‘Cap & Trade’ Would Hammer PA Manufacturing

Member Group : PA Manufacturers' Assn.

For Immediate Release, July 8, 2010
Contact: David N. Taylor, 717 232 0737
[email protected]

"CAP & TRADE" ENERGY TAX WOULD HAMMER
PENNSYLVANIA’S MANUFACTURING SECTOR

New tax on fossil fuels would needlessly raise costs for job-creators and consumers, hampering economic growth and further delaying recovery

As Pennsylvanians endure the worst unemployment in 25 years, a plan in Congress to make energy more expensive would damage Pennsylvania’s economy even more severely than other U.S. states, said David N. Taylor, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association.

"The new carbon tax under ‘Cap & Trade’ would specifically disadvantage Pennsylvania’s power generators," Taylor said, noting that roughly half of the state’s electricity comes from coal-fired plants. "Pennsylvania’s manufacturers need reliable, affordable power to operate as we make products, satisfy customer needs, and sustain the largest and most important sector of our state’s beleaguered economy."

The manufacturing sector is the largest contributor to Pennsylvania’s economy, generating 13.6 percent of our Gross Domestic Product, adding $75 billion of wealth every year, directly employing more than 525,000 Pennsylvanians, and sustaining even more jobs in manufacturers’ supply chains and distribution networks. Because manufacturing is an energy-intensive activity, energy costs are often manufacturers’ largest expense.

"There is more coal energy under Pennsylvania than there’s petroleum energy under Saudi Arabia," Taylor said. "The development of the natural gas industry in the Marcellus Shale is Pennsylvania’s best hope for economic recovery. It’s crazy to stifle domestic energy production when we’re competing with China, which will not be bound by the same rules. Adopting the Waxman-Markey ‘Cap & Trade’ carbon tax will outsource Pennsylvania jobs to China faster than anything else I can think of."

An analysis of the Waxman-Markey "Cap & Trade" legislation by the National Association of Manufacturers found that, over the next 20 years, the new energy tax would kill as many as 97,000 Pennsylvania jobs and depress Pennsylvania’s economic growth by up to $20 billion per year, while hiking electricity prices, lowering disposable income, and burdening taxpayers with higher government operating costs.

"This new energy tax would switch off Pennsylvania’s economy," Taylor said, noting the bipartisan opposition of the Pennsylvania delegation (11 against, 8 in favor) to Waxman-Markey when it passed the U.S. House by a mere seven votes, 219-212.

Founded in 1909 by Bucks County industrialist Joseph Grundy, the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association is a Harrisburg-based statewide trade organization serving the manufacturing sector by advancing pro-growth public policy solutions. Learn more about PMA by visiting www.pamanufacturers.org.
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