By Bob Unruh
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

A video explaining the dangers of a U.N. treaty proposal promoted by President Obama that critics say would lead to a world government has received more than 3.5 million views since WND broke the story on the ominous possibilities, and now there is word from the Obama administration the plan might not be going so smoothly.

In the video, Lord Christopher Monckton, a former science adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, asserts the real purpose of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen Dec. 7-18 is to use concern over “global warming” as a pretext to lay the foundation for a one-world government.

At the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen “this December, weeks away, a treaty will be signed,” Lord Christopher Monckton told a Minnesota Free Market Institute audience at Bethel University in St. Paul.

According to the Minnesota Free Market Institute, the video, as originally posted, has collected 2.2 million views and almost 700 pages of comments, but there also are more than 100 other cloned versions of Monckton’s comments on YouTube and the aggregate views exceed 3.5 million.

The video helped launch a national petition drive opposing the Copenhagen treaty at NoCapAndTrade.com, with its more than 135,000 messages to Congress opposing the plan. It’s been discussed by Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham and Michelle Malkin, among others.

Now there are indications the light of information being spread about the potential problems is casting shadows on the proposal.

“The more people learn about the supposed issue of ‘climate change’ and how green extremists intend to control our lives, the more skeptical they become,” said Jeff Davis, president of the Minnesota Majority.

Get “The Sky’s Not Falling! Why it’s OK to chill on global warming”

Further, Michael Froman, deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, said in a Bloomberg report today the latest word on Copenhagen is an “assessment by the leaders that it was unrealistic to expect a full, internationally legally binding agreement to be negotiated between now and when Copenhagen starts.”

Davis said the impact of Monckton’s warning is becoming apparent in other ways. He cited a decision just days ago by key U.S. Senate Democrats who confirmed it is unlikely there will be any additional action on climate-change legislation this year. Obama had hoped to pass a cap-and-trade energy taxation plan before the Copenhagen conference.

Bloomberg’s report confirmed leaders from Asia have admitted a binding global-warming accord isn’t likely next month.

Obama attended a meeting

of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Singapore in which leaders proposed a two-stage approach to follow up the failed Kyoto Protocol, which sought to manage emissions worldwide but never earned the support of several of the world’s leading energy-consuming nations.

Danish Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen told Bloomberg there may be no “legally binding instrument,” although a political agreement is possible.

The 1997 Kyoto plan is scheduled to expire in three more years, but years of talks already held have failed to produce agreement on energy restrictions.

Instead, Rasmussen has suggested an agreement to cut greenhouse gases, with an outline for a political agreement that would be the subject of further negotiations.

At the Examiner, a blogger concluded, “The credibility of global warming theories (and sanctimonious theorists) and any international climate controls are fading with each passing day.”

Monckton warned in the video that Obama supports the idea and is ready to sign on the dotted line.

“Your president will sign it. Most of the Third World countries will sign it, because they think they’re going to get money out of it. Most of the left-wing regimes from the European Union will rubber-stamp it. Virtually nobody won’t sign it,” Monckton told the audience of some 700 attendees.

“I read that treaty and what it says is this: that a world government is going to be created. The word ‘government’ actually appears as the first of three purposes of the new entity.”

He has warned the proposal would cede U.S. sovereignty, mandate a massive wealth transfer from the United States to pay reparations for “climate debt” to Third World countries and create a new “world government” to enforce the treaty’s provisions.

Davis also warned that while the apparent uncertainty over the treaty has bought some time, it’s not enough.

“Green extremists will be back in force trying to advance both domestic cap-and-trade legislation and an international climate treaty that will rob us of our liberties and grant government more control over our lives,” he said.

Monckton’s lecture can be viewed online and his slides also can be accessed on the Internet.

“Using the budget reconciliation process to pass health reform and climate change legislation…would violate the intent and spirit of the budget process, and do serious injury to the constitutional role of the Senate.”

Further into the letter he wrote: 

The Founders Relied on the Senate to Carefully
Consider Before They Commit Us to a New Law

One of the key means by which the Senate slows down the legislative process is through the filibuster.

Unlike in the House, in the Senate, even a small group of senators can hold up a bill by threatening to continuously debate it.

It takes the votes of three-fifths of the Senate, or 60 senators, to end a filibuster. This means that it effectively takes 60 votes to pass a controversial piece of legislation or nomination.

