Progress Illinois

There are a lot of blind spots in the case against climate change legislation regularly made by deficit hawks like GOP Reps. Peter Roskam and John Shimkus. For one, the cost to households of enacting a cap-and-trade system won't be nearly as high as Republicans suggest. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the average household would be asked to pay an additional $175 per year by 2020. A complex regression run by FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver suggests that the average Illinois family would dish out slightly more  -- $192 per year -- than the national rate (while low-income households would actually save $40 dollars per year). Those are significant extra expenses, but you'd be hard pressed to find any rational person who considers this extra cost an "assault on democracy and freedom."

Opponents also rarely consider what Rep. Mike Quigley calls "the cost of inaction." Demand will rise when non-renewable energy sources dry up. Combine that with the inevitable human and financial costs of environmental destruction, and taxpayers will fork over much more in the long run if the nation fails to make a strong investment in renewable energy and cap carbon emissions now.

Environment Illinois tried to quantify that impact in a report released today titled "The High Cost of Fossil Fuels." According to their data, which is based on current and projected spending, Illinois will spend $1.074 trillion between 2010 and 2030 on oil, coal, and other forms of fossil fuel. If our current consumption habits aren't altered, that amounts to a $1,624 increase per person in combined fossil fuel costs in the year 2030.

Of course, fossil fuel use leads to what Environment Illinois' Citizen Outreach Director called Ryan Rastegar "the untold damages of global warming, mountaintop mining, oil spills, and pollution." World Bank Chief Economist Sir Nichoals Stern, cited in the study, warns that a 5 to 6 degree Celsius increase over the next century could result in "a permanent loss of 5 to 11 percent of global GDP." The Waxman-Markey bill, on the other hand, will only slightly lower American GDP starting in 2050, according to an analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency.

There are indirect national security costs to our dependence on foreign oil as well, part of the reason Rep. Mark Kirk made a controversial decision to side with the Democratic leadership. "Opponents routinely neglect to consider the cost to our service men and women," said Dan Toobin, Illinois state director for VoteVets.org, at a press conference today. U.S. decisions overseas have always been connected to the need for energy, especially conflicts in the oil-rich Middle East. Already, the federal government has allocated $1 trillion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, money that Toobin argues could be used to treat wounded soldiers and invest in clean energy. "I'm not trying to be an alarmist," he added. "I just think we should consider [those costs] when we address energy problems."

Read the entire report here.