Psssttt . . . hey buddy,  I got a nice deal on some carbon credits, straight off the docks.

If the eco-left gets its way, this won’t be such a far-fetched scenario.

Earlier this month, Europe’s top law enforcement agency (Europol) reported the continent’s so-called “Cap and Trade” system is under the control of organized crime.

Lawmakers and energy experts say the massive theft and fraud Cap and Trade has fostered in Europe should be a “red flag” to U.S. lawmakers who want to recreate the system in the United States, according to Fox News. Europol reports over the last 18 months, $7.4 billion in fraudulent credits have been purchased from organized crime figures. Under “cap and trade” businesses cannot exceed certain carbon dioxide output limits, unless they buy government issued “credits” allowing them to produce more (in effect, a tax on carbon dioxide.)

Europol estimates in some countries up to 90 percent of the entire market volume was caused by fraudulent activities. “These criminal activities endanger the credibility of the European Union Emission Trading System,” said Rob Wainwright, Europol’s director.

As is the case in Europe, it’s only a matter of time before organized crime gets into the cap and trade “racket”.

Fight back – Click here to sign our “No Cap and Tax” petition if you haven’t already done so – “If you know what’s good for you!”

Right now, the Cap and Tax system just one U.S. Senate floor vote away from passage invites “corruption, illegality and criminal activity,” much as it has in Europe, said Max Schulz, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

”This is the problem with politicians trying to create a market for something that the free market otherwise doesn’t value,” Schulz said. “An emissions trading market is an artificially, politically-created market….

“If we pass a system like Europe has, we’re going to get all the problems Europe has experienced,” he said. “You’re asking for a lot of problems.”

And that includes a surge in criminal activity and fraud in the carbon credit “market” – an opportunity Tony Soprano would love to get a piece of.

Western Tradition Partnership members aren’t about to sit back and let our economy get “whacked”!

Stay tuned, because we’ll be covering what is likely the first major prosecution of cap-and-trade fraud in the United States – a case in which records are set to be unsealed in early January 2010.

Cap-and-Traders - Hypocrites

For Release: September 15, 2009

Western Tradition Partnership launches campaign to save American jobs from being “Cap and Taxed” away

Group alerts grassroots of Reps. Betsy Markey & Harry Teague’s support for job-killing national energy tax

DENVER – Western Tradition Partnership announced Tuesday it has launched a grassroots campaign in Colorado, Montana, and New Mexico congressional districts to inform voters of the harm the proposed “Cap and Trade” bill in Congress (H.R. 2454) will have on jobs and the economy. The bill could come up for a Senate vote in the next few weeks.

The group has labeled the bill, which imposes a new national tax on carbon and creates a speculator’s market in “carbon credit,” as “Cap and Tax” in targeted mailings.  The mailings will hit districts held by Betsy Markey (D, CO-4) and Harry Teague (D-NM-2), criticizing their votes to pass the bill on June 26^th , while praising Denny Rehberg (R, MT) for his opposition.

One radical environmentalist group spent $1.2 million to get Markey elected in 2008.

“It’s no coincidence that Markey voted for the Cap and Tax scheme after she was bought and paid for by the radical environmentalist groups in her last election,” said Jacob Leis, WTP Executive Director, Colorado.  “This new multi-billion dollar national energy tax is nothing but a political payoff to wealthy East- and West-coast donors and those on Wall Street who will get rich trading so-called carbon credits. Al Gore, Betsy Markey and their ilk will take billions in new taxes from every man, woman, and child in America to shamelessly pay back those who bankrolled their elections.

“Research shows this Cap and Tax bill will destroy as many as 2.5 million jobs per year and creates the equivalent of a $4,609 tax hike on a family of four,” said Leis.  “Their plan is to inflict pain on families and employers and stop any efforts at economic renewal.  Even worse, the bill has no net effect on its supposed target of global temperatures.”  The research was conducted by the independent, non-partisan Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis.  The Heritage Foundation has no relationship with WTP.

Even President Obama admits this new national energy tax causes every person’s utility bill to “skyrocket.” (San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 2008 or on this video post.)  Obama’s early admission Cap and Tax hurts working Americans makes Markey’s support even more alarming.

