Gohmert stated, “At a time when our economy is desperately trying to recover, when Americans are struggling to pay their bills, unemployment is on the rise, and our nation is facing unprecedented deficits, passing this outrageous, job-killing national energy tax takes our country even further in the wrong direction. Energy prices will go through the roof, as admitted by our own President, forcing higher costs on every American who drives a car or turns on a light switch. This bill unfairly punishes rural America, hurting our farmers, manufacturers, small business owners, and families.”
Following the vote, Gohmert said before the House of Representatives, “Just moments ago on this floor, there was cheering and clapping over the passing of the cap and trade bill, but it’s tough for me to get excited. From a political standpoint, I should be overjoyed because I really believe in my heart that when the American people find out what has been done to them, they are going to be livid and throw some people out of this body. But I care more about America than I do politics. And I know that we will be facing the single moms that we heard from last summer who can't afford the gasoline and propane bills. This Congress didn't do a great thing. This Congress hurt some really decent families struggling trying to make it, and this is going to be their death.”
While he was on the campaign trail, then-Senator Barack Obama admitted the cap and trade plan would massively increase energy costs, stating in a meeting with the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle,“Under my plan of a cap and trade system electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket … that will cost money.”
According to the Heritage Foundation, East Texans living within Gohmert’s First Congressional District will see a total personal income loss of $388.17 million in 2012 as a result of the Waxman-Markey bill. It also indicates a loss of 3,354 non-farm jobs that year, and a loss of $313 million in Gross State Product (GSP). (View report here.)
The report estimates by 2035 the bill will raise gasoline prices by 58 percent, natural gas prices by 55 percent, and electricity prices by 90 percent, and the average family may face increased costs of nearly $3,000 per year. The Foundation also predicts that unemployment will increase by almost 2 million by 2012 as a result of the bill’s burdensome regulations.
However, studies indicate that despite all these burdens forced on Americans in the name of preventing climate change, if U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are reduced 83% by the year 2050 as the bill claims, global temperatures will fall by only nine hundredths of a degree Fahrenheit.
Video of Rep. Louie Gohmert speaking out against the energy tax can be viewed here.