Where are We on Climate Change Legislation?

Why Kerry/Boxer is Important »

Where are We on Climate Change Legislation?
By: BAmer Tuesday November 10, 2009 4:30 pm	Tweet5

With all of the focus around here on Healthcare Reform (not surprising, given the enormity of the task), it’s easy to lose sight of the next big legislative fight on our hands – climate change legislation.

I don’t notice many blogs around FDL that concern climate change in general, or the legislation making its way through Congress. So I’m not 100% sure that FDLers are fully up to speed w/ what’s been going on this year on the President’s OTHER big legislative priority.

So, in case you’re not aware, The House passed a bill earlier this year called Waxman-Markey that includes the so called "cap and trade" method for limiting CO2.

The Senate version of the bill is sponsored by John Kerry & Barbara Boxer. As Daily Kos blogger RL Miller writes here:

The climate bill is now halfway through the Senate; of the six committees that have jurisdiction over the Kerry-Boxer bill, the bill has cleared the easiest three. The Foreign Relations committee won’t hold hearings. Energy & Natural Resources passed its section last summer. And even though the Republicans on the Environment & Public Works committee boycotted the vote, the E&PW committee is done. Finance is holding its first hearing today, and getting the bill through Baucus’ committee will actually be easier than Agriculture (Lincoln wants to delay until after financial reform is done) and Commerce (Rockefeller wants to delay until 2011, which makes perfect sense given that we’re facing a planetary emergency).

Unlike healthcare reform, climate change legislation may pick up some Republican votes, and will need them to pass because all of the Dems from coal-dependent states are going to be tough to get. The most vocal positive Republican on the subject lately has been Lindsey Graham, although of course he wants to make sure offshore drilling an nuclear energy become heavy parts of the final bill.

The looming deadline is the Copenhagen climate change summit (the importance of which is described nicely here) and whether President Obama will attend. Heck, he went there to try to get the Olympics to Chigago. Isn’t this a bit more important? Well, it looks like he’s hedging his bets at this point, as described here:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday he would travel to Copenhagen next month if a climate summit is on the verge of a framework deal and his presence there will make a difference in clinching it.

Those are some pretty big "ifs" at this point.

What can we do? Well, FDL readers are an active bunch. When you’re on the phone with your Senators telling them to vote for HCR, mention that there’s another bill they should support: Kerry/Boxer.

18 Comments Recommend

18 Responses to Where are We on Climate Change Legislation?

selise November 10th, 2009 at 8:46 am «

are you kidding me? i’m not supporting either corporate bailout bills.

neither are progressive, neither will work.

as for “cap and trade” — the war on science continues, now lead by the democrats.

…. where’s the evidence based policy? or is this only about giving the Ds a “win” regardless of the stupidity of the legislation they propose?

BAmer November 10th, 2009 at 9:29 am «

Both bills would be a major help towards transitioning us off of coal and on to more renewable forms of energy. Many experts agree, like the blog Climate Progress:

Waxman-Markey would finish the massive transition to a low-carbon, clean energy economy that was begun in the stimulus. It can serve as the basis of international negotiations that can set the entire world on such a transition. And it can be strengthened over time.

I know there are problems with the bills, but the alternative at this point is doing nothing, which isn’t an answer in my opinion.

BAmer November 10th, 2009 at 9:32 am «

And more from Climate Progress:

Many legitimate critiques of W-M can be made, but it is simply irresponsible to assert that doing nothing is an option with superior environmental outcomes. Quite the reverse. W-M would sharply reduce CO2 emissions from coal plants within a decade and it would lead to a virtually carbon-free energy system within a four decades. And from an international perspective, failure of W-M all but eliminates what small chance the world has to avert catastrophic warming.

But what does this guy know, he’s only the Web’s most influential climate change blogger, according to Time Magazine.
selise November 10th, 2009 at 10:26 am «

the alternative is NOT doing nothing and i’m tired of that excuse being used to justify stupid anti-evidence, anti-science, pro-corporate legislation. especially where are alternative policies that are simple to explain and should actually work.

here’s james hansen (my bold):

There are two competing ways to achieve the needed price on carbon emissions.

