Meet the retrofit police
I noted last week on Twitter that if Cap and Tax becomes law, Americans will need to prepare for the Retrofit Police, the Lightbulb Brigade & Obam-odometers.
Jimmie Bise takes an in-depth look at the retrofitting provisions of the House cap-and-trade bill — Section 304.
Read the whole deal here.
Excerpt:
Here’s what the Democrats have planned for you. The program requires that states label their buildings so that we can all know how efficient every building (that includes residential and non-residential buildings) is and it requires that the information be made public. To that end, the bill suggests a number of circumstances under which the states could inspect a building, including:
(A) preparation, and public disclosure of the label through filing with tax and title records at the time of–
(i) a building audit conducted with support from Federal or State funds;
(ii) a building energy-efficiency retrofit conducted in response to such an audit;
(iii) a final inspection of major renovations or additions made to a building in accordance with a building permit issued by a local government entity;
(iv) a sale that is recorded for title and tax purposes consistent with paragraph (8);
(v) a new lien recorded on the property for more than a set percentage of the assessed value of the property, if that lien reflects public financial assistance for energy-related improvements to that building; or
(vi) a change in ownership or operation of the building for purposes of utility billing; or
(B) other appropriate means.
Pay close attention to (iii), (iv), and (vi) because those hit you right where you live. What that’s saying is the state will be empowered to inspect your home if you want to 1) renovate your house in any way that requires a building permit, 2) sell your house, or 3) change the name of the person responsible for any utility bill.
By now, if you haven’t swallowed your tongue and are in need of medical attention, you’re probably wondering if there’s a penalty for not being in compliance with the new efficiency ratings. The answer is no, and yes. Here’s where the bill gets really sneaky. So far as I can tell, there is no direct penalty if your house does not meet the bill’s target. However, it does require that the number of buildings inspected by the state meet certain percentage targets and if they do not, the state loses out on a significant portion of the money it could get from Washington. In other words, the bill demands certain things from the states, but ties funding for those demands to compliance with the demands.
Melissa Clouthier probes further. And she’s right:
Your house is not your own.
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Categories: cap and trade
Pundit & Pundette
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» We Hear From The Department Of Good Ideas And False Choices
My house may become not my own. But ammunition on the other hand….
It has never been about Climate Change, Helping the Poor or any of the other smoke and mirror ruses that have been passed off on the ignorant and the apathetic. This has always been about more governmental control and staying in power no matter what the consequences are for our nation.
i am thinking about the joke where they say “if they will find a way they will tax the air we breathe” – will that be next? seeing that carbon dioxide which we exhale is now a pollutant.
btw- thank god for my flatscreen tv and all of the heat that it produces. this past winter it helped to keep me warm when my landlord was not as generous with the heat as he had been in previous years.
Kill the Crappin’ Tax!
Hope is not a plan; not all change is good. WE are the civilian national security force! The Federal Government is NOWHERE in the Constitution authorized to micromanage my life, my healthcare, my finances, and, most especially, my guns. The resistance is here; the resistance is now! RESIST!!!!!!!!!
ECS
What I own, including my home, IS mine.
As I said yesterday, this set of government power grabs needs to be the most broadly DISOBEYED in the history of America.
We need to make Prohibition look like an era of lock-step law-abiding conformity.
We need to turn this nation around, back to its roots.
Remember all those Obama supporters who said we were paranoid about how much socialism would come from the Obama administration.
Come on by starvethebeast.net, lemme know what you think. If you like what you see, sign up, and pass it around.
If you want to deny global warming, go ahead.
For those of us who consider it a threat to humanity as we know it, of course we need some big government to keep it under control. It just doesn’t make any sense to say “this is the cost for your priorities” when my priorities are keeping the planet inhabitable.
But then, conservatives have never been interested in preaching to anyone but the choir.
I remember when that cretin-wannabe Jimmy Cahtah made us set all the thermostats to 78 deg.F.
