Washington (CNSNews.com) – A group of Republican congressmen say that the Democrats’ proposed cap-and-trade program amounts to a “war” against sections of the country hard-hit by the economic downturn.
 
“It’s tantamount to an economic declaration of war on the Midwest by the liberals in Washington D.C,” Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) told reporters, at a Tuesday news conference on Capitol Hill.
 
“According to a study that ranks congressional districts based on their manufacturing, employment and amount of electricity derived from coal, the Midwest and Southeast will suffer the most,” Pence said.
 
Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) echoed the sentiment, saying the Midwest will be hard-hit by energy high prices if cap and trade is implemented – adding that so will the rest of the U.S.
 
“First thing, we should do no harm,” said Upton, who is co-chairman of the House Republican Conference. “Our economy is in terrible shape, certainly in the Midwest but across the country as well.”
 
Pence, Upton and 27 other Republicans in the House have formed a coalition -- the American Energy Solutions Group (AESG) – to try to prevent the Democrats’ cap-and-trade legislation from being enacted into law because, they say, it would increase energy prices and create job loss.
 
“The mission of the American Energy Solutions Group is, first, to stop a profoundly bad idea in a form of the national energy tax, the cap and trade,” said Pence, the chairman of AESG and the chairman of the House Republican Conference.
 
A draft of the Democrats’ bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, sponsored by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.), is currently under consideration by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
 
The Republican congressmen conducted their own “Energy Summit” on cap-and-trade, a plan to reduce carbon emissions by setting a cap on how much carbon a business may emit – and selling permits. Companies that don’t utilize their full quota of carbon emissions can sell their excess capacity.
 
In practice, cap-and-trade will lead to increases in the price of electricity and energy. One guest at the summit, Dr. Gabriel Calzada, an economics professor at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid, told reporters about the detrimental effects that the “cap-and-tax” program has had in Spain, where energy costs went up drastically.
 
“We needed to increase the price of energy by 31 percent,” Calzada said. “It has cost billions. 

The Spanish economist also said that for each new “green” job supposedly created by cap-and-trade, 2.2 jobs in Spain were lost. 

“You can not maintain the cap, so it was not possible to keep the emissions under the cap and it was not possible to keep the cost where we wanted,” Calzada added.

Pence pointed out that the group of congressmen is crafting an alternative to cap-and-trade that would include incentives for clean coal energy, encouraging nuclear energy, and educating the American people on the ramifications of cap and trade. 

"Republicans are committed to a greener environment,” Pence said. “(We want to) promote and educate the American people on alternatives to the massive cap-and-tax proposal that Democrats are preparing behind close doors here on Capitol Hill.”
 
“We’re going to educate the American people of this national energy tax that will result in average American households paying more than $3,100 per year in energy cost,” Pence later said. 

Waxman and House Democrats have criticized the $3,100 figure as a “misrepresentation” of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) study on cap-and-trade legislation since 2007, from which the $3,100 estimate comes, to which Pence responded. 

“There are no numbers in the [Democrat’s] bill, so we are forced to use an independent analysis,” Pence said. “What I would say to my Democratic colleagues is that we can end the debate over the numbers as soon as they put the numbers in the books,” he added.” I think the American people are entitled to see the numbers.”  
 
Democrats and environmental groups say that cap-and-trade will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while creating thuosands of alternative energy --or "clean green" -- jobs.

But the GOP group says a loss of jobs will result if cap and trade is approved. 

“There is basically a unanimous agreement that the cap and trade energy tax that’s been proposed will cost our country millions of jobs, will cost average American families thousands of dollars more in electricity bills,” Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) said.
 
Pence provided a more tangible figure as to how many jobs could be lost with cap and trade. 

"Various studies suggest anywhere from 1.8 to 7 million jobs could be lost," he said.  

Pence, meanwhile, described the alternative energy bill as a “massive national energy tax that would burden every household in America and every business in America.”