There Was A “Placeholder” In The Cap And Trade Bill Allowing Language To Be Added Later

Proof • July 2, 2009

“So what’s a placeholder,” you ask? Well it’s a part of the bill set aside for language to be inserted in later. And if you think there’s something wrong with that just keep your mouth shut. It’s not like these idiots are reading the bills they’re passing anyway.

Rep. Joe Barton mentioned it was unprecedented to have such a mechanism (allowing bill-writers to insert language to be determined after the law was approved) in a bill up for final passage. Later, I noted that Barney Frank explained on the floor on Friday that the placeholder in the cap and trade bill apparently will deal with regulations of financial derivatives market associated with reducing carbon emissions. Frank said he was confident a “good system will be in place.”

Maybe Rep. Frank is confident that this blank area in the passed bill will be replaced with something “good,” but I’m not nearly so confidence.
What’s more, whether you support cap and trade or not, how can our elected representatives vote for a bill with a blank spot in it? A bill that is not finalized? That could have language added to it that could significantly impact the way the bill effects our lives and livelihoods?
Every single Representative who voted for this legislation and its “placeholder” should be asked why they’re not more concerned about protecting their constituents. Click here to do that right from the blog.

Tags: Asshats, Domestic Issues, Politics

http://Array sayanything-4625

This is also why we were taught to take any blank space on a sheet of paper in the military and fill it in with this, /——————-Nothing Follows————————–/

So no one can add something into your contract, hand receipt or requisitions.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

We peasants have no right to know what they’re doing in Washington.
sayanything-4625

This reminds me of SERE School (note I never attended SERE School but many of my friends have) were they make you sign a blank sheet of paper as soon as you get there. When you are captured they bring your paper into your first interrogation and its filled out with the most crazy bunk you can imagine. Stuff like you bombed a group of kids then came back around and strafed their twitching bodies. That you are a bandit air pirate that eats old ladies and knives them just to hear them wail. How can you pass a bill thats not even finished? This is transparency in government?
dawneyr

What a communist scam. Is anyone surprised?
http://verion.com/ ND in MD

Just guessing, but with the current Washington leadership,I doubt that “placeholder” will be filled at a later date with language authoring an across the board tax cut. Anybody think I am wrong?
ellinas

Is this the first time? Has it ever happened before?
And if it did why we were not notified/told?
What else is Washington hiding from us?
Brent

What’s more, whether you support cap and trade or not, how can our elected representatives vote for a bill with a blank spot in it? A bill that is not finalized? That could have language added to it that could significantly impact the way the bill effects our lives and livelihoods?

If the Supreme Court or the state governments had any backbone, they’d determine this to be unconstitutional and ignore whatever gets inserted. Better yet, they’d determine the whole bill is unconstitutional for one of the dozens of ways that it could be so ruled.
Pilgrim

Great. So they can stick anything their twisted little hearts desire in the spot.

These people are unreal.
bill-tb

At what point to we declare the government out of control and no longer the rightful government?

Slavery by debt that can never be repaid is still slavery.
bill-tb

I compiled a short list of questions for the TAX and RATION energy bill. Aren’t the real questions we should ask about the Wacko-Malarkey climate hoax bill these:

1. How much will the CO2 be reduced and when, if the Wacko-Malarkey climate bill is passed

2. How much will the earth’s temperature be decreased and when, by the Wacko-Malarkey climate bill?

3. Can you explain how taking money from one taxpayer and handing it to another taxpayer helps the earth’s climate? Sounds like reparations to me.

4. How does creating a sub-prime market for carbon credits help anybody but AL Gore and his Wall Street pals? Cap and Trade, get it??

Hey, I’m just asking, because the whole Wacko-Malarkey scheme sounds whole lot like reparations to me, with the earth getting the short end of the affair.
jimmypop

We peasants have no right to know what they’re doing in Washington.

well, they dont know either….
Bat One

Interesting that none of our resident lefty trolls had the balls or the stupidity to try and defend this action by the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats.

Team Obama is getting quite a reputation. First we had the so-called “stimulus” bills that no one is given time to even read, much less discuss intelligently. Now we’ve got legislation passed with “placemarkers” to be completed at a later date… surreptitiously, no doubt. And of course we all know what Obama’s campaign promises are worth… even before his inflation makes our currency worth less.
Hoss

Gweat, Bawney gets another shot with financial dewivatives. Maybe this time he truly can send this country into an economic death-spiral.

