FOIA and the coming US Carbon Tax via the US Treasury.

FOIA and the coming US Carbon Tax via the US Treasury.(WUWT).By Christopher Horner, CEI.

In November, I and CEI sued the Department of the Treasury to produce emails and other records mentioning “carbon”. See Joint_Scheduling_Agreement PDF.

I sought emails and other documents from two offices: Environment and Energy (really), and Legislative Affairs. This action after the administration first ignored us, which they followed with an unfortunate stumble, trying to delay us with fees — even absurd and surely anti-’green’ ones, like $1,800 to photocopy electronic mail, typically copied on a disc for no charge — which fees, even when they’re not mindlessly trumped up like that one, not-for-profit groups which disseminate government information are exempt by statute from paying.

Delay can only work only so well once we file suit, and recently Treasury turned over a first production of approximately 770 pages of reports. Despite its better efforts Treasury managed to hand over some docs that in an attentive world should prove extremely useful, offering fantastic language if often buried in pointy-headed advice they received in Power Points and papers from the IMF, G-20 and, in graphic terms, an analysis from the World Bank on how to bring a carbon tax about.

These documents represent thoughtful advice on how to mug the American taxpayer and coerce them out of unacceptable and anti-social behavior, diverting at least 10% of the spoils to overseas wealth transfers. The major focus is language, how to sell it to the poor saps not by noting the cost or that it is a tax but as, for example, the way to be the leader in something like solar technology.

Obviously, Treasury is proceeding in the time-honored tradition of releasing those records that they deem least likely to be revealing, saving the best for last, after promiscuously heavy-handed redactions to be litigated later. This works hand-in-glove with the recent and seemingly coordinated chorus calling for a carbon tax.

Regardless, yesterday I received 253 pages of email, mostly chaff. This came after I indicated to Treasury’s counsel at the Department of Justice our plan to bring the court’s attention to the remarkable failure to produce even one email after claims of spending four months processing thousands of them.

Yesterday’s production of 253 pages of emails, which CEI will post shortly, mostly address boring old World Bank/project finance/forestry credit programs. Still, to see, e.g., the World Bank passing along WWF stances to its client the Treasury Department, and the State Department convening audiences for Nature Conservancy pitches at this stage is noteworthy.

It also includes a May 7, 2012 email from Treasury to a South Korean representative stating, “My colleagues here at the US Treasury are interested to learn more about the carbon trading legislation that was recently passed by the Korean parliament.”

Then the head of Treasury’s Office of Environment and Energy asks around among his colleagues for a briefing paper on Korea’s carbon tax (June 8, 2012). Korea really is where it’s at on this front. Spain is so…well, we don’t say Spain anymore apparently.

That all of them would participate in a “social cost of carbon” (What is that? Diamonds? Pencils?) session at EPA begs an invitation to a seminar on the social cost of their ‘carbon’ agenda.

Speaking of costs, the emails show Team Obama chatting up how to price ‘carbon’ and otherwise model the agenda last May; and how things are working in Europe for comparisons for the sweet-spot on price, in July 2012. Just in case someone…else…manages to bring such a thing into law here. Other emails expressed concerns that the EU price for CO2 ration coupons had gotten so low (July 2012).

One email harkened back to the World Bank’s advice on how to sucker the public into tolerating more energy taxes, in a wink to Harvard’s Joseph Aldy about it sure would be neat to see some work on what the public thinks about a “carbon charge”, instead of what he had presented to them, how they view a national renewable energy standard. In short, it’s all about getting the masses nodding.

Finally, I see the Obama Treasury staff subscribe to the oddest updates, like the Heinrich Boll Stiftung (Germany’s Green Party). Hmmmm.......“Withholding information is the essence of tyranny. Control of the flow of information is the tool of the dictatorship.” ~ ― Bruce Coville.Read the full story here.