The Nation Editorial: Urges Defeat of Kerry-Leiberman-Graham "climate change" bill.

[Better Believe It]

Earth to Congress
Editorial
April 15, 2010

Unfortunately, when it comes to climate change legislation, all signs are pointing to system failure. Congress urgently needs to pass a comprehensive climate bill, but the current Senate proposal, spearheaded by senators Kerry, Lieberman and Graham, threatens to do more harm than good. It is not only inadequate to the task of curbing climate change; it could curtail the power of the EPA and state governments to regulate greenhouse gases--the best avenues for action in the face of Congress's failures.

The cap-and-trade bill that Obama originally proposed was by no means perfect. It did not even try to meet the target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, what the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says is minimally necessary from industrialized nations to avoid a chain-reaction climate catastrophe. But it did include a key mechanism that environmentalists regard as essential for cap and trade to work effectively: it would have auctioned off 100 percent of carbon credits, rather than giving them away, thereby raising funds that could be used to offset the burden of higher energy prices on low- and middle-income families and be invested in renewable energy.

By the time the 1,427-page Waxman-Markey bill squeaked through the House last June, however, those crucial elements of the Obama proposal had been eviscerated. Waxman-Markey would sell only 15 percent of carbon credits at an initial auction, with the rest doled out to polluters, free. Waxman-Markey also includes other concessions to the fossil fuel industry--most alarming, stripping the EPA of much of its regulatory power over greenhouse gases.

The outlook in the Senate is, if anything, worse. At this writing, its final details have not been released, but from early reports it appears that the Kerry-Lieberman-Graham bill would keep and extend the worst aspects of Waxman-Markey: inadequate emissions-reduction targets (only 3 percent below 1990 levels by 2020), too many free permits and too many allowances for carbon offsets, which are of dubious value in fighting climate change.

Kerry-Lieberman-Graham would by-pass an economywide cap-and-trade system, opting instead for a bundle of separate energy bills that would slowly phase in emissions reductions sector by sector. Some of these pieces of legislation may pass; others may fail; all are ripe for gaming by corporate lobbies. Kerry-Lieberman-Graham would also skew subsidies in the wrong direction, throwing billions at "clean coal" technologies, nuclear power plants and offshore drilling, a questionable gambit favored by the Obama administration to garner support from Republicans and representatives from oil-, gas- and coal-producing states.

Perhaps most troubling, Kerry-Lieberman-Graham would not only gut the EPA of its regulatory power but could also pre-empt regulations on greenhouse gases from states and municipalities. This would undo the considerable progress made by states like California--which have pioneered emissions reductions for automobiles, and regional cap-and-trade systems--and thwart the efforts of cities and towns to require developers and businesses to adopt clean energy technologies.

But let's be very clear: our legislative process--which allows parochial short-term interests and massive corporate lobbies to undermine the long-term common interests--has proven shockingly inadequate to the monumental task before us: the preservation of the conditions of life for much of the human species. For that we will need action on more than just the Congressional front. The vigorous grassroots movement to halt the construction of new coal-fired plants--which Robert S. Eshelman profiles in "Cracking Big Coal," in this issue--offers a model of what determined, savvy activists can accomplish in the absence of national leadership. But we also need action from the executive branch, from states, cities, businesses and citizens. As it stands, the Kerry-Lieberman-Graham bill would vitiate many of these forums while strengthening the position of the nuclear, natural gas and coal industries. For that reason, we regretfully urge its defeat.

Read the full editorial at:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100503/editors

[Better Believe It]

1. Climate Bill Would Curb EPA

Climate Bill Would Curb EPA
by Lisa Lerer
April 14, 2010


Efforts to limit the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases has emerged as a major battleground in the climate debate, as three key senators move toward releasing the first draft of their revamped climate bill.

Recent drafts of the legislation would hobble the EPA by limiting the agency’s regulatory powers under the Clean Air Act, according to lawmakers and lobbyists familiar with the bill.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who’s crafting the climate bill with Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), says the provision is necessary to win business backing for the bill.

Language pre-empting the EPA and state laws in the bill is also needed to win the votes of key Senate moderates on both sides of the aisle.

“I think it’s going to help to get a lot of people’s votes,” Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) said of the provision. “I also think it’s the right thing to do. If you have a national goal, you can’t also have 50 goals.”

But while many environmentally minded Democrats are open to compromising on controversial offshore drilling and nuclear proposals, several said they could not support a bill that would pre-empt EPA authority.

