Although CNBC as network has been criticized for caving into a left-wing agenda [1], credit should be given where credit is due.
Following an interview with John Doerr, a member of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, CNBC’s Larry Kudlow, host of “The Kudlow Report” and co-host of “The Call” parted ways from the green message CNBC and its sister networks NBC and MSNBC have been promoting [2] and blasted the premise that it is necessary to institute cap-and-trade to regulate carbon in the name of preventing global warming.
“Look, I just want to say with all due respect to John Doerr – you heard the left-wing green argument from Mr. Doerr,” Kudlow said May 20. “OK, fine – he’s entitled to that it’s a free country. I want to counter that first of all by reminding him what Martin Feldstein said – cap-and-trade is a gigantic regulatory apparatus and a huge tax [on] the American economy and it’s going to take us years to do this green thing and China and India aren’t going to do it. So why are we shooting ourselves in the foot?”
Kudlow called the green jobs touted repeatedly by the president has in promoting his policies “overrated.”
“Second point, second point – the issue of creating green jobs is probably the most overrated issue in any of this argument and discussion,” Kudlow said. “People have shown time and time again you are taking away the old jobs to produce something called green jobs, a subject about which we know very little.”
As the demand for fuel efficient cars has decreased due to the lower price of gasoline, some proponents of the administration’s recently increased CAFE standards [3] have argued gas prices will return to their highs sooner or later and that’s why the push for green energy must continue. However, Kudlow argued we shouldn’t be relying on the green myth, but should seek out the more conventional sources of energy – primarily fossil fuels and nuclear power.
“We are not drilling for oil, we are not drilling for natural gas, we’ve stomped out the clean coal operation and we’ve stomped out nuclear power,” Kudlow added. “That’s where jobs can come from. Sixty-dollars a barrel oil is a high number in my opinion and we should go back to all of the above. What this green job thing is no miracle and in the short-run for the next 10 or 15 years, it is going to damage the economy, and cost us jobs and I’m sorry we’re not putting that case more forcefully to Mr. Doerr and his group – with all due respect to Doerr.”
And Kudlow’s co-host, Melissa Francis voiced her concern the culture of taxing to obtain social ends, specifically influencing public behavior and financing government programs.
“You just wonder as you watch the taxes pile up here, in the last couple of days here,” Francis said. “I mean, we’re looking at a tax on sugary drinks, a tax on alcohol, a tax on cigarettes, a tax on driving your car and now a tax on carbon as well.”
Overall Kudlow, the former associate director of economics and planning for the Reagan administration’s Office of Management and Budget, criticized all these recent policy moves by the government for not being based on a tangible, proven criteria.
“And now you’re going to have the