The first approach is via a direct carbon fee applied uniformly to all oil, gas and coal at the source, that is at the first sale at the mine or port of entry. In my opinion all of the money collected in this fee and dividend approach should be returned to the public on a monthly basis as an electronic deposit in their bank account or applied to their debit card.

The fee needs to increase gradually and be large enough to affect purchasing decisions. By the time the fee reaches a level of $115 per ton of CO2 it will add $1 per gallon to the price of gasoline.

Given United States fossil fuel use of 2007, $115 per ton of CO2 would yield $670 billion, enough to provide a dividend (rebate) for each legal adult resident of almost $3000 per year. With half a share per child for a maximum of two children per family, the rebate would be $9000 per year for a family with two or more children. The carbon fee would provide a strong incentive to replace inefficient infrastructure. It would spur the economy. It would spur innovation.

In this fee and rebate approach, a tipping point would be reached as energy efficiency and carbon- free energies become cheaper than fossil fuels. We would then transition rapidly to the era beyond fossil fuels, leaving most remaining coal in the ground, and avoid the need to go to extreme environments to find every drop of oil. We must move beyond fossil fuels anyhow. Why not do it sooner, for the benefit of our children?

The fee rate would need to increase in time, but when gas hits $4 per gallon again most of that $4 will stay in the United States, as dividends. Our vehicles will not need as many gallons. We will be well on the way to energy independence.

The alternative approach is Cap & Trade, or perhaps more honestly Tax & Trade, because a ‘cap’ increases the price of energy, as a tax or fee does.

Other characteristics of the “cap” approach: (1) unpredictable price volatility, (2) it makes millionaires on Wall Street and other trading floors at public expense, (3) it is an invitation to blackmail by utilities that threaten “blackout coming” to gain increased emission permits, (4) it has overhead costs and complexities, inviting lobbyists and delaying implementation.

The biggest problem with this second approach is that it will not solve the problem. It may slow emissions, but because of the long lifetime of atmospheric CO2, slowing the emissions does little good. As long as fossil fuels are the cheapest form of energy they will be used eventually. There is no hope that cap and trade can get us back to 350 ppm CO2.

iremember54 November 10th, 2009 at 10:45 am «

Wow Selise very good. Why wouldn’t it just be better to change fuels now, generate our power by water power, and rush forward with electric solar and all the new stuff coming, instead of taxing the shit out of us because were to damn dumb to fix our problems.

selise November 10th, 2009 at 11:19 am «

thanks iremember54. hansen is the nasa climate scientist the bush administration tried to muzzle. shame on the dems for not listening to him now.

from 2006, cbs:

As a government scientist, James Hansen is taking a risk. He says there are things the White House doesn’t want you to hear but he’s going to say them anyway.

Hansen is arguably the world’s leading researcher on global warming. He’s the head of NASA’s top institute studying the climate. But as correspondent Scott Pelley first reported last spring, this imminent scientist says that the Bush administration is restricting who he can talk to and editing what he can say. Politicians, he says, are rewriting the science.

BAmer November 10th, 2009 at 11:32 am «

I know Hansen is against this, but the alternative IS doing nothing because this is the only bill that has a shot of passing. We can & should work to improve it, but pushing a carbon tax is a dead end strategy.

This is not a question of the perfect being the enemy of the good, it’s a case of the perfect being the enemy of the planet. We don’t have time to push this down the road another 5 years to build support for a carbon tax.

selise November 10th, 2009 at 11:45 am «

we don’t have time for cap and trade either. you give me an alternative that can actually save the planet, i’m all for it. but don’t ask me to support this piece of crap legislation unless i’m a bankster who wants to make a killing off of trading carbon derivatives.

if legislation that could actually save the planet has no chance of passing, maybe it is because of people like you who are willing to accept less than what is actually required — and are willing to sell it as the solution it is not.
Russ November 10th, 2009 at 1:55 pm «

Here we go again.

According to SCOTUS in Massachusetts vs. EPA the EPA already has the authority to regulate GHGs directkly under the Clean Air Act. The only reason Obama’s not already doing this is because he doesn’t want to.

So right there we see the real intentions of Obama and the Dem establishment on this. The ACES bill bears that out.