That temperature is fine if you work in a topless bar.
RSB….
What EXACTLY is the predicted reduction in GORBAL WARMING that this mess would bring, if passed, for the TRILLIONS of dollars of damage it WILL induce?
Well that old saying about your home being your castle, needs a little revising. I’m getting me a shovel and will be starting on that moat asap. I may throw a couple of alligators in there for good measure. One of the benefits of living in Florida.
Great. They can paint a big number on my roof with the leftover white paint from painting the highways.
Hmmmm, why exactly am I a bigot?
You all need to stop your whining and just be good little surfs and peons and obey the One as he is all knowing and kind.
Rest Stop Septic Tank, if you’re so convinced Global Warming is a dire threat to humanity (because as everyone knows, the Earth’s climate was utterly static before the SUV was invented), why don’t you lead the way by forswearing all use of hydrocarbons and technology?
(Answer: He won’t, because not even he believes Al Gore’s garbage.)
This isn’t about global warming, that’s the smoke screen they are blowing. It’s about control over our lives.
IS ACORN going to act as the enforcement thugs too? I doubt there can be enough gov employees to inspect every house. The clowns who wrote this garbage need to be victims of their own stupidity.
We’ll still have highways?
Opps – I forgot
The jokes on you RSS – this isn’t about global warming, it’s about control over our lives. D’oh!
I deny it because it DOES NOT EXIST!!! Except in the minds of empty headed, drug addled left wing mutts passing themselves off as scientists. Anyone with a science background and is intellectually honest will tell you….CONSENSUS is NOT science. Gawd almighty, I hate stupid people and the left wing in America are perfect examples of the blithering idiots we are now sending out of our “ivy” league universities…..and this Red State guy is on the top of the blithering list.
I take public transportation.
And I would ask the same thing of you hypocrite warmongers who wish the death of all Islam but won’t buy a hybrid to keep from sending money to terrorists.
More than 30,000 scientists worldwide have signed on to the “anthropogenic global warming is a hoax” side. The climate changes, and there is nothing humankind can do about it. In the last decade, the average global temperature has declined. On the other hand we have a few hundred scientists and Algore running around screaming about “global warming” and “it’s all our fault!” In the meantime, Algore is lighting up the sky and water around his Tennessee mansion using more electricity than 160 or so regular houses and claiming that he has purchased “carbon offsets” to reduce his “carbon footprint.” Yeah, right. I have some wetlands I can sell you, too, so you can save the snail darters.
And Algore refuses to debate “Climate Change” with scientists who think he’s an idiot.
ECS
This Cap & Trade bill is over, what 1,600 pages? This is to control only one aspect of our lives. Amazing!
Want to know something even more amazing. Copied onto normal letter-sized paper and normal font our U.S. Constitution, used to govern a nation for hundreds of years, is just over 20 pages, including amendments.
I have not seen anyone deny Global Warming, only the concept that the Industrial Revolution has adversely impacted it. See the little Ice Age in the medieval ages, the Bay of Alaska where that beautiful scenery has been created by millennium of heating and cooling of the earth, the number and ferocity of hurricanes BEFORE the industrial revolution, etc, etc et al ad infinitum.
What most of us are contesting is
1) Whether government control has ever actually solved any real problems or made any industry better
2) That the effects of Methane, Water Vapor, Carbon Monoxide, Sulfur and other pollutants can be regulated (Much less controlled or have their impact on the environment negated) by taxing CO2 or Carbon Dioxide that is a necessary function of life for all of us, something that we all exhale (Making us all taxable as pollutants as long as we are alive) and something that plants need in order to survive (keeping the planet green) and which they use to create oxygen which all animal life needs to survive (again, helping the environment) and ultimately makes up well under one half of one percent of the atmosphere.
