Ken Cuccinelli, republican candidate running for Attorney General, posted on the RedState blog(Cuccinelli, RedState, "Cap and Trade Will Hurt Virginia") about how the “cap and trade” legislation will hurt Virginia. “Cap and trade” is the legislative response to solve the issues of ‘global warming’, the increase of the average temperature of the earth's atmosphere due to the greenhouse effect.

Cuccinelli starts off by describing the purpose of the “Cap and trade” legislation: “to restrict greenhouse gas emissions from industry, mainly carbon dioxide from the combustion of coal, oil, and natural gas.” This doesn’t sound bad to me, until he mentions the severe economical effects that it will cause in our already difficult economy (currently).

Cuccinelli rename’s “Cap and trade” to “Ration and Tax”, which obviously shows us how he views this legislation. Cuccinelli named it that way because “under this bill, the government would require anyone who uses electricity, who drives a car, or who runs a business to hold a ‘ration coupon’ for his or her emissions, with the number of coupons being reduced every year to force a reduction in emissions, thus producing higher energy taxes for the average citizen.” Cuccinelli declares that this legislation would cause many people to lose jobs and it would harm our economy overall. Cuccinelli states that this legislation will not have a “noticeable positive impact on the global climate”, and that is not worth sacrificing our economy. If what Cuccinelli says is true, that this legislation won’t have a noticeable impact, I totally agree with what he is saying. Why would I want to invest so much into something that won’t really payoff?

Cuccinelli then supports his statements, that the “Cap and Trade” will hurt our economy (Virginia specifically), with statistical evidence: “This year’s House bill was estimated by the Heritage Foundation to lose 2.5 million net jobs by 2035. The loss of economic output: $9.4 trillion. The jobs lost in Virginia: 52,700. The report also stated that by 2035, Virginian’s will see their electricity prices rise by $1,031.73 and their gasoline prices rise by $1.31 per gallon solely because of ‘Ration and Tax’. Peter Orszag, President Obama’s current budget director, forecast the scheme would cost $1 trillion over the next 10 years and $5-$7 trillion through 2050.”

Countering future opposing statements, Cuccinelli goes on to say that the new ‘green jobs’ that are supposed to emerge to counter the tremendous job losses are not enough, and that they will most likely pay too little: “A study for the Teamsters and Sierra Club – both allies of those advancing ‘Cap and Trade’ – found: ‘Wage rates at many wind and solar manufacturing facilities… fall short of income levels needed to support a single adult with one child.’ In Spain, the experience has been 2.2 real jobs destroyed for every ‘green job’ created.”

Cuccinelli then backs up his statements on the outcome of “Cap and trade”, that it will have little-to-no effect: “The Developed Only scenario cuts only about 0.5 °C of the warming”. The only way for it to have an effect is if other countries join in, but China and India (two large growing nations) have already declared that they refuse to. Why is “Cap and trade even being considered with statistics like these? Is trillions of dollars worth 0.5 °C?