The House of Representatives passed H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act in June 2009. A chain e-mail that has been forwarded to us repeatedly in recent days says that the bill would require homeowners to retrofit their houses to meet new energy standards, and obtain a license from the Environmental Protection Agency before they could sell a home. Don’t believe it. The claims are false.
In fact, we said last summer that claims that the bill requires such things were false in our Ask FactCheck titled "Energy Bill and Exisiting Homes."
Issues: energy
Tea Party Fact-Checking
Sarah Palin made a splash over the weekend as the keynote speaker at the first National Tea Party convention, and she followed up with an interview on Fox News Sunday. But she didn’t always stick to the facts. Palin implied that the Nigerian would-be Christmas Day bomber stopped talking after he was read his Miranda rights. He did, but …
Whoppers of 2009
Although 2009 was not an election year, it kept us exceptionally busy, and led to millions of visits to our site. In this year-end summary, we offer some of the worst examples of the falsehoods we encountered during the first year of the Obama administration. The list of howlers includes the false claim that the stimulus bill would dictate …
Extras: Gore, Dogs, Health Insurance and Bunkmail
Our pre-Thanksgiving round-up of bits and pieces of political bunk includes Al Gore, a fancy new dog park and chain e-mails that refuse to die.
Gore’s too hot
Al Gore overstated a key fact about geothermal energy during a recent appearance on "The Tonight Show":
Gore, Nov. 13: Two kilometers or so down in most places there are these incredibly hot rocks, because the interior of the earth is extremely hot — several million degrees.
Creepy Cap-and-Trade Claims are Illusions
It’s that spooky time of year, and legislation pending in Congress to curb carbon emissions is really giving the American Energy Alliance the willies.
What’s haunting us is the group’s misuse of statistics in a new ad attacking Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina for his support of the cap-and-trade approach that’s central to the major House and Senate bills.
According to the narrator: "This frightening tax will further hurt our economy, costing millions of American jobs,
Cap-and-trade: “Green Jobs” or Job Killer?
A TV ad sponsored by business groups claims a bill to curb carbon emissions “will cost up to 2.4 million U.S. jobs” if enacted. That directly contradicts claims by President Obama and his allies who say the bill would create jobs – 1.7 million of them according to one TV spot …
McDonnell’s Distorted Attack
Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell’s new ad claims that Democrat Creigh Deeds’ policies would bring $7,800 in higher taxes over four years for Virginia households. The ad would be devastating, if it were true.
Fuel for Frustration
Deeds has never proposed a "billion dollar gas tax increase," as the ad claims. It’s true that many transportation experts and legislators in Virginia have said that an additional $1 billion per year is needed to widen highways,
1,120 Days – and Counting – Till Election 2012!
In what could be an early preview of the 2012 campaign, Mitt Romney – a once and perhaps future Republican presidential hopeful – has released a new video on his political action committee’s Web site attacking President Barack Obama on climate change legislation.
Romney says that any cap-and-trade proposal "wouldn’t do a thing" because it would simply move "greenhouse gas emitters from America, to other nations like China and India that don’t participate in our program."
77-Cent Increase Per Gallon of Gas?
Q: Will the House cap-and-trade bill raise the cost of a gallon of gasoline by 77 cents?
A: That extreme estimate comes from the oil and gas industry’s lobby. Nonpartisan government experts project a lower increase, most likely between 12 and 67 cents per gallon in 2020.
Boehner and the Cost of Cap and Trade
On Sept. 20 on NBC’s "Meet the Press," House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio claimed that according to the Department of Treasury, the Democrats’ proposed cap-and-trade system would be costly for American families:
Boehner, Sept. 20: It’s a cap-and-trade system, this big giant tax on the American people that this week, we just find out, the Treasury Department said will cost the average family $1,700 per year.
That’s not true.