It’s not a real cap and trade. The goals are inadequate to mitigate to 350ppm even on paper. Safety valves will ensure it is gutted if it ever actually started working.

Much of the mitigation is in the form of offsets which are meant in theory to pass the burden of actually changing our lifestyle to poor countries while the glutton West keeps partying. (Whether the emissions ever really are “off set” is questionable.)

The ACES bill has no protections against Wall Street blowing this up into a carbon bubble, securitizing permits and offsets. Goldman Sachs and the others already have carbon desks and are licking their chops. (Friends of the Earth has published two reports on this.)

ACES would grandfather in the land use emissions of Big Ag, whose caused deforestation is a potent carbon emitter.

And then the thing is loaded with loot for the ag, fossil fuel, and nuke rackets.

A carbon tax “can’t work”, “isn’t politically achievable”, blah blah BLAH!

Single payer all over again. Belief in the excellence of the strategy of a priori complete surrender will never be exhausted no matter how many times it’s proven to fail.

Will anybody learn from the health insurance disaster?
Jason Rosenbaum November 10th, 2009 at 4:32 pm «

That, to me, is the biggest problem with the legislation, but I don’t believe Kerry/Boxer bars the EPA, does it?
Russ November 11th, 2009 at 12:44 am «

They said the Senate bill won’t have that feature, and we’re supposed to believe the final bill won’t either.

There used to be the idea that a Democratic administration should threaten to use EPA command-and-control, not really intending to use it, but to get a good bill without too much lobbying resistance, since you could have a good bill which still wouldn’t be as stringent as CAA strictures.

In the early days Obama did seem to hint at using that tactic.

But it doesn’t work if you let the bill gut the C&C alternative, which the administration was apparently perfectly happy to see happen.

Jason Rosenbaum November 10th, 2009 at 9:02 am «

Republican votes? I don’t know, sounds optimistic.

That said, thanks for the update, this issue is getting lost.
iremember54 November 10th, 2009 at 9:49 am «

You mean the cap and tax bill. It won’t help the climate, only the Government and corporate coffers, while hitting everyone of our wallets.

We will still be carving off our mountain tops to sell more coal to China so they can pollute even more, coutering anything we do here.

You want to save the climate quit burning coal, don’t tax everybody and keep doing what is causing the problem.
iremember54 November 10th, 2009 at 3:19 pm «

If taxes solved problems we wouldn’t have any.

Real action and change in our ways of doing things, could in far less time and far less money actually solve the problem.

selise November 10th, 2009 at 4:39 pm «

hansen’s tax and dividend strategy returns all the tax money to the people. it’s just a mechanism to provide both the needed incentives and the resources to do it.

ThingsComeUndone November 10th, 2009 at 7:14 pm «

Cap and Trade do we really think that poor nations will stop poor farmers from chopping forests down? Do we really think that big business won’t lie about how much pollution they create? And under a GOP President we can expect Cap and Trade to be ignored.
I think the banks just want another financial exchange so they can charge transaction fees. But tell me if Corporations or Countries cheat on Cap and Trade who will enforce the rules?
ThingsComeUndone November 10th, 2009 at 7:55 pm «

GM Volt we can invest the money needed to enforce and administer Cap and Trade assuming money was set aside to enforce it and instead use the cash for a Cash for Clunkers program with the GM Volt. Imagine a million Volts on the road next year not polluting barely using any gas.
Imagine how quick the economy will rebound as oil prices drop.
ThingsComeUndone November 10th, 2009 at 8:03 pm «

And that is where the Volt comes in at 230 mpg the average American car gets 22.4 mpg.
 According to the Department of Transportation, the average miles per gallon for passenger cars is 22.4 mpg
http://www.project.org/info.php?recordID=384
22.4 goes into 230, 10 times that means that for every Volt on the road we have taken 10 cars off the road decreasing our oil demand. and pollution by a factor of 10 over time. Lets say you spend $50 a month right now on gas and get the 22.4 average mpg. But next year you get a Volt and in ten months you would have spent on gas and created polluted equal to what you spent on gas and polluted in just this month.

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/7300

A million Volts or Cap and Trade which is cheaper and more likely to work?

Why Kerry/Boxer is Important »