Inhofe Comments on Obama’s State of the Union Address
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, commented on President Obama’s State of the Union Address.
"President Obama committed to the largest annual tax increase in the history of America, through the implementation of a global warming cap-and-trade system," Senator Inhofe said. "The range of the tax increase that would be brought on by this cap-and-trade legislation is somewhere between $300-$330 billion per year. As bad as the stimulus spending bill was, this would be much worse because instead of being one-time spending, the cap-and-trade tax increase would keep occurring year after year. During times of economic turmoil it is folly to impose more pain on families by intentionally raising their energy costs through cap-and-trade. The American people will be outraged when they realize that any so-called global warming ‘solutions’ will not have a detectable impact on temperatures but will have very painful and real impacts on their family budgets."Climate proposals should not be concealed under the guise of a deficit reduction tool. We learned last year during the Lieberman-Warner global warming cap-and-trade debate that the massive proposal represented the largest redistribution of wealth in the government’s history and predetermined winners and losers. I believe environmentalists and other special interests that were bought off in the last climate bill would oppose any legislation that attempts to reduce their earmarks. Special interest will oppose any bill that depletes funding for pet programs because the revenue is being held hostage as a deficit reduction tool.
"I was sitting near Sen. Barbara Boxer during the inauguration and she was stunned that the President didn’t address Global Warming in his speech. Unfortunately, it seems that the President is finally folding to the pressure from his special interest constituency. Thankfully, I believe we can still defeat these misguided climate efforts here in Congress."
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