3) The refusal of other governments such as India, China, Malaysia and other countries with emerging economies to participate in this which will effectively negate any of the positive results that may be gained. (If A creates 10 pounds of pollutants per barrel of oil consumed and B creates 20 pounds, where is the benefit in denying A to utilize that oil while giving more oil to B to use? Where and how does that benefit anybody?)
How taxes and the imminent destruction of our economy will help the environment in any way.
There are more points but that would be a good place to start.
Go preach your pseudo-religion to the Chinese and the Indians; they need your “salvation” a lot more than we do (e.g., the “Asian Brown Cloud” that’s visible from orbit didn’t migrate from the USA).
When you convert them, let us all know.
Maybe then we’ll take you and your blind faith seriously.
#19 Hangfire.
Well, I guess they’ll have to have some way to get us all to the re-education camps.
“Your house is not your own.”
This is nothing new. Ever heard of property tax?
Ummmm…. RSB….???
Texas.
We import most of our IMPORTED oil from Canada and Mexico.
Nobody here remotely fits your BS blurb.
This crap is why you are a bigot…or rather, displays your bigotry for all to see.
Along with your insanity.
Isn’t it ironic how the leftover hippies of the 60s are now the PRO-GOVERNMENT and every one else is anti! Wow..just…wow!
Are you seriously trying to argue that there is a consensus, or even a majority, of scientists who deny manmade climate change? Try again. You can say “scientists are idiots, they’re always predicting the death of mankind,” but you cannot say that most of them don’t believe there is global warming caused by you.
Algore isn’t a scientist. He speaks on behalf of scientists.
You once said we’re all racist just because we are against Duh One.
So, you’re a racist because you’re against Michelle Malkin. And, she’s a minority race, too.
Good for you. Most days I ride my 90-100 mpg motorscooter. There is no public transportation where I live.
Hybrids? Hybrids?? Do you have any idea how much pollution and toxic wastes are generated building the batteries for those things? What happens to the toxic products in the batteries when the start failing and have to be replaced? No way I’d ever have a hybrid. I love this planet!
ECS
Wow..that’s kinda painting everybody with a broad brush don’tcha think.
And, if you don’t see the problem with that sentence, there is no helping you.
This “warmonger” spent 20 years in the United States Army so whiners like you could spew your idiocy over the airwaves, internet, and in print. You forgot to say, “Thanks.”
ECS
I live where I can (and do) walk nearly everywhere. On the rare occasions (twice so far this year) when I do have to travel, I take public transportation as well. How is that relevant to anything here?
Any answers on the questions I posed yet?
RSS = Rides Short-bus to School
Red State Skeptic said:
That’s the only sensible thing you’ve wrote in all your combined time on this blog. Stopped clock and all.
Some people you just can’t help.
Climate isn’t static. It’s always changing. There have been ice ages in the past, and there will be ice ages in the future. It has been warmer in the past, and it will be warmer in the future. Increases in atmospheric CO2 levels lag behind increases in temperature. There’s a direct correlation between changes in the surface temperatures of the other planets in the solar system and on Earth. Water vapor is the ‘greenhouse gas’ that is the single largest contributor to heat retention, is 99.999% natural, and is consistently and deliberately left out of all the statistics, charts and other propaganda the AGW zealots throw at a gullible public. There’s more, but I think you get the point.
Since this was either overlooked or more likely ignored, I will venture a guess. Less than a one degree drop in temperature over the course of the next one-hundred years?
No I didn’t.
Actually, I’m looking forward to seeing the retrofit police. They’ll probably be forced to drive a hybrid Prius, which you can outrun with just about anything.
Thank you! Seriously.
But if you think that driving by yourself every day in an F-150 doesn’t send thousands of dollars to Al Qaeda through their Saudi benefactors, you are mistaken.
Rags, haven’t you noticed the cool down in the northeast this year? The election of Obama has created so much hope that the Earth itself is reacting favorably to the anticipated legislation.