And again, this is for good reason. The Founders looked to the House to more directly reflect the will of the people. They relied on the Senate to take a step back and carefully consider a bill before they commit the American people and our resources to it.

Fellow countrymen and women;  I would turn your attention to the red highlighted parcel in the above segment.  I would submit that neither of these two proposed bills, health reform and climate change legislation, conforms to the will of the people at all.  Have we not seen the latest polls and the vast numbers of our fellow countrymen at Tea Parties and town hall meetings from sea to shining sea?  Were there not nearly TWO MILLION of our fellow countrymen who utterly shut down Washington D.C. to stop the tyranny and despotism reflected by such Constitutionally heinous and contemptuous legislation?

I submit these observations of usurpation, repeated injury and Congressional and Administrative treason to a candid world and request that my fellow countrymen from across our fruited plain from the lands of the brave formulate plans to restore liberty and Constitutional authorities to We The People who first received them from our creator.  For is it not true, my fellow countrymen:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these United but independent and sovereign States; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former members of Government to better anchor and ENFORCE our systems of Governance to the rule of law as We The People wrote, established and ordained in The Constitution upon our Government, in its entirety word for word to the full spirit and intent as it was meant by our founding fathers on the day it was ratified.  Especially, but not limited to:

1. The apportionment clauses with regards to taxation in Article 1 Section 2, contempt of  which through the oppression, intimidation and coersion of the IRS has resulted in unadulterated slavery, tyranny and oppression through taxation ultimately resulting in the U.S. Government using our own earnings against us and the loss our liberty of choice of how to spend our own earnings from our labor.  
2. The enumerated powers clauses of Article 1 Section 8 along with their supporting 9^th and 10^th Amendments in The Bill of Rights presenting law upon our Government where we the people borrowed some of our authority, given to us by our creator, for the ‘privilege’ of the Government to handle ONLY the enumerated SEVENTEEN items we therein listed, for our convenience and to form a more perfect union of independent sovereign States.
3. We The People understand that multitudes of constitutionally contemptuous legislation over nearly the past ten decades will have to be completely rescinded and we understand that our U.S. Government, being compelled to conform to the rule of law will result in the utter collapse of 4/5ths of the scope, size and spending levels currently being conducted through corruption and usurpation in full out condescension of Constitutional law.  For We The People of the United independent and sovereign States of America love and cherish liberty and the animated contest of freedom and the pursuit of happiness, under God, rather than the security and tranquility of servitude under tyrants.

The history of the current President, both Houses of Congress and constitutionally contemptuous activist Supreme Court justices is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

Only weeks after the signing of the Declaration of Independence Samuel Adams presented the following in his Speech at the State House, Philadelphia, August 1, 1776:

“Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say ‘what should be the reward of such sacrifices?’ Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom – go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!”

Did all our soldier patriots and original Revolutionary War patriots and Veterans in the Continentals and the Militias of ordinary common folk farmers, blacksmiths and businessmen who fought through all the years so that we could be individually free and prosporous as we used to be, before the nearly ten decades of incremental tyranny by our U.S. Government, fight in vain?  Are we the people going to let the oppressive tyrannical despots in Congress and the President just dismantle our freedom, liberty, earnings and personal property piece by piece by piece?  Do you understand the debt that our U.S. Congress and several Administrations have placed onto us as a result of numerous unconstitutional bills that they passed? 

Below I have a hotlink to the debt clock.  Click on it and take a look at the debt that ALL of us are going to have to pay for one way or the other.  And, I can assure you one thing, there  is going to be hell to pay for several years starting in the very near future, less than three years – perhaps only one,  of the collapse of “The Matrix” (our “perceived” economy, based on Monopoly Money printed out of thin air, as the result of the revalution to the true value of the dollar otherwise called hyper-inflation). 

Hopefully we will soon, before the collapse of “The Matrix” would be nice, have the courage to COMPLETELY replace every single member of the U.S. Government at every single level starting at the very top and working down to ACORN (they get 100s of millions of taxpayer money, to OVER two hundred affiliates with different names, for all manner of corruption, voter fraud and mayhem) and the SEIU street sweepers.     ALL twenty million of them or however many of them there are, HAVE TO GO!  The Federal Government only has the authority to do SEVENTEEN things ONLY.  All other powers and responsibilities are to be left to the sovereign and independent States or the people per the 9^th and 10^th Amendments.  PERIOD ! ! ! ! ! !

