Don't feel bad if you're confused about the merits of the comprehensive climate bill reported out yesterday evening by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The array of reactions from environmental leaders and organizations is not the usual one: Some (such as NRDC and Environmental Defense Fund) have hailed it, while others (Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth) have opposed it. (The Sierra Club's reaction was "Bill Moves Us One Step Closer to Clean Energy Future; Key Elements Must Be Strengthened As Plan Moves Forward."
Let's look a little closer at its strengths (and weaknesses).
First, the bill establishes a strong long-term goal -- an 80 percent reduction in carbon pollution by 2050. It contains the strongest energy-efficiency language ever to emerge from a Congressional committee. It makes a huge commitment to protect tropical forests. And it puts the down payment on a number of other critically important initiatives: financing energy efficiency, protecting low-income consumers from energy-price spikes, helping developing countries and U.S. communities protect themselves from natural disasters resulting from climate change, and helping buffer America's wild heritage from the impacts of climate change.
But in its present form it, it won't do all that's needed. The oil, coal, and dirty-utility interests that have a huge block of seats on the Commerce Committee were able to prevent enactment of President Obama's much bolder vision. The bill does almost nothing for renewable electricity generation, gives about 85 percent of the revenues it generates to maintaining the status quo, and weakens the EPA's authority to clean up coal-fired power plants.
But even with those faults, it was a historic victory. We owe a deep debt of gratitude to its principal authors, Henry Waxman and Ed Markey. How can all of these seemingly contradictory things be true? Legislation, it has famously been said, is like sausage -- you don't want to watch it being made. And the House Energy and Commerce Committee is, for environmentalists, the ugliest part of the sausage-making process. Since 1980, no major piece of environmental legislation has emerged intact from this committee -- each has had to be repaired and mended either on the House floor, in the Senate, or in conference. Climate legislation will be no different.
Coal and oil will not quietly give up their monopoly power over our economy, their subsidies from the Treasury, or the loopholes that protect them from being held accountable for the damage they do to our health and environment. Their allies among the retrograde power companies, led by the Southern Company, aren't about to let clean energy compete with their current reliance on dirty power. The lust to siphon off billions of dollars in public revenues for a bailout of Big Carbon will be fierce. In fact, coal's field generals in the House have already pledged to knock down the already modest 2020 carbon target and make other additional weakening changes.
Yes, they will try to kill the green-jobs recovery in its cradle, and yes, they will try to block our clean-energy future. This contest is not for the faint of heart. We need to take the foundation that Waxman and Markey have given us, and build on it -- but we need to insist that America ends up with a secure future. This bill needs to be like a house with a roof on it -- not the half-finished shell that Exxon-Mobil and Peabody Coal would like to place on President Obama's desk.
To arms!
Hmm, will we TAX TAX TAX or BORROW BORROW BORROW or PRINT PRINT PRINT? Which path to disaster will we use to pay for it?
Oh that's right...money will magically appear, it will pay for itself, there will be no economic pain, no loss of jobs....even though other nations are telling us.......green energy via this path is expensive job killing energy!
Oh this bill makes me so excited.....when my neighbor loses his job because more and more people lose their jobs due to this irrational spending.... maybe I'll buy his house cheap.
Oh that's right....we all have to be socialist because the end of the world is coming and socialism will save us!
How about "No more Light Pollution" which is a far easier thing to control.
Secondly, you and Bjorn Lomborg should have a public dialogue...I'd say debate but since it's been declared that "the debate is over" and Lomborg whose been criticized for not really being an ecologist but rather is an economist, and who agrees with you that the science shows that our industrial economy's produciton and release of CO2 is causing warming, would find a the public forum a great place to discuss what kinds of economic measures we should take. How 'bout it?
higher taxes due do barrys $11 trillion spending
hyperinflation due do barrys $11 trillion borrowing/printing
when barry signs c+t bill: estimates puts the cost (in terms of reduced household spending per year) of S. 2191 at $800 to $1,300 per household by 2015, rising to $1,500 to $2,500 by 2050. Electricity prices could jump by 36 to 65 percent by 2015 and 80 to 125 percent by 2050.
happy days are here again
GO barry
Oh, I see, never mind. You're just parroting "facts" from The Heritage Foundation:
"The Heritage Foundation is committed to building an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity and civil society flourish."