/sarc off
FIFY
So, you support the DRILL HERE, DRILL NOW, DRILL OFTEN movement with respect to ANWAR, the Florida Coast, and other American fields?
Right?
What does your Pubic Transportation run on, dopey?
This is a huge part of global warming’s credibility problem. The only people qualified to speak on behalf of scientists are scientists. Once you taint science with celebrity, you open yourself up to all sorts of criticism.
Enviornmentalists made a huge mistake when they hitched their wagon to global warming — it simply cannot be conclusively proven by scientific method. I think most people agree that burning through the world’s fossil fuel supply over the course of a couple centuries, or dumping toxins into the air and water supply is probably not a good thing. But we can all bicker over global warming because no one will ever be able to prove it is a “manmade disaster” and not just a normal part of the earth’s heating and cooling cycles.
Good for you, there is none where I live. So im just F$%Ked right?
Oh PLEASE.
Fact is RSB, there is no global warming based on NASA’s records and the measured levels of world wide ice.
It simply isn’t there.
Now if this bill passes and I need to rent my house out because I am deployed, which I will be in october, I will need to spend thousands to do that. It will be cheaper to let it foreclose.
Nancy Pelosi was in transit in her Jet and was unavailable for comment.
Still waiting for answers RSS? Or are using one of your lifelines? Maybe you can get some help from the audience?
Here in Oklahoma, most of our oil pumps are still, not because there isn’t oil to be pumped, because the envoirmental nuts like Al Gore, put an end to refineries…bad, bad, bad mistake.
Only because other eco-zealots have prevented us from drilling for our own petroleum here in the US for the last 30+ years.
Here’s a little thought question for you all:
How many times greater is the “known oil reserve” today than it was in the 1950s?
Why is the “known oil reserve” NOT an indicator of how much oil actually exists on our planet?
Bad answer. Taking public transportation doesn’t equal forswearing all use of hydrocarbons.
What does buying a hybrid have to do with it? It doesn’t put a dent in one’s carbon footprint.
Increasing the cost of refining the oil here will solve that problem right???
Lets see, buy a hybrid for 32,000 or a used car for 5,000
hmmmmmm
How about putting domestic coal out of business? WE have vast coal supplies.
How about taking gas-powered generation off-line? We have VAST reserves of natural gas.
Like I said, whadda dope…!!!
So when I go to sell my house, and the inspectors say I need to spend 20,000 to retrofit the house, will red state bigot be paying the 20,000? Or considering that I will probably already be upside down on the mortgage, will it be better for me to simply let the property foreclose and let the bank take care of the retro-fitting????
hmmmm.
If you think that Cap and Trade will reduce any dollars being sent to Al Qaeda, you are mistaken.
Stop thinking that reducing CO2 emissions equals reducing our dependency on foreign oil.
It won’t even reduce c02 emissions because it does nothing about converting the billion plus EXISTING vehicles.
You average lower class person is not going to run out and buy a new car just because RSB thinks its a nifty idea.
A majority of independent scientists (actual climate scientists – NOT zoologists being paid to study supposed effects of GW) are skeptical about the “A” part of AGW.
So when I go to sell my house, and the inspectors say I need to spend 20,000 to retrofit the house, will red state bigot be paying the 20,000?A lot of smart legal people will help you with that.
Off the top of my head, two suggestions come to mind:
1. a long-term lease
2. a contract for deed
There is no sale to trigger this crap (if ever it is passed).
Before long, we will reverse this nonsense, and we can go back to being Americans.
Ultimate goal until there are no more producers in this nation and everyone is equally poor except for the politicians and the criminals which can only be differentiated by the fact that the criminals (read black market and organized crime) actually help some of the people to get some of what they want and need.
I am still waiting with “baited” breath RSS … The crickets are more pleasant to listen to but an answer would be nice.
http://www.petitionproject.org/
Red State Skeptic said:
Lets see here, the so called hybrid uses more resources than the average Automobile as well as burns just as much gas above a certain speed limit as a conventional car.