Fellow patriots, I submit, that all of the treasonous despots in our Government, who took the Oath to protect and defend our Constitution from all enemies both foreign and domestic, from both parties, should be given fair trial in a Court of Constitutionally knowledgeable Americans and most importantly such jurists shall be word for word exacting to the spirit and intent as it WAS meant on the day it was ratified, loyal and rock solid ‘AMERICAN’ jurists.  Those members of the entirety of the U.S. Government at all levels found guilty should be fully and swiftly prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.  Traitors to our Constitution shall be swiftly, within three days of judgment, be given such justice as written in OUR law.

And, I further submit, that from now on all of us are AMERICANS…!   Anybody who permanently resides in this county as a citizen, if they don’t cherish being an AMERICAN, melting and fully and completely assimilating into our American heritage, AMERICAN Culture, American beliefs, AMERICAN traditions, speaking English and fully comprehending the concepts of the book The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States (1864) that provides a perspicuous insight as to what is an “AMERICAN”, what makes up his or her character and is the very core foundation of our AMERICAN CULTURE that provided and was the seed and fertilizer for what “used to be” our country’s greatness and resulted in individual power and prosperity for the VAST majority of individual common working Americans, the envy of the world and ultimately resulted in a 5000 Year Leap in human advancement and technology, then they should be “more” than free to leave.

Within three years the U.S. Debt Clock will stop.  Why, because by that time we will ALL have to pay the price for the usurpations of our public servants of almost Ten decades of corruption and usurpation by our U.S. Government leading to a “green” hybrid of Socialism, Communism and Fascism.  Our economy, within three years from now (could be sooner as it almost did in the last quarter of 2008), will stop due to massively incomprehensible hyper-inflation and all sorts of economic realities as the result of printing wealth out of thin air, as we spit in the face of God (for who needs God if we can print all the money and wealth we want from glorified computer printers at The Fed?). 

If we would have the fortitude to take care of our responsibilities as a free people to do what we sooner or later must for freedom, liberty and self-preservation, more sooner than later, we sure would be far better off than waiting for the collapse of “The Matrix” which you will know is VERY NEAR when our economy, in a few months time from NOW, is going gang busters, the stock market is near or above its highs and millions of people are back to work, some making more money than ever before, just like the months preceding BLACK FRIDAY 1929.  Only this BLACK FRIDAY will be FAR WORSE.  Windows above the tenth floor will be all the rage when people are caught by surprise in the loss of everything they ‘think’ they own in “The MATRIX” almost overnight on the future Black Friday soon to come, just when everything looks so rosy.  And then Barack Obama will give us the “Final Ultimatum”.

The good news is that once we have individually learned our much deserved lessons we will enforce our laws that we wrote in the Constitution on our Government and then, over time, perhaps about 5 years after the Re-Revolutionary war and/or the collapse of “The Matrix” if we are wise enough to take our country back by sheer volume and critical mass of people, we will be well on the way to be more INDIVIDUALLY wealthy than ever before.  But we MUST realize that until “The Matrix” (our economy based on little more than Monopoly Money) has completely collapsed and we rebuild it based on ‘real’ money – assets / resources created by God and the labor and sweat of man, without any damned central bank, in the environment of freedom and liberty and the 28 Freedom Principles we will be little more than slaves to the despots and oppressors in the U.S. Government and The Federal Reserve “System” that controls them.  I believe that ACORN and SEIU are just convenient pawns of the Federal Reserve and their exclusive international Trilateral Commission club they founded via David Rockefeller (of Chase Manhattan Bank (Federal Reserve) / Rockefeller family) and Zbigniew Brzezinski, of megalomaniacal green “hybrid” Socialist, Communist, Fascist maniacs who use Mass Behavior Modification (brainwashing) through the “perception” of Global Warming and Climate Change as a “convenient” excuse to formulate and execute their diabolical plans resulting in We The People bowing down before them without a fight.  Yes, as Gor(e)y as it is, it sure WAS “CONVENIENT”" wasn’t it.  But now, by the grace of God, our countrymen are waking up from their stupor that the programmers of “The MATRIX” have placed into our minds.  The RED pill is the right choice if you prefer individual liberty and prosperity over slavery and tyranny.

