If cap-and-trade was enacted, we'd still drill for oil and gas

Prior to the Gulf disaster, the American Power Act (the Senate version of cap-and- trade) seemed all but dead. This is as it should be. But with the Senate back from the July 4 recess, either the American Power Act will be explicitly taken up or another clean energy bill will be proffered to which the key provisions of the American Power Act will be attached.

The problem is that there is no real link between cap-and-trade regulations and the crisis in the Gulf. As President Obama himself admitted in a speech at Andrews Air Force Base in March of this year:

"The bottom line is this: Given our energy needs, in order to sustain economic growth, produce jobs, and keep our businesses competitive, we're going to need to harness traditional sources of fuel even as we ramp up production of new sources of renewable, homegrown energy (emphasis added)."

Therefore, even if cap-and-trade legislation were passed, we will still need to drill for oil and natural gas. Furthermore, cap- and-trade regulations do not fix the problems that led to the Gulf crisis in the first place, so we will still need to fix these problems.

All that would change if cap-and-trade legislation were passed is that President Obama and Congress would have chosen the worst possible time to impose job-killing legislation on the economy.

The U.S. economy has been growing thus far in 2010, but not at the robust pace one would expect at this phase of an economic recovery, and the joblessness rate remains unacceptably high.