Taking public transport does not do anything to decrease any so called carbon footprint.
Warming and cooling has taken place over millennia and is part of the natural cycle.
We could drill here in the US but dolts like yourself oppose that, we could build new Nuc power Plants but dolts like yourself oppose that, there is a huge Solar Generation plant east of San Diego that is ready to go on-line but, dolts like you RSS oppose the building of the power lines to connect the plant to the grid.
I’m afraid not…see detroit for a vision of our future…they keep voting for the democRATs who keep it a ruin.
Will work only if you never change the name on the utilities bill.
(vi) a change in ownership or operation of the building for purposes of utility billing; or
Also any lein over a certian percentage kicks off this provision so NO REFINANCING
they are bulldozing Flint, Michigan as we speak. Course, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Well, we either turn the nation around in its present configuration, or a lot of us are just going to have to find another configuration.
I think that would be changing the building designation from residential to office or commercial…like that.
Think about an apartment complex. Your interpretation would be untenable.
Please go back and do a probability weighted risk-benefit analysis.
An explosion in the population of moose might keep the planet from being inhabitable, too. But that doesn’t mean we should expended excessive resources to avert the danger.
What a clever way to work Sarah Palin into this tread…!!!!
You mean stop thinking that consuming foreign oil reduces our dependency on foreign oil?
I can respect someone who has a good faith disagreement with me on whether manmade climate change exists. But saying that driving a Tahoe instead of a Corolla doesn’t fund those who are trying to kill us is beyond ludicrous.
“For the bureaucrat, the world is a mere object to be manipulated by him.”
— Karl Marx
“The system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom”
- Fredrich August von Hayek
“The constitutions of most of our states (and of the United States) sssert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property and freedom
of the press.”
- Thomas Jefferson
If this thing passes, there are going to be many instances of armed property owners defending their property, and rightly so.
RSB…
What were the IRA using for $$$?
Terrorism is the weapon of choice for terrorists BECAUSE it is cheap, in terms of what you need to make it work.
BTW, I guess you are all exercised over us sending $900 million taxpayer dollars to Hamas?
Right?
rss; so not only are you still using a carbon based machine to get to work and back, but you use a hugely taxpayer subsidized carbon belching vehicle. but since you work in a university and spend the taxpayers money all day long, what’s new. what life changing thing have you or your lab invented. as with all beaurocracies, and colleges are nothing but beaurocracies, you wrap yourself in sanctimonious drivel while you protect your near worthless job with tenure rules. very few college profs actually do anything in their entire careers. they are suckling pigs at the teat of producers who have somehow deluded themselves into believing that staying in school way too long is actually accomplishing something. give me a car mechanic anyday, when he’s finished working on your car, it either runs or doesn’t. no one can ever tell if 90% of what goes on in a college does anything.
Conveniently ignoring the facts that 1) it’s far from settled that the global warming you fear is even real and 2) even the bill’s defenders admit it won’t do anything to meaningfully curb emissions.
Thanks. I’ve been trying for years to figure out how Reagan won 49 states, now I know it was by just preaching to the choir.
1) I don’t think anyone here desires or has called for “the death of all Islam”
2) You present a false choice. America is blessed with more than enough resources to meet our demand if only we’d stop refusing to develop them.
I’ve been reading your posts for a while now RSS, and you have only two means of argumentation: strawmen and ad hominems.
1. It doesn’t. The type of automobile isn’t at issue. The only issue that matters is the amount of fuel used.
Are you one of those people that praises the hybrid owner that uses twice as much fuel the SUV owner????
2. My quote was prefaced with,
I would be happy to learn that you don’t think that.
Yet that fixes nothing since we can’t bulldoze the people who wrecked it out of the country. They just move on to commit more destruction.