  We are all batteries providing power and money, through the taxation of our labor, to the International Cartel of twelve privately owned banks that make up the Federal Reserve “System” who created and programmed “The MATRIX”, our perceived economy based on Monopoly Money printed out of thin air.  Due to economic forces and realities of the physics of “Natural Law”, sort of an economic gravity that cannot be ignored forever, not even The Fed can control or sustain The MATRIX for long.  The only way they can extend the life of “The Matrix” which is their power over us and our minds, is to create a one world currency and shortly, there after, a New One World Order, where they no longer will have to keep up the appearence of prosperity within The Matrix; for in the One World Order there will be no place on Earth to run from the AGENTS of The IRS:

Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes the laws. – - Mayer Amschel Rothschild  Banker – One of the forty owners of the international cartel, mostly British,  of twelve private banking companies that make up The  Federal Reserve “System”.  There are some connections to the old East India Trading Company, yes the same ones who had the ships with tea in Boston Harbor.  This time I say we sink the damn ship!

 - -  Capt. Karl

Posted: July 21, 2009
9:09 pm Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

Editor’s note: This is another is a series of monthly “Freedom Index” polls conducted exclusively for WND by the public opinion research and media consulting company Wenzel Strategies.

Almost half of the Americans who responded to a new poll say they have concerns about the impact of carbon dioxide on the climate, but two out of three say they have no interest whatsoever in opening their wallets to pay for any mitigation.

Asked whether they “believe that man-produced carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases will induce catastrophic climate change” if unaddressed, 49.6 percent of the respondents said yes. Twenty-seven percent said no, and 23.4 percent were uncertain. The concern from Democrats and Republicans was reversed with Democrats saying 10-1 yes and Republicans saying 2-1 no.

However, when asked if they were willing to “pay significantly higher energy bills in the hope of heading off what some scientists believe to be impending climate change,” 63.6 percent said no. That included Democrats by a margin of almost 3-1 and members of the GOP by 12-1.

The WND/Wenzel survey was conducted July 12-17 using an automated telephone technology calling a random sampling of listed telephone numbers nationwide. The survey included 16 questions and carries a 95 percent confidence interval. It included 807 adult respondents. It carries a margin of error of +/– 3.4 percentage points.

“This dramatizes the decades-old problem that environmental activists have had in pushing for structural change in society to accommodate fears of environmental doom – many people may agree that some long-term harm may befall humanity, but they are much more concerned about the short-term cost,” said pollster Fritz Wenzel.

“After an unusually cold winter followed by a summer where U.S. temperatures have been unusually mild, the urgency to act is clearly waning in the minds of many,” he said.

Only 15.2 percent responded they are willing to pay much more, while 21.2 percent said they were uncertain.

Asked about the pending “cap and trade” legislation in Congress that restricts the amount of carbon dioxide and water vapor that can be produced – generating financial penalties for violators – only 23.7 percent of the respondents support the measure.

Nearly 42 percent opposed it and another 35 percent were unsure.

“As the U.S. Senate considers the bill, the fact that fewer than one in four Americans favors its passage should give them serious pause,” Wenzel commented.

The core of the opposition appeared to be the costs, but Americans also were worried about the impact on the economy from rocketing prices for gasoline, natural gas, electricity and other sources of energy.

Learn how close to home “global governance” really is by reading Jerome Corsi’s New York Times best-seller, “The Late Great USA.” This weekend only, get an autographed, hardcover copy for only $4.95 – a $21 discount!

“Nearly half – 46 percent said they think it will harm the economy. And while President Obama and other Democrats have been touting the concept of ‘green jobs’ as the savior of the wallowing economy, few are buying it, our polling shows,” according to Wenzel.

“Just 17 percent said they think ‘Cap and Trade’ will help the economy. Even Democrats are unconvinced – just 26 percent said they think it will help the economy, while an identical percentage of Democrats said it will cause economic harm,” he said.

There also were significant doubts about the constitutionality of the tax program and concerns about its wisdom.

