U.S. Rep. John Shimkus, R-Collinsville, stopped in Springfield last week, and as
expected, carbon was his hot topic.
Shimkus, a 12-year member of the House energy and commerce committee, told the
Citizens Club of Springfield that while he opposes both cap-and-trade
legislation and a carbon tax, he favors the latter over the former. A
cap-and-trade plan, which permits companies to trade carbon emissions credits
in a stock market-type system, will further corporate corruption and extort
energy prices, he said.
“Is a carbon tax better than a carbon cap-and-trade?” Shimkus said. “I may not like either one of them, but I may have to choose one. A carbon tax
would be a little bit clearer, very transparent, and people would know what
they’re paying.”
Shimkus also opposes cap-and-trade, because he said it’s not a short-term solution. Fossil fuels provide low-cost energy sources, he
explained, but the only way to continue their use is through carbon capture and
sequestration. Engineers plan to use the emerging technology to separate carbon
from power plant flue gas and inject it into underground storage facilities.
“The technology isn’t available,” he said. “It’ll be 10 years before we know if we can capture and sequester carbon.”
“If we’re going to move to a carbon-constrained world,” he added, “we have to move fast.”
Last month U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Cal., chairman of the energy and commerce
committee, and U.S. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., chairman of the energy and
environment subcommittee, released a draft of the American Clean Energy and
Security Act of 2009. The legislation, which promotes carbon capture and
sequestration technologies and cap-and-trade provisions, along with other
measures, comes up for House energy and commerce committee consideration
beginning this week.
Shimkus, a minority member of the committee, doesn’t expect to have much input on early versions of the bill. He does promise to be
a “tough adversary.”
“I’m going to have to cast votes as this process moves forward, and hopefully there
will be a couple of amendments that I can support,” he said.
This article appears in Apr 16-22, 2009.