Democrats won’t even be able to show their faces in public a couple years from now. The shame of what they’ve done to this country will be too much to bare even for them, and you know how hard it is to shame people that have no moral compass or sense of accountability.
Lioncourt

Reserving a section is a drafting tool. It is not a placeholder. You do it because sections of the bill will reference other sections of the bill. If you just delete that section all the numbers will be changed and it will screw up the references.

The language in section 788 wasn’t agreed to so it wasn’t included in the bill. This practice does not allow language to be added to this bill without being voted on as an amendment to the bill.

It is not underhanded.

Shocker: Conservatives on SAB don’t know what they are talking about.
Lioncourt

Is this the first time? Has it ever happened before?

According to Rep. Barton, as quoted above, this is “unprecedented.”

Well Rep Barton is either dishonest or stupid. Below is a bill from the 108th Congress that reserves numerous sections. That was a republican congress which Barton was a member. It reserves numerous sections. All I had to do to find this was go to the GPO website and search on the word “reserved”.

http://frwebgate2.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/TEXTgate.cgi?WAISdocID=Cu8Eqn/0/1/0&WAISaction=retrieve
Halatbis

Just when one thinks we’ve heard it all, something else comes along to show us how our representative government really works.
I wonder how Rep. Barney Frank would react if he was buying a house and the contract would have such a blank space–some provision to be added later—you know, just trust us, we will put something good in the blanks later.
It looks like we are now getting what we asked for.
Lioncourt

If you wonder why you get called part of the Right Wing Noise Machine, this post is an example. You went to Michelle Malkin and got a story that is completely wrong and posted it without any research into the issue. Maybe you aren’t part of the Right Wing Noise Machine, but instead are a willing dupe of the Right Wing Noise Machine. They can count on using you as propoganda.
Lioncourt

the fact that bureaucrats will be writing the laws because congress believes it can delegate its constitutional responsibilities, and on and on.

Actually I would rather bureaucrats write the bills because they are ususally experts, understand the issues and have fewer conflicts of interests. What bothers me that it is often the special interest lobbyist who write the bills and just give it to a congressman to sponsor.

But my point was reserving a section is not underhanded and is quite common, despite what Rep Barton says. You would think in 25 years in congress he would know this.
Brent

It is not underhanded.

The whole thing is underhanded. The process, the legislatio itself, the fact that no one reads the bill and even fewer understand it, the fact that bureaucrats will be writing the laws because congress believes it can delegate its constitutional responsibilities, and on and on. The whole thing stinks to high heaven.

And, yes, republicans stink, too. That’s not an argument. It’s not even the least bit of a new development.
http://ndgoon.blogspot.com/ goon

According to Rep. Barton, as quoted above, this is “unprecedented.”

It can’t be constitutional because they would be changing a bill after it has been passed.
Lioncourt

It can’t be constitutional because they would be changing a bill after it has been passed.

Nobody is changing a bill after it has been signed. To change the bill an amendment would have to be voted on and signed again.

This is not a placeholder.

It is only a drafting tool so that you don’t have to change the numbering system of the rest of the sections when a portion has been deleted.

In is not unprecedented, in fact it is a commonly used method.

Rep Barton is amazingly ignorant of drafting legislation for somebody who has been in the House since 1984.

Michelle Malkin must be a moron for being a professional commentator and not knowing this.

You guys are just gullible for believing everything you read from questionable sources.
Bat One

Lioncourt,

I wonder if you could provide some previous examples of legislation passed and signed into law with similar “placeholders” in place of which regulations such as explained by Barney Frank were later inserted, and the exact mechanism used to do so.
Lioncourt

I wonder if you could provide some previous examples of legislation passed and signed into law with similar “placeholders” in place of which regulations such as explained by Barney Frank were later inserted, and the exact mechanism used to do so.

I already did give an example of a Bill with sections being “reserved.” Barney Frank did not say what you claimed. He is probably still trying to get that section passed, but nowhere does he say it will be inserted at a later date without being voted on.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

Is this the first time? Has it ever happened before?

According to Rep. Barton, as quoted above, this is “unprecedented.”
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

If the Supreme Court or the state governments had any backbone, they’d determine this to be unconstitutional and ignore whatever gets inserted. Better yet, they’d determine the whole bill is unconstitutional for one of the dozens of ways that it could be so ruled.

Indeed.
Biteme

you’re an asshole

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There Was A “Placeholder” In The Cap And Trade Bill Allowing Language To Be Added Later

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