State Senator Greg Brophy, a farmer in Markey’s district estimates “Cap and Tax” will cost farmers in Colorado’s 4^th CD nearly $600 per irrigated acre.

“It’s all pain, no gain.” Leis said, adding, “and the environmentalists intended it to be that way. More and more scientists are coming out against this bill because it exploits environmental concerns to launch an economic assault on America’s economy, which radical environmentalist have long hated.”

“It’s up to citizens to speak out against this radical environmentalist plan to downsize American jobs.  Western Tradition Partnership will aggressively begin that process.”

For more information on this issue visit WTP’s blog at www.blog.westerntradition.org , or to schedule an interview, contact Public Relations Director Donny Ferguson at donny.f@westerntradition.org.

Western Tradition Partnership is a fast-growing grassroots organization dedicated to “Rediscovering the Treasures of the West” through rational, responsible natural resource development and land use policy.  WTP achieves it goals through hard-hitting issue advocacy and legislative lobbying, voter contact and public education campaigns.

#  #  #

by Paul Chesser, special correspondent for the Heartland Institute

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, the double-minded man on cap-and-tax, is continuing his high-stepping through the the hot coals of global warming policy prescriptions. In a Flathead Beacon article that attempts to assess the prospects of the national Waxman-Markey bill, the chairman of the Western Governors Association and the Democratic Governors Association is said to “clarify” his position on carbon emissions trading schemes, but in reality he only muddies further:

In an interview last week, Schweitzer clarified his position, saying he “categorically” believes gasses produced by humans, like methane and CO2, were causing climate change and the U.S. needs to take action to reduce emissions of these gasses. But then added: “Do I believe that the carbon cap-and-trade system is the best proposal? The answer is no.”

As for Waxman-Markey, Schweitzer said, “I have some concerns with it” and that he hasn’t “been able to find anyone who can understand” the bill.

But Schweitzer would not speculate on the political prospects of Waxman-Markey’s passage, saying only that the bill is sure to be altered by the Senate and eventual conference committees, which could result in a much different bill. Nor did the governor say he backed cap-and-dividend. Instead, he said he would like to see some type of policy mechanism where fees on carbon emissions were used to develop new technologies dedicated to a cleaner, more efficient energy system, encompassing everything from carbon capture, to new transmission grids, to wind and solar power. Such a system would allow the market to motivate companies to develop these technologies, whether a carbon cap is imposed or not.

“I don’t know that you need a hard cap if you send clear market signals that you need to decrease carbon dioxide emissions,” Schweitzer said.

So what does that mean for his state’s continued participation in the Western Climate Initiative’s cap-and-tax scheme, as the governor sees it? Your guess is as good as anyone’s, but he will probably be allowed to evade a straight answer as long as Montanans (and their media) let him.

9/11 was nothing, according to new WWF ad

Just in time for the anniversary of 9/11 comes this tasteless, nightmarish print ad for the World Wildlife Fund, showing dozens of planes headed for lower Manhattan. See a larger version here. The copy reads: “The tsunami killed 100 times more people than 9/11. The planet is brutally powerful. Respect it. Preserve it.”

Unfortunately, respect is the main thing lacking here. Exploiting one tragedy to try to prevent another is just stupid and self-defeating, and will always backfire. Via Advertolog, which credits the ad to DDB Brazil. UPDATE: It appears this ad actually managed to win a merit award for public service at The One Show this year.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Taxpayers unhappy about WCI scam

Governors (Two) Bark Back

By Paul Chesser — American Spectator

Well, they didn’t take that very well.

The chairman (Democrat Gov. of Montana Brian Schweitzer) and vice chairman (Republican Gov. of Idaho Butch Otter) of the Western Governors Association responded sharply (PDF) to a National Taxpayers Union inquiry about WGA’s management and funding of the Western Climate Initiative, which the rest of the WGA board members — the governors of the other 17 Western states — either unknowingly or are too embarrassed to acknowledge they support.

WCI is a serious hush-hush deal among these state executives.

Read the rest here:

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/07/20/governors-two-bark-back

- Paul Chesser

Greens Take another Hostage

Commandeered by Climate Alarmists

By Paul Chesser of Climate Strategies Watch and Special Correspondent for Heartland Institute

Did the chief executives of a few Western states hijack the staff and resources of their regional coalition, against the will of most of their fellow governors, all to promote their vision for a regional cap-and-trade agreement?

