FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, November 5, 2009
Contact: Phil Kerpen or James Valvo (703) 224-3200

- Free market group says health care used as cover for energy tax -

WASHINGTON – The free market grassroots organization Americans for Prosperity (AFP) today chastised California Democratic Senator and chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee Barbara Boxer for pulling a fast one on the American people. The timing of the markup was an outrage considering the massive government takeover of health care that is in full swing in both chambers. Boxer passed the bill out of committee over the opposition and boycott of all seven of the committee’s Republicans.

“The country deserves better than Senator Boxer using a Democrats-only committee hearing to move cap-and-trade,” said Americans for Prosperity Policy Director Phil Kerpen. “The Republicans were very responsibly asking that the EPA conduct an analysis of the Kerry-Boxer bill before the markup began. That’s not too much to ask.”

The Kerry-Boxer bill is the Senate companion legislation to the House-passed Waxman-Markey energy tax bill. Both bills seek to restrict greenhouse gas emissions with a government-imposed cap and a Wall Street-run derivatives market to swap emission allowances. This week’s markup was the first step in the Senate for the scheme.

“Just like Waxman-Markey, this bill will cripple our fledgling economic recovery, drive up energy prices and cost the country even more jobs,” Kerpen concluded. “It seems that tax-and-spend big government advocates know no bounds to their hunger for power.”