Quick Fact: Beck goes rogue on cap-and-trade facts

Special Programs Climate & Energy

Written by Solange Uwimana

Published

On his Fox News program, Glenn Beck echoed Sarah Palin in saying that President Obama “has admitted” that "[i]f cap and trade passes ... your electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket." In fact, as Media Matters for America noted when Palin wrote in her memoir that Obama “has already admitted that the policy he seeks will cause our electricity bills to 'skyrocket,' ” Obama was not referring to the cap-and-trade bill that was passed by the House in June when he made his “skyrocket” comment; moreover, as PolitiFact.com noted, the bill “should reduce costs to consumers.”

Beck: "[A]s Obama himself has admitted, your electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket"

From the December 2 edition of Fox News' Glenn Beck:

BECK: There's no long-term thinking here. His [President Obama's] policies on spending continues unabated. If cap and trade passes, as Obama himself has admitted, your electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket.

OBAMA [video clip]: Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.

BECK: How do you get re-elected when your electricity rates necessarily skyrocket?

Fact: Obama was talking about a different plan causing energy costs to “skyrocket” -- proposed plan “should reduce costs”

As the Associated Press noted in fact-checking Palin's memoir, Going Rogue: An American Life, Obama was not talking about the cap-and-trade legislation that has since passed the House when he referred to energy costs “necessarily skyrocket[ting].” When Obama made that statement to the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board in January 2008, he was describing a cap-and-trade proposal that would auction off 100 percent of available carbon allowances, and he made no mention at the time of a plan to compensate consumers for potential cost increases. But as PolitiFact.com noted, the Waxman-Markey bill initially would distribute most of the carbon allocations for free and contains substantial provisions to offset costs to consumers, and thus “should reduce costs to consumers.”