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm1723.cfm
In other words, "The Heritage Foundation is committed to building an America where security is revered above all else, and where corporate welfare, nonexistent regulations, and European American society flourish."
To the deniers I say OK, so you think global warming is a farce. We get that. But I challenge you to clean up the planet anyway, if not for your health, then for the health of your children and grandchildren. Let's just look at a few problems.
Chemicals in our drinking water there are a few that don't belong. Visit http://www.ewg.org/tapwater/national/
How about food? The things we hear a lot about are a big problem, Salmonella, E coli - how about the chemicals in our daily feed, the pesticide, fertilizer residue? Yes, you're eating that too, feeding it to your children, your pets... an interesting study is here: http://www.pollutioninpeople.org/
What is the air you depend on doing to your health? Some interesting statistics from the American Lung Association: http://www.lungusa.org/atf/cf/%7B7A8D42C2-FCCA-4604-8ADE-7F5D5E762256%7D/key_air.pdf
There, I did some of your homework for you. I challenge you to do more of your own. Read, research, think. You may find you like it.
And to Big Oil and Filthy Coal I say shame on you for continuing to endanger our lives.
The idea of trashing coal is completely elitist. The people that will be hurt the greatest by taxing carbon are the poor and the retirees with fixed incomes. No debate on defining climate change quantitatively and benchmarking. How can a bill be passed when none of the legislators have read it.
One more additional burden on the economy and a free gift to the economies of China and India which will continue to use inexpensive coal to drive their economies.
If no one has a job and our country's competitors have economic power over us will the left be happy then? We already have some of the most restrictive pollution laws in the world-but its never really enough. I guess we all should ride our bikes to work and grow our own food, generate our own power not because we want to but because the left says we should.
Its all about power. Money is power. When the huge payouts from the polluters flow into the Governments coffers they can then .....well give it to ACORN I guess. Of course its all really our money isn't it.
You say the poor and retirees will be most hurt from carbon taxation. Like, the corporate energy interests are gonna treat them with the respect they deserve, as long as we don't tax their pollution?
All this stuff about new energy technologies and a new energy policy, you say it's just "one more burden on the economy". Pardner, one has to work especially hard to be that out of touch with reality.
Bottom line - the American economy and our so called high standard of living are dead in the water, period, without dramatic change in energy policy. We've already fallen significantly behind a number of other economies in new energy technologies and those technologies, my friend, are the future. No, I mean THE future. We're talking survival as a major economic power, and nothing less.
That stuff about China; even China has begun to implement a more progressive policy on renewables. They get it. We Americans, well, we'd rather wallow in the past and embrace failure.
BTW, prettyinpink, while I suspect that engaging one who would belittle the idea of riding a bike to work will be a total waste, I would remind you and yours that American jobs have been disappearing at warp speed. There is one way and one way, only, for this country to get back on track, job wise. New energy technologies and an aggressive campaign against carbon pollution. Otherwise, we're on the way to third world status.
That being said, this is no time for half-way measures. If our coasts truly are in danger from rising sea levels due to global warming, sweeping international regulations are needed. If politicians are going to talk about the future of the planet being at stake, it is no time to compromise with energy companies. I'm serious. If we have to go back to the dark ages, so be it. Better for our children to live without electricity than not to live at all. Broad sweeping legislation is needed. Not cap and trade. Not more efficiency. I am talking about bans here. No more carbon. And fast. Yes, it will plunge the economy into shambles. Yes, it will take decades to make new technologies work.
But we do not have decades to wait, according to some. Now is the time to act. How long are we going to go along with compromises that do nothing more than compromise the possibilities that our descendants will be able to live at all? If the situation is as grave as we are told, we need a global ban on all greenhouses gasses. Not limits. They will not do much. Not rations. That's not enough. A ban.
i'm working on my wind powered car
next is my tidal powered car
i'm doing my part