Utilities, oil refiners and other business interests have lobbied hard to hobble the EPA’s rule-making authority, fearing a blizzard of climate laws on top of the new national standard that would be created by congressional legislation. Industry argues that the overlapping rules would make it difficult for companies to estimate the total costs of the new climate rules.

Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) has introduced legislation barring the agency from instituting rules regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and other industrial sources for the next two years.

Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) introduced companion legislation in the House, with coal-state Democratic Reps. Alan Mollohan of West Virginia and Rick Boucher of Virginia as co-sponsors.

In response to concerns voiced by moderate Democrats, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced that she expects the agency to weaken its proposed pollution standards and delay implementation of the new rules until 2011.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/04/14-2

[Better Believe It]

2. Kick

[karynnj]

3. The Nation has often been wrong - and they have never been particularly strong

on environmental issues. Both Kerry and Lieberman have been two of the strongest Senators on the environment - both having lifetime LCV scores in the 90s.

In the first place the bill has not yet been made public - so it is premature to urge its defeat. In addition, there is no way that the bill "guts" the EPA. The EPA's programs control many toxins - and the only substance that would be affected is CO2. Some articles have said that a bill would eliminate the EPA's ability to control CO2, something that it has not yet done. (Note that this December article refers to what the EPA might do - http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/environment/2009-12-08-carbontoll08_ST_N.htm ) So, there is nothing done now that the bill would stop - so "gut" is pretty inaccurate. As to the states, articles have had direct quotes from the Senators saying that it would not eliminate all state controls - just any cap and trade controls - presumably because the federal controls would replace them.

It has been said in some articles that no bill could pass the Senate that did not eliminate the EPA's ability to regulate CO2. If that is true, the question is whether it is better to have just the EPA or just the bill work to cut emissions. The danger of having just the EPA, is that the EPA goals would change if a different President were elected. Just as things like mercury levels in water changed as the Presidency went from Bush to Obama. The question is whether the bill, written to get 60 Senators, is better. Here, it is certainly better to wait until Monday before jumping the gun and attacking it.

To me, the biggest loss might be losing the regional cap and trade controls, which people like Kerry pushed for for decades, because the federal government was not moving. However, it would seem that federal controls resulting from the bill would likely end up doing more nationwide. Conceptually, even if you assume that the federal controls are less strict than the current regional ones - the fact that the regional ones aim to cut emissions in areas with about half the population would mean that unless the regional goals amount to cuts twice as big as the federal ones you end up ahead.

PS As to needing 60 Senators - in this case it does. Unlike healthcare, where language was included to allow reconciliation, that was not done for climate change. In fact, Johannes had an amendment that specifically prohibited it - and many Democrats voted for the amendment.

PSS The CLEAR Act has no chance of passing. The reason is that there are too many states that loss under its formulae. Their plan is to collect money from the power plants that pollute and return 75% of that individuals. This is why it is called cap and dividend. Now, this will be great for people in Cantwell's state of WA, where a significant amount of their power comes from hydroelectric dams. The nationally computed dividend might actually be higher than their increased electric costs. Not so in the many Midwestern states that currently have coal fired power plants. If you read the letter from the coal state Senators, http://climateprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Senate-letter-document_pm_04.pdf , you will see that the money from any fees might be better spent mitigating the economic impact where it was the greatest.

The point is that pricing carbon under any plan will change how much energy costs differently in different areas. This is a case where government intervention, whether CLEAR, K/L/G, or the EPA, will be changing the relative (and absolute) cost of energy around the country. Senators like Sherrod Brown, Russ Feingold and others are not holding back their approval because they don't believe in climate change, but because they want to insure that their states are treated fairly. That seems to mean putting the research dollars into clean coal, even if Kerry, for one, is skeptical that it could be achieved, subsidizing some of the additional cost, and legislating tariffs (though they won't be called that) to add costs to products from countries not themselves constraining their carbon emissions.

You could actually make the case that the coal state Senators have influenced this bill to be fairer to their states - otherwise it would be their states that are the big losers - of jobs and with higher fuel costs. The EPA does not have a way that they could build in anything that mitigates these uneven effects. Only a comprehensive bill can do that.

From some articles, K/L/G have worked with Collins and Cantwell and they may have been influenced to take some of the ideas from the that bill.

[pleah]

4. K&R