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A new study sponsored by energy-intensive industries claims that the Obama administration’s plan to impose a cap-and-trade system to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions would result in 1.9 million job losses and cost the average U.S. household $1,400 a year by 2020.

These industry estimates are wildly off the mark, of course.  The Environmental Protection Agency last week concluded that the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade legislation being debated by the House Energy and Commerce Committee would cost the average household just $98 to $140 a year through 2050.

The Coalition for Affordable American Energy, which commissioned the study, was formed in June 2008 by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Association of Wholesalers-Distributors, and 73 other industry trade associations. 

The group currently claims more than 180 associations as members, including dozens of local chapters of the Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc. and such noteworthy partners as the International Association of Ice Cream Vendors and the Association for Hose and Accessories Distribution.  (The group has no website of its own, all of its online communications are hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which calls itself a “key player” in CAAE.)

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In a Dec. 7, 2007 letter to Members of the U.S. Senate (below), a cabal of energy producers and big polluters have attacked the State-level efforts to toughen global warming regulations, supporting instead the almost irrelevant measures currently in place at the national level.

Rather than deal with California-driven emission limits that would actually limit emissions, the lobbyists said: "The vehicle efficiency improvement standard and the alternative fuels provisions in the President Bush's energy proposals and in the energy legislation are preferred approaches."

If he was capable of embarrassment, this would be a moment for President George Bush to blush.