon tax.
Why does a New York state senator say that if the state legislature passes a new “green energy” bill, New York State will pay 55 cents more per gallon for gasoline?
On Wednesday (April 28), a Democratic majority in the New York State Senate passed two bills by Senator Kevin Parker (D-NY), “State Purchase of Zero Emission Vehicles” and “Expanding the Market for Solar Energy Production in New York State,” further This further advances the goals set forth in the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPR).
However, New York State Senator Pam Helming (D) does not support the legislation and warns people that “you’re going to spend more money at the gas pump.
Kevin Parker is chairman of the New York State Assembly’s Energy and Telecommunications Committee. Through the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, New York State is on a path to meet its mandatory goals of 70 percent renewable energy generation and economy-wide carbon neutrality by 2030; zero emissions from the electric power sector by 2040; and an 85 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 compared to 1990 levels. Offshore wind and solar projects received a boost in the recently passed federal budget.
The key question, however, is: Where will the money come from? With the summer recess of Congress only two months away, New York Renews, a political coalition of left-leaning environmentalists and community organizers, is passing a bill called the Climate and Community Investment Act (CCIA). Climate and Community Investment Act (CCIA) to “put a price on carbon” and push for a carbon tax that would collect billions of dollars a year.
Without it, say supporters on the left, all efforts will be for naught. “Unless we pass the CCIA, the CLCPA will be the emperor with no clothes on.” Senator Kevin Parker said.
Create jobs or create unemployment?
The idea is actually to put a price on emitting carbon dioxide, with the left proposing a $55 surcharge on every ton of carbon dioxide emitted or every 100 gallons of gasoline burned. This would raise the government’s carbon tax by $15 billion a year.
Who would that money go to? The Climate and Community Investment Act proposes that 30 percent of future revenues be allocated to a fund that would make grants to community groups to help them better resist climate change. This is a plan that Senator Parker and activists call a “just transition” from fossil fuels. According to them, passing the bill would mean “creating at least 150,000 jobs” to benefit these people over the next decade.
At the April 13 hearing, 27 individual leftist groups, including the People’s Climate Movement, testified in support of the bill, arguing, among other things, that “there can be no racial justice without climate justice,” on the grounds that black and Native communities suffer the most from extreme weather disasters. The reasoning was that Black and Native communities suffer the most from extreme weather disasters. And voices like these were almost everywhere in the testimony presented, with the pro-bill groups gaining an overwhelming advantage.
On Earth Day, New York’s radical Congressman Kate O’Connor (AOC) also implied that climate change is a result of racial injustice, and that a “Green New Deal” is needed. “That means we have to recognize in our legislation that trampling on indigenous rights is the cause of climate change and trampling on racial justice is the cause of climate change.” She stressed.
According to federal Senate Majority Leader Schumer, “Climate, jobs, race and social justice, bring the three together and it’s an unstoppable and powerful force.”
But at the hearing, New York State Commerce Committee Vice Chairman Ken Pokalsky (D) said CCIA supporters described the legislation as “making corporate polluters pay,” which is a slogan, but hardly the purpose of the bill.
In testimony at the April 13 hearing, Pokalsky said it is a broad and expensive bill that would create a new state bureaucracy that would collect billions of dollars a year from a wide variety of businesses and residents, with new assessments on gasoline and natural gas alone, according to their rough estimates, collecting more than $6 billion a year.
He noted that the legislation would have a significant impact on specific business sectors and individual businesses, large and small, in New York, and “it cannot be overstated.” “The bill implicitly acknowledges that its provisions and carbon reduction measures will have a negative impact on the economy, will result in facility closures and job losses, and will further impact communities with the loss of local tax revenue.”
New York State Senator Helming said the Climate and Community Investment Act would raise taxes on virtually every New York State resident. In addition to the 55-cent per gallon tax increase on gasoline, it would increase home heating costs by more than 25 percent. “If you heat your home with natural gas, oil or propane, you could pay more. The same is true if you use heating oil or propane to power your manufacturing business. This legislation is misguided.”
She encourages people who oppose it to go to her online to sign the petition letter at https://www.nysenate.gov/petitions/pamela-helming/time-pump-brakes-gas-tax.
The New York State Assembly will also hold a hearing on May 13 to discuss the implementation of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019, another sign that the Legislature is prioritizing climate issues.
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