Somebody Hide Tom Friedman's Ball

"Where is my ball?"

Tom Friedman has been doing great work on green issues for a while now, certainly given them a higher profile than any mere green blogger could. So I guess he's owed some latitude. But his recent column is just an outright nuclear disaster: head-slappingly wrong on the merits, politically naive and tone deaf, and timed so poorly as to be malicious. Just about every single sentence is a train wreck.

Timing

Start with timing: next week, Congress begins an intense round of hearings on a comprehensive Democratic energy/climate bill. Not some pony plan from a columnist's daydream. Not an obscure bill introduced by a backbencher to make a symbolic point. An actual, serious piece of legislation: the bill Democrats on the relevant committees will sign off on; the bill Obama will support; the bill that will go to the Senate; the bill that could, if everything goes well, if everyone in the progressive coalition rallies behind it to generate overwhelming political pressure, become law. If you are serious about wanting energy and climate legislation in this Congress, this is your chance. No other. The game is underway.

So now, on the cusp of an enormous fight against dishonest and well-funded proponents of doing nothing, Friedman decides it's time for "an alternative strategy, message and messenger"? Are you f*cking kidding me?! The only conceivable effect Friedman's endorsement of an alternative bill can have is to divide support and distract attention from the best chance for a serious energy/climate bill in 30 years. His timing could not possibly be worse.

I'm sure Friedman would respond that hey, he's not a Democratic operative. He's an independent thinker. He's under no obligation to stump for a bill that doesn't make his mustache tingle. And in this he's like all progressives. They all want to be the Smartest One in the Room. None of them want to sully their purity by compromising or rowing in the same direction. They all want to show how you clever they are, how their pony plan, their messaging, their strategy is the one those silly legislators ought to be using. Meanwhile, the coordinated opposition kicks their ass, over and over again. But at least they're clever!

Message

Secondly: the bill that's heading into hearings next week is a comprehensive effort to address energy/climate issues. It's got major, history-making provisions boosting clean energy, accelerating energy efficiency, and upgrading the national electricity grid. It sets standards for fuels, for electrical generators, for appliances. It's 600 pages long, and about a fifth of it is devoted to the carbon cap. And that's deliberate. Dems are well aware that the clean energy, energy security, green jobs, and economic renewal messages are their strongest. They know the carbon stuff is wonky and unpopular. So they put everything together in a big plan, in order to put the strongest messages up front.

Yet Friedman says the Dems' message is all wrong because ... they're focused too much on the carbon cap. Why aren't they clever like Tom Friedman? "That is why our energy policy should be focused around 'American renewal,' not mitigating climate change."

Who's focusing on the carbon cap here? Whose calling it the "center" of the Democrats' plan? F*cking Friedman is! Did he even read the damn thing before squeezing out this turd of a column?

Politics

I have read the following sentence probably 50 times, and I cannot make one tiny lick of sense out of it:

Since the opponents of cap-and-trade are going to pillory it as a tax anyway, why not go for the real thing — a simple, transparent, economy-wide carbon tax?

Got that? Opponents of the carbon cap think they can kill this bill by calling it a tax. So the obvious political strategy for the bill's supporters is to.. make it a tax! Because Tom Friedman said so!

Why should that be anything but batshit insane as a matter of political strategy?

Oh, well, it's because of this new requirement for federal legislation, the one invented especially for one of the most complicated sets of interlocking problems in the nation's history: it has to be easy to explain to your grandmother. The tax code? Medicaid? Military budgeting? All that stuff can be complicated. But dealing with energy and climate has to be done via legislation that can be summarized in a Tweet. Because "people won't support what they can't explain." Tom Friedman said so.

And of course, for a plan to be even minimally credible, it has to be complicated. So Friedman supports a bill with a "simple" tax that would rise automatically unless an independent board determined that emissions were no longer on track for the target in which case the tax would be adjusted and also there would be a tax assessed at the border for imports based on their carbon content (which would be determined how?).

According to Friedman, "people get that." People don't "get" cap-and-trade, especially when it's characterized inaccurately as "a firm in London trading offsets from an electric bill in Boston with a derivatives firm in New York in order to help fund an aluminum smelter in Beijing." That's what cap-and-trade is "all about"! Even though it's bullshit.

And best of all, "Americans will be willing to pay a tax for their children to be less threatened." This is flatly asserted without a scrap of empirical evidence, indeed in the face of virtually all the available polling and the experience of the last three decades of American politics. But it's true. Because Tom Friedman says so. He knows Americans. He talks to them in taxis.

Manly man

Of course, no Friedman column is complete without an appeal to the notion that people will fall in line if they are told what to think by a manly man. That's what people understand, remember? "Suck. On. This."

