Heritage Foundation has a great analysis on the impact of the Democrats' national energy sales tax.
The impact of this new energy tax is startling -- lost jobs, increased national debt, slower economic growth ... and higher energy prices for electricity, gasoline, natural gas and heating oil:
Energy Cost Impacts Price increases 2035 Gasoline - 58% Electricity - 90% Natural Gas - 55% Heating Oil - 56%
All rhetoric aside, mandates cost money. Today, for example, President Barack Obama declared that new U.S. automobiles must get an average of 35 miles-per-gallon by the year 2016. Yet it is widely acknowledged that meeting this new standard will add $1,300 to the cost of each new car. In general, when prices go up, people buy less. So, all other things being equal, less demand for a product (like cars) means fewer jobs, not more. (Of course, there is one way to raise prices and create more jobs: reduce worker productivity. If policy makers deliberately encourage inefficiency in an industry, more jobs will likely follow. But that reduced productivity also means workers will receive lower wages.)
Producing low-carbon electricity will also cost more money. Currently, producing solar photovoltaic electricity costs about 33 cents per kilowatt hour; wind generated electricity is about 9 cents per kilowatt hour; and coal-fired production with carbon capture and sequestration is estimated to cost up to 10 cents per kilowatt hour. In contrast, producing electricity by means of conventional coal-fired plants now costs 6.5 cents per kilowatt hour and nuclear power comes to 7.5 cents per kilowatt hour.
The Heritage Foundation's Foundry blog digs deeper into the Democrats' national energy sales tax, and finds that it will cost the average family a whopping $4,800 per year:
Our analysis shows it will cost the average family closer to $4,800 per year. Here's how:
Our $1,500 number is just the direct impact of household energy bills. Your electricity bill. Your natural gas bill. Your home heating oil bill. And of course, the amount of gas you use in your tank. The increased cost of your direct energy use is $1500 per year.
The Heritage Foundation's Foundry blog has a good post over the weekend about the Democrats' planned national energy sales tax with cost the average American family:
Any honest economist will tell you that a carbon cap and trade scheme, if it works perfectly, functions the same as an energy tax. The Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill currently under consideration in Congress is no different. In 2007, MIT did a study on the costs of cap and trade and found that cap and trade proposals that would reduce carbon emission by 50% to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 would cost the American household $800 a year in economic losses and $3,100 a year in taxes collected by the federal government. That's a total $3,900 cost for the average American household! How does this cost compare to other household expenses?
