Amarillo Globe-News - Texas Spirit Can Clear the Air

Op-Ed

Senator John Cornyn

President Obama will attend the climate change summit in Copenhagen just a week after Houston experienced the earliest snowfall on record. Global temperatures are much lower than the experts predicted, and some say the real snow job is the "settled science" behind the theory of global warming.

Recently released e-mails by leading British climatologists suggest that the data is less reliable and more ambiguous than we were told. They also suggest that greater transparency in data collection and analysis would help prevent further politicization of climate research.

While the experts sort out the science, we should focus on what we know for certain: Washington's "cap and trade" bill is a job killer. Texas Comptroller Susan Combs estimates that the Senate version of this bill would eliminate the jobs of up to 313,000 Texans by 2020. Many of these jobs would come from the many small and independent businesses that together operate more than 90 percent of the oil and gas wells in our state.

Job losses are only part of the pain that cap and trade would deliver to Texans, as we would also see much higher electric bills. Based on data from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and the Department of Energy, the bill would cost Texas consumers more than $1.2 billion a year, by far the most of any state. Poorer families in Texas could see energy costs rise to more than 20 percent of their income, according to another independent study.

Higher energy prices would also drive up costs throughout the family budget. According to the Texas Comptroller's Office, a typical family would see prices go up by more than $1,100 a year on household goods, including more than $200 a year on health care alone. Fewer jobs, as well as higher taxes and energy bills, are the last thing Texas families, farmers, and small businesses need to see.

Washington should scrap cap and trade, and focus on policies that create jobs, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and better protect our environment. We can accomplish all three goals simultaneously, and Texans have shown how. By putting the right incentives in place, we encouraged private investment to transform our state into an alternative energy leader. Today, Texas has more than 8,000 megawatts of installed wind capacity, more than twice that of any other state. We've also strongly supported the construction of new nuclear power plants, which emit zero greenhouse gasses into our atmosphere.

Texas is also one of several states that have huge reserves of natural gas trapped in shale rock. New technologies make this energy source recoverable and affordable, and could create thousands of new jobs in our state. Natural gas also emits half the greenhouse gasses of coal, and is more energy efficient than many other fossil fuels.

President Obama's message in Copenhagen should be to embrace all available energy sources, and to encourage the private sector to develop them. He should abandon cap-and-trade schemes and unrealistic international goals, and work with Congress on strategies that will create more jobs for our people.

The entrepreneurial approach has worked in Texas, and it can work across our country.

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