Cap and Trade Is Good For Louisiana!

According to this article at the Baton Rouge Advocate today, cap and trade will be good for Louisiana.

I don’t think so.

“Cap and Trade” is legislation that, as most readers are well aware, will penalize major industries, primarily utilities, oil refiners, and petro-chemical producers, for emitting carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in quantities the legislation defines as excessive.  The legislation passed long ago in the House of Representatives, but has been competing with healthcare legislation for attention in the Senate.  During the period of time that it has languished, the fundamental science that supports it has been demonstrated to not be credible.  (See here for our most recent report.)  Carbon emissions from man-made sources are no longer perceived as causing global warming, and that phenomenon is itself in question, yet in its infinite wisdom and its motivation to find new ways to generate tax revenue, grow government, and redistribute wealth, Washington has chosen to ignore the absence of sound science or the economic devastation various forms of the legislation would bring about, and continues to espouse the legislation as necessary.

Carbon dioxide can be injected into dormant fields to provide additional recovery of oil.  Denbury Resources, Inc. is presently constructing a pipeline from Louisiana to Texas to transport sufficient volumes of CO₂  to accomplish that feat in a now dormant field near Houston.  Ted Griggs, author of the article at the Advocate, presupposes that Louisiana industries will invest the untold millions of dollars necessary for carbon capture, that utilities and investors will build the pipeline network to move it, and that it will thus be available for additional recovery of crude.  Dormant fields in the Gulf of Mexico and in coastal states will presumably yield sufficient quantities to boost domestic production by over 3billion barrels per day.

While the technology is sound, there are several fallacies in this hypothesis.  As noted, the reduction of carbon emissions is no longer supported by science.  Secondly, it is much more likely that rather than invest in carbon recovery, many of the industries that will be penalized by the legislation will simply shutter their domestic facilities and relocate to more “carbon friendly” locales.  Finally, with the Obama administration clearly opposed to domestic oil production, they’ll no doubt oppose this recovery method as well.  Pipeline construction will be found to endanger an innocuous creature and will thus be blocked.

Editors at the Advocate presented their article as news.  It is more appropriately an opinion piece reflecting that publication’s tendency to support left-leaning policy rather than the posture of most Louisiana readers.  This, too, is an opinion post, based on the fundamental premise that unsound legislation supported by disproven science cannot be good for Louisiana.