So Friedman wants Gen. James Jones to ride in on his heaving, manly Steed of Testosterone save us poor environmentalist damsels in distress. Jones could make the case because he's "imposing," and military, and he makes Friedman tumescent.

A military man in charge of coordinating defense policy could sell a huge and significant piece of domestic policy. Because Tom Friedman says so.

The ball

And finally! Friedman says the Dem bill "hides the ball" because it's not explicit about the price put on carbon. But this obsession with price misses the point. The price is not the ball. The cap is the ball. And that ball is right up front.

The price is unknowable in advance, since no one knows what it will end up costing to achieve the cap targets. So there is by definition no way to be transparent about the price before the fact. That's why all these "simple, transparent" carbon tax bills sneak in a provision whereby they're constantly adjusted based on progress toward ... a cap. So the price is adjusted by Smart Bureaucrats instead of markets. This is better, because a marine can explain it to your grandmother.

Somebody needs to hide Tom Friedman's ball. Because when he plays with it in public like this, he does real damage to the most important legislative effort of our generation, at exactly the time it most needs support.

Comments

[artleads]

I don’t have the faintest clue as to which, cap and trade or carbon tax, will be more effective in garnering political support or be most effective for reducing carbon emissions that cause global warming. Like most people, I’m not up on the facts and wouldn’t, unless forced, take the time and trouble to become so. But I have an opinion about these competing modes of attack.
My opinion operates at the level of “hunch,” based on aesthetics. For some reason, I have always detested the term “cap and trade,” since it reminds me of some technical kind of dental operation. Unattractive. Tax is a simple three-letter word, a harsh cousin to sex. Of death and taxes we can be certain. I can understand the concept even if I’m not crazy about it. I didn’t see Friedman’s article, but if he’s saying that people support clear concepts that they “get” at a gut (or aesthetic) level, he might be on to something.

[DavidJames]

Dave,

For three additional pages a carbon dioxide tax could be included. See the:

H.R. 1337: America's Energy Security Trust Fund Act of 2009

H.R. 1337, the 2008 Larson bill, for carbon dioxide emission fees is only 3 or 4 pages.

Regards,

[DavidJames]

Dave,

Really! Friedman is right. We need the most efficient way possible to put a cost on carbon dioxide emissions. The right approach is a carbon dioxide emission tax.

If in that 600 page bill, there is not carbon dioxide emission tax, that the bill has a huge deficiency.

Check out Father Paul Mayer's moral argument for a carbon tax:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/father-paul-mayer/the-carbon-tax-a-moral-is_b_183823.html

He makes the argument that the cap and trade system like the immoral sale of dispensations to sinners in the middle ages.

Regards,

[William1950]

The environment is only the latest wedge issue to keep us from seeing ... seeing what is really going on.
don't believe me? if this was such a threat, that our world itself will be destroyed to the point that we all die... then we would simply fund research at such a rate that solutions would be provided..­. not for a minute do I believe that humans are not inventive enough to solve this....
it is not because there is no money in it... the money is in keeping us afraid, keeping us confused, keeping us distracted.
keeping us working like rats in a wheel... run little rats run.

[William1950]

cap and trade is where big companies can do stuff like buy old cars and crush them for carbon credits... right? where they can pay for the priveledge of polluting at the expense of those of us who cannot afford to compete. Cap and Trade sounds too much like Free Trade which is still a disaster for the working people of this country, this country being America... Cap and Trade is too complicated and convoluted to ever work ... it will be used by lawyers and big business to further bleed the middle class... but that is the name of the game being played out ... bleed the middle class until they can take no more ... George Carlin was right when he said that the real interests running things are big money families and international conglomerates that remain secretive and whose motives have nothing to do with the concepts of help and problem solving but everything to do with holding on to power and privelege.­.

[DavidJames]

William,

You are oh so right.

Regards,

[MGhamma]

Dave, if you disagree with Friedman, fine. But if all you can do is come on here and rant and rave and name call like some right wing loonie, then it's your credibility that's on the line. My impression is that this is an envy issue with you.

[SallyVCrockett]

I agree with Friedman that a revenue-neutral carbon tax (or better yet, a carbon tax shift approach) will end up being more politically feasible than a cap and trade. Cap and trade has already taken on so much baggage that I don't think it's tenable with Rust Belt Dems or with Republicans of any stripe. A carbon tax, on the other hand, is being supported by leading scientists, economists and opinion leaders and is something that far-left and far-right pols can get behind. But the worst possible outcome would be to be so married to cap and trade that you don't even allow for the possibility of alternate approaches and then nothing gets done to stem the tide of AGW...

