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| McCain-Lieberman Act: Still Bad for Small Business
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February 10, 2005
Washington, D.C. - With the reintroduction of the Climate Stewardship Act, co-sponsored by U.S. Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council (SBE Council) reiterated its strong opposition to this measure.
SBE Council President & CEO Karen Kerrigan noted: "This bill effectively is a domestic version of the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change. It would ration energy usage by Americans by imposing reductions and caps on carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions. Energy costs would rise, and jobs would be lost."
SBE Council noted that a study conducted by Charles River Associates and released last year by United for Jobs and the American Council for Capital Formation found that implementation of the Climate Stewardship Act would reduce annual household purchasing power by between $600 and $1,300 in 2010, rising to between $1,000 and $2,300 in 2020. As many as 610,000 jobs could be destroyed in 2020 as well. Electricity costs for consumers would increase by between 13 percent and 31 percent in 2010, and between 19 percent and 43 percent as of 2020. The price of gasoline would increase by 30 cents to 50 cents per gallon by 2020. Overall, economic growth would slow, with lost output ranging, for example, between $164 billion and $525 billion in 2025. All industries would suffer lost output.
SBE Council chief economist Raymond J. Keating said: "Any effort to reduce and cap carbon-dioxide emissions - as would be the case with the McCain-Lieberman bill - would strike a mighty blow against economic growth, cripple U.S. international competitiveness, and destroy jobs by dramatically raising the costs of energy. Indeed, there is no serious disagreement over these facts in the economics community."
For more information, please call 202-785-0238 or visit the SBE Council's website at www.sbecouncil.org. For over ten years the SBE Council, a nonpartisan, nonprofit small business advocacy group headquartered in Washington, D.C., has been working to protect small business and promote entrepreneurship.
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