Fewer than 25 voters out of 100 believed the plan to limit production of natural gases that are not actual pollutants, such as carbon dioxide and water vapor event, is constitutional. Nearly 32 percent said it violates the nation’s founding document, and about 43 percent were unsure.

Forty-five percent said it just isn’t wise for the government to attempt it, and 30 percent said they weren’t sure. Only 24.9 percent agreed with the wisdom of the taxing program.

“Even among those who voted for Obama in the November elections, less than one-third (30 percent) said they believed it was constitutional. And, among those same Obama voters, just 31 percent said they thought it was wise to try to regulate man–breathed carbon dioxide and water vapor,” Wenzel said.

“[It] creates a problem for the Obama administration at a time when his job approval rating is sinking and his legislative agenda remains packed with controversial proposals,” Wenzel said. “With the public so heavily weighted against it, to pass ‘Cap and Trade’ may cost the Obama administration much more political capital than it can afford, especially given the looming battle over health care reform.”

Wenzel is president of Wenzel Strategies a public opinion research and media consulting company. Formerly associated with Zogby International, he spent 25 years as a news and political reporter for major metro dailies.

WND recently reported when former Vice President Al Gore, whose “An Inconvenient Truth” video epistle on the claims of global warming has not weathered recent scientific research, promised at a conference in the United Kingdom that the impending virtual energy tax under the U.S. “cap-and-trade” legislation will bring about “global governance.”

Gore, who this year famously left his Nashville mansion’s driveway brightly illuminated during the “Earth Hour” event that promoted energy savings, was speaking at the Smith School World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment.

He said the “cap-and-trade” legislation will be beneficial.

“But it is the awareness itself that will drive the change, and one of the ways it will drive the change is through global government and global agreements,” he said.

His address was captured on video and posted on YouTube:

Only a few weeks ago, a former NASA climatologist asserted global warming simply isn’t happening.

While so-called “global warming” was supposed to bring more and more horrific hurricanes, according to many scientists and politicians, since 2005 only one major hurricane has struck North America.

WND also reported that a team of scientists with years of expertise in climate issues recently wrote to Congress asserting the “sky is not falling” and there is no evidence man is causing global warming.

The letter was signed by physics professors Robert H. Austin and William Happer of Princeton, environmental sciences professor S. Fred Singer of the University of Virginia, retired manager for strategic planning at ExxonMobil Roger Cohen, physics professor (emeritus) Harold W. Lewis at UC-Santa Barbara and others.

WND also has reported on the Petition Project, which has compiled the signatures of more than 31,000 scientists, including some 9,000 Ph.D.s, who flatly reject the “global warming” agenda

If you are a member of the media and would like to interview Fritz Wenzel about this story, please e-mail.

See detailed results of survey questions:

Do you believe that man-produced carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases will induce catastrophic climate change on the planet if they are not addressed?

The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a Cap and Trade bill that restricts the amount of carbon dioxide and water vapor that can be produced and imposed stiff penalties on violators. Supporters say it will help stop global climate change, but critics say it won’t help and will cause significant increases in the cost of energy and other products. Based on what you know about this bill, do you favor it or oppose it?

Are you willing to pay significantly higher energy bills in the hope of heading off what some scientists believe to be impending climate change?

If it becomes law, how do you think the Cap and Trade bill will affect the U.S. economy?

Do you believe it is constitutional for the U.S. government to impose limits on the production of natural gases that are not actual pollutants, such as man-produced carbon dioxide and water vapor?

Do you believe it is wise for the U.S. government to impose limits on the production of natural gases that are not actual pollutants?

Take Action!

We told you about efforts to jam a cap-and-trade energy tax through the Senate using reconciliation, a trick to avoid proper debate and the normal 60 vote requirement for important legislation, and you sprung into action, generating a flood of calls and emails to the Senate and IT WORKED.  WE WON that fight and kept cap-and-trade out of reconciliation. 

Last week, Sen. Johanns introduced a budget amendment to prohibit the use of reconciliation for cap-and-trade, and it passed on a solid 67-31 vote. Every Republican supported the amendment, as did 26 Democrats.  Before the Johanns amendment passed, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid indicated he wanted to do both cap-and-trade and health care under reconciliation, saying that cap-and-trade revenues would be “exactly how much we need for the first phase of health care reform.” 

