The recent reaction of Representative Ander Crenshaw to the American Clean Energy and Security Act is an example of the kind of rhetorical disaster that can result when a politician repeats political party talking points without thinking about them first.

The headline on Crenshaw’s official statement about the legislation reads, “Cap-and-Trade” Masquerading as National Energy Tax. The bill’s cap-and-trade system is masquerading as a national energy tax? That would mean that Crenshaw believes that the Republicans’ claim of the bill creating a national energy tax is a deceptive fraud, when it actually just creates a cap-and-trade system.

That would be an accurate statement, more or less. Despite Republicans’ ranting and ravings, the American Clean Energy and Security Act does not create a national energy tax. A tax takes place when the government demands money from people, and they hand it over. What would happen under the American Clean Energy and Security Act is that corporations will be given special waivers that allow them to spew pollution, and then the corporations will have the opportunity to profit from those waivers by selling them if the corporations choose to invest by reducing their pollution. Individuals won’t be taxed, and corporations will actually be given something of value that they ought to pay for, given that their pollution is destroying the worth of Americans’ collective natural resources. If anything, the legislation is too generous in its dealings with corporate polluters.

But no, Representative Crenshaw isn’t trying to say that the Republicans’ claims of a national energy tax are just a cover on what’s actually a cap-and-trade system. It’s clear from the content of Crenshaw’s article, and from his vote against the American Clean Energy and Security Act, that he means the reverse of what he actually said. He means to say that a national energy tax is masquerading as a cap-and-trade system, but he couldn’t even get that statement right, because he’s just picking up the idea from Republican Party strategists. He didn’t think it through himself.

Crenshaw clearly hasn’t done much research on the the details of the American Clean Energy and Security Act either. Speaking from the Republican Party’s script, Crenshaw complains,

“H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, would create an untested, complex multi-trillion dollar cap-and-trade program that would:

• Hurt the poor, who experts agree spend a greater portion of their income on energy consumption;
• Increase the average family’s direct energy costs from $700/year (Congressional Budget Office”

I happen to have looked at the Congressional Budget Office analysis on the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, and it contradicts Crenshaw’s claims. According to the CBO, the household expenses of the average American family would only increase by 170 dollars per year, and low-income Americans, or “the poor” as Crenshaw calls them, would actually save about 40 dollars per year, if the bill were to become law.

Another thing that Crenshaw didn’t take into account is that his own home state would have the lowest expense resulting from the American Clean Energy and Security Act of any state in the union: Just 13 cents a day. Does Crenshaw really expect anyone to believe that he’s really looking out for the economic interests of the people of Florida, saving them such a tiny amount?

The truth is that Ander Crenshaw is really doing himself a favor, by catering to the demands of the polluting industrial interests that contribute to his re-election campaign. If Crenshaw is going to pretend to be a selfless public servant while he’s actually following his own ambitious self-interest, he needs to work a lot better on his cover story.