Reuters reports:

Negotiations in the U.S. House of Representatives on how to cut industrial pollutants that cause global warming reach a critical stage this week as President Barack Obama huddles with key lawmakers on Tuesday and Republicans ready for a fight.

From what we’re hearing, moderate and prudent Democrats are starting to get ever-more squeamish about major cap-and-tax plans that will dramatically impair the economic lives of working Americans — as it should be. After all, Fred Smith and William Yeatman note in today’s Washington Examiner, anywhere along the greening spectrum, it’s us who get stuck with the bill: “Greenbacks for ‘green energy’ come from taxpayers’ pockets.”

UPDATE: It’s not just taxpayers who feel the pinch on climate legislation. The steel industry warns that domestic industry will feel the pain from climate tax legislation.

UPDATE UPDATE: CEI’s thoughts:

“If the ‘grand bargain’ is as described, Democrats from resource-producing states should spurn it,” said Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis. “Oil production projects can take a decade or more to complete, so between now and 2012 little if any oil from previously prohibited areas such as the California coast could be produced. Moreover, a key objective of cap-and-tax is to discourage oil production by making oil, gasoline, diesel fuel, and heating oil more costly to consumers. By the time any new oil fields could be developed, the cap-and-tax program would erode their profitability. This is a swindle, not a bargain.”

As CEI has pointed out in the past, the immediate effect of a cap and trade system will be to dramatically increase energy prices, resulting in a damaging cascade throughout the consumer economy. Restricting access to the nation’s most efficient and reliable forms of energy – the exact goal of a cap and trade system – amounts to a stealth tax on all Americans. Given that the nation is facing a recession into the indefinite future, such a system amounts to a massive de-stimulus to economic growth and prosperity.

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