Unfortunately, THERE IS NO TIME TO CELEBRATE, because now Democrats are poised to pull the reconciliation trick for their plan to NATIONALIZE AND RATION HEALTH CARE.

There are a few senators that are going to be very influential in this fight.  If you know anyone in the following states please forward this email to them:  Arkansas, Indiana, Montana, Nevada and North Dakota.  We need your help to get the word out!

While the Senate passed a budget resolution without reconciliation language, the House budget specifically includes a section authorizing the use of reconciliation for a national health care plan.  This is despite the fact that reconciliation is only relevant in the Senate, where it can short-circuit debate and pass legislation with only 50 votes instead of the regular 60.

This is a TRICK to let Senate Democrats claim they passed a budget without reconciliation, only to have it slipped back in during conference committee, when the House and Senate budgets are combined.

Please click here to send a message to your senator OPPOSING HEALTH CARE RECONCILIATION.

The dean of the Senate, Sen. Robert C. Byrd, Democrat from West Virginia, has made it crystal clear that this is not what reconciliation is for, saying, “I was one of the authors of the legislation that created the budget ‘reconciliation’ process in 1974, and I am certain that putting health-care reform and climate change legislation on a freight train through Congress is an outrage that must be resisted.”

The stakes are enormous.  Two big steps toward government-run health care are already in place with the national health information database and the comparative effectiveness research that were hidden in the stimulus plan.  We are now only a few steps away from establishing a national health board that will RATION CARE based on the results of comparative effectiveness research, and a coverage mandate designed to, over time, shift more and more people into a government-run and government-controlled health care plan.

Moving health care nationalization through reconciliation will SILENCE moderate Democrats and Republicans and produce the most aggressive, big-government health care plan possible.  Any government plan to restructure one sixth of our economy deserves to be debated fully under the regular rules of the Senate.

Please click here to send a message to your senator OPPOSING HEALTH CARE RECONCILIATION.

Tom LoBianco (Contact)
Wednesday, March 18, 2009

President Obama’s climate plan could cost industry (and taxpayers as business always passes all costs and taxes down to the consumer in the price of their products) close to $2 trillion (on top of all the corporate Bailouts, Bank Bailouts, TARP, TALP, and Porkulus socialist/communist spending programs), nearly three times the White House’s initial estimate of the so-called “cap-and-trade” legislation, according to Senate staffers who were briefed by the White House.

A top economic aide to Mr. Obama told a group of Senate staffers last month that the president’s climate-change plan would surely raise more than the $646 billion over eight years the White House had estimated publicly, according to multiple a number of staffers who attended the briefing Feb. 26.

“We all looked at each other like, ‘Wow, that’s a big number,’” said a top Republican staffer who attended the meeting along with between 50 and 60 other Democratic and Republican congressional aides.

The plan seeks to reduce pollution by setting a limit on carbon emissions and allowing businesses and groups to buy allowances, although exact details have not been released.

At the meeting, Jason Furman, a top Obama staffer, estimated that the president’s cap-and-trade program could cost up to three times as much as the administration’s early estimate of $646 billion over eight years. A study of an earlier cap-and-trade bill co-sponsored by Mr. Obama when he was a senator estimated the cost could top $366 billion a year by 2015.

A White House official did not confirm the large estimate, saying only that Obama aides previously had noted that the $646 billion estimate was “conservative.”

“Any revenues in excess of the estimate would be rebated to vulnerable consumers, communities and businesses,” the official said.  (Yeah right and all TRILLIONS of additional costs)

The Obama administration has proposed using the majority of the money generated from a cap-and-trade plan to pay for its middle-class tax cuts, while using about $120 billion to invest in renewable-energy projects.

Mr. Obama and congressional Democratic leaders have made passing a climate-change bill a top priority. But Republican leaders and moderate to conservative Democrats have cautioned against levying increased fees on businesses while the economy is still faltering.

House Republican leaders blasted the costs in the new estimate.

“The last thing we need is a massive tax increase in a recession, but reportedly that’s what the White House is offering: up to $1.9 trillion in tax hikes on every single American who drives a car, turns on a light switch or buys a product made in the United States,” said Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner. “And since this energy tax won’t affect manufacturers in Mexico, India and China, it will do nothing but drive American jobs overseas.”

Do you folks know What does one TRILLION dollars look like?  <Click