We are undone. We lost the country when we yielded the children’s education to the collectivists. Now the average voter thinks we are evil and the collectivists ‘care.’
RSS:
How about the food you eat, that you really have not worked for – ever think of whats needed to make crops grow and feed livestock? Ever think whats in that little ole aspirin you take? Hows about the keys on that keyboard you type on – what they are made of and whats needed to make them? How bout the carpet you walk on, the paint on your walls or the varnish on the wood? The rubber for the tires on that public transport you ride?
Courage, my friend.
THE ONE was elected in a very close election, largely because we (conservatives) had too little say in who opposed him, because he was an African-American, and the MSM was his campaign publicity arm.
Duped people have the ability to learn, and we have a job of education to do.
There are metrics showing that it is already happening.
Red State Stooge: Yep, he speaks for those scientists who toe the party line and won’t debate with those scientists who would make him appear the dolt he is.
In fact, most of the posters on this page could make Nobel Laureate Gore look like a perfect fool.
No, what is ludicrous is leaving the amount the vehicle is driven out of the equation. Leaving out how much the person flies, and how many boats he or she has, etc etc etc are also ludicrous.
Ignoring the circumstances that might cause some to need to use more oil than others is most ludicrous of all.
AND???
Its a democrat bill right???
You would be funding them ANYWAY unless you drill here. Which your side doesn’t want to do.
How does a guy who ran up tremendous government spending, engaged our mortal enemies, and granted amnesty to scores of illegal immigrants qualify for your definition of conservative?
Not that RWR was a liberal, but he was a far more pragmatic (moderate) president than y’all will admit.
Besides what if my business requires me to drive a Tahoe, or I need that many seat for all my kids or I would have to drive 2 other cars???
Or if I just like driving a Tahoe, who the living F%^K are you to tell me not to????
So…
What’s his excuse for not debating George Will, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Ben Stein, Mark Steyn, Michelle Malkin…
What sort of blind idiot would compare Reagan to obama. ohhhh
We really, really need to stop this nonsense. I’m certain that Americans who voted for “change” had no idea this was what they were going to get. If passed, this would be the end of freedom in this country, without a doubt. Read this legislation in light of the G8 deciding to do zip, nada, zero on “climate change.” Gore has a lot to answer for, clearly, and so does the Community Organizer-Apologist-in-Chief, wherever he comes from.
whats beyond ludicrious is not allowing us to drill or own oil and making us dependent upon foreign oil….which the democrats do.
Which…of COURSE…completely explains why the Collectivists HATE the man the way they do. He was a Moderate…!?!?!?
But, as usual, your points are either BS, or partial BS…
The USSR was NOT your mortal enemy…they were your role models.
What planet are you from? Do you think engagement of mortal enemies isn’t a conservative principle?
and defeated our mortal enemies, instead of bowing down to them
So Reagan wasn’t Conservative after all? For all these years I’ve been lied to by people who love Reagan and people who hate him?
It’s easy to “prove” you’re right when you make up your own definitions to words and see reality as a malleable thing. That’s why children are so hard to argue with.
Children and Liberals.
Do enough Americans get the fact that Obama is destroying our way of life.
He contols or soon will, our transportation, our health, our homes, our investments, our banks and the air we breath.
It isn’t inconcievable that we will have to have Government permission to go to the bathroom more than once a month. And the tax on that will be beyond reach for most people making under two million a day.
Mercy…
I do, and that’s why I eat meat about once or twice a week, even though I would love to eat it four meals a day. Conservation doesn’t mean giving up everything that you consume that has any effect on the planet, it means not taking more than you really need.
My wife drives a gas guzzler because we have three small children and we can’t spend forty grand for a hybrid minivan, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do our part to cut back in other ways.
Who gets to decide what I “NEED”. YOU?
OBAMA??
GORE???
So I can take it that you are fully in favor of developing domstic energy sources?
3 kids can fit in the back of a hybrid civic.
Why do you hate the planet?