It sure looks that way. Based upon documents I obtained from Patrick Cummins, program director for climate change and air quality at the Western Governors Association, it appears that a few governors and WGA staff violated rules (which require unanimous consent by its member governors) in devoting resources and staff time to the Western Climate Initiative. WCI seeks to create a regional agreement among its member states to cap greenhouse gas emissions, in order to avert what they believe to be a pending global warming catastrophe.

I shared the documents I obtained with the National Taxpayers Union, which sent a letter of concern to (now outgoing) WGA chairman Jon Huntsman Jr. , governor of Utah:

No doubt you agree that, as an organization that receives tax dollars from both state and federal sources, WGA has a responsibility to operate with full transparency and public disclosure in terms of its fiscal activities, where it receives its funding and how and where it spends those funds. We also know that WGA functions on the basis of consensus among its member states, so that moneys provided to WGA by one or several states do not subsidize operations or programs that their governors oppose.

Seven states agreed to work as WGA partners, leaving the majority of WGA states not formally supporting the involvement of WGA in the WCI process. According to information we have received, no resolution was adopted by WGA endorsing WCI or authorizing WGA to provide any support to the WCI process. Given the opposition by many Governors to having any of their taxpayer-backed contributions to be used to subsidize the operations of the WCI, this is understandable.</em>

That is why we were surprised to review documents recently released by WGA that indicate deep and wide-ranging involvement by WGA staff in the WCI.

Those documents are posted at Climate Strategies Watch, and upon review you realize that WGA has total management control of WCI. As NTU stated in its letter, “It is difficult to see how tax dollars from non-WCI states did not subsidize this process.”

In a conversation I had with Cummins, he explained that some funds came from private resources for WCI. But that doesn’t explain whether or not they fully covered WCI, nor does it account for how much of his (and other WGA staff) time was diverted to WCI efforts. It also doesn’t explain why WGA secretly undertook the project — even signing contracts with consultants for the WCI project — without obtaining approval from its member governors.

Several documents posted at the WGA and WCI websites show that five governors — Democrat Janet Napolitano in Arizona (now Homeland Security Secretary); Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger in California; Democrat Bill Richardson in New Mexico; Democrat Ted Kulongoski in Oregon; and Democrat Chris Gregoire in Washington — formed WCI (.pdf) (Montana and Utah joined later) in February 2007 with no mention of WGA involvement or approval. The five signed an agreement committing their states to the WCI effort, but they make no more than a passing reference to how WGA resolved that “action is needed” on climate change.

Further evidence that everything was not on the up-and-up: WGA’s annual reports in 2007 and  2008 (both.pdfs) do not mention its extensive involvement with WCI, save a very passive reference in 2008. The same reports identify Cummins, who manages WCI (and was my contact for the records I requested), as project manager of its Western Regional Air Partnership project and its air quality initiative.

What were they trying to hide?

While the five global warming alarmist governors hijacked WGA for their own agenda, at least 10 other member governors were kept in the dark. As NTU wrote:

These facts raise serious questions about the use of taxpayer funds in this effort from states that did not agree to partner in the WCI project – including Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Idaho, Nevada and Alaska. In fact, it is difficult to see how this was not the case, given the extent to which WGA time, staff and resources were spent to support the WCI.

At least one unidentified WGA governor, interviewed by the Wall Street Journal’s John Fund before this week’s annual meeting, expressed dismay :

One governor I spoke with points out that the WGA is supposed to operate on a consensus basis. He says the WGA’s involvement in planning climate change proposals is serious overreach. “The dues states give WGA come from tax money and I was surprised to learn just how much the WGA seems to be getting ahead of many of the states on carbon regulation,” he told me.

The secrecy with which the five WCI governors and the WGA officials like Cummins operated highlights how they have defied the will of the majority of the member governors, and likely improperly used the taxpayer funds of the states they represent. Let’s hope NTU gets a full accounting, and that governors regain control of an organization that appears to have been overtaken by environmental activists and a few WGA members who have done their dirty work.