[JeandeBegles]

I disagree with David Robert and I fully support Friedman's clear analysis in favor of a carbon tax, with dividend on an equal basis per capita.
Our goal is to slash 80% of our CO2 emissions, urgently!. These emissions are mainly made by our individual decisions; driving, flying, heating our house, buying goods, eating red meat,.. So thedrive for the cut must involve every individual with a simple carrot and stick policy: the carrot is the tax dividend and the stick is the tax penalty for the products and services with a lot of carbon.
This tax must be cost free for the low and medium income, and can even be a source of income for people living in a low carbon way.
These people deserve this reward because their way of living is the only sustainable one, if we really want to comply with the IPCC warnings about the occuring global warming.
A cap and trade system is basically flawed because it relies on the business sector to cut the CO2 emissions, when the problem is mainly in the consummers hands.
And about the supposed carbon traders, what can you oppose to this simple message:
Our Climate, not your business!

[journeygirl]

If the goals are energy independence and carbon reduction then why would you take the $$$s raised from cap and trade or a carbon tax and use them to reduce income taxes or fund healthcare or reduce the deficit? All the $$$s raised should go to energy R&D, renewable energy development, improving the grid, distributed generation and boosting energy efficiency­....otherw­ise the increasing carbon reduction targets will be more difficult and costly to meet and the carbon tax will never end because it wll become another permanent slush fund for high ranking legislators. The president needs to reel in this issue now or this window of opportunity will be slammed shut.

[UbiVeritas]

When you resort to base name-calling, you lose all credibility. But then your support of Capn'Trade means you have no credibility to begin with.

[sheila]

seems to me like we might start the process off by stopping the enormous subsidies we shell out to Big Energy, especially Big Oil, Big Nukes and Big Coal. all this talk of "caps" and "taxes" but whenever talk of diverting the hundreds of billions of dollars these planet-killing profiteers suck from taxpayers to artificially deflate per-kWh prices comes up, it's apparently a non-starter. how do these mercenaries get so much power over us, and more importantly, how come they are keeping this much power over us when we know they are killing us?

The low-hanging fruit is efficiency and conservation. Then it's distributed generation. Both these things will SAVE ratepayers money. at that point, we can start taxing carbon, but why do the expensive thing that slows our economy first, instead of the myriad cheap things we can do that will help our economy?

[GRLCowan]

"Big Oil, Big Nukes and Big Coal ... diverting the hundreds of billions of dollars these planet-killing profiteers suck from taxpayers to artificially deflate per-kWh prices comes up ... apparently a non-starter. how do these mercenaries get so much power over us, and more importantly, how come they are keeping this much power over us when we know they are killing us?"

That's very distorted, and the perplexity it expresses is a result. Fossil fuel miners and processors get very little money from taxpayers, but they enable government to get a whole lot. Not hundreds of billions, I think, or anyway, in the USA not that much. Maybe a single hundred-billion. If the industries were receiving this money, then of course, they would be at risk of losing it. Nothing in the world is easier than losing a subsidy. But as assistant tax-gatherers, they are beloved of government, and are allowed to kill. Nuclear energy, of course, isn't killing anyone, but it also isn't bringing in the tens of billions of annual dollars natural gas would if used instead, and that buys it a lot of enemies.

[friedfish2718]

I agree.

Under the mean, evil, bloodsucking wicked GW Bush, the subsidies per MWh are:

solar energy at $24.34 per MWh
wind power at $23.37 per MWh
natural gas at $ 0.25 per MWh
coal at $ 0.44 per MWh
hydro at $ 0.67 per MWh
nuclear at $ 1.59 per MWh

Still, solar and wind are having problems. The Danish wind turbine manufacturers
are laying off (here in the US and in Europe). Cap and Trade will increase further
the wind/solar subsidies.

[rblackbird]

I do not understand why Tom Friedman is so popular as an opinion leader, why he is taken seriously. He seems overrated to me. Perhaps his wrinkled brow of confusion is mistaken as the visage of an intellectual in thought.

Even a broken clock can be right twice a day. Friedman does not even do that well on the energy bill. I think he may be onto something, however.

The cap/trade law is the functional equivalent of a tax. It will increase electrical generation costs to encourage switching to more efficient "green" technologies to reduce co2 admissions. The simple tax on carbon emissions would also aim at the same result. Friedman is right that if one wishes to make co2 generation more expensive employing a direct tax is simpler and more transparent. After all, the increased costs will be passed onto the consumer, in any event.

Regardless what you call it, the proposal will not pass because the people will not accept it. Do you think the American people will welcome a significant increase in their utility bills to fight global warming? Polls show that global warming is not a priority of the people. Reducing the cost of living is. The cap and trade provision probably will be cut out of the energy bill and put over another year, and then another...­.

[Russycle]

I'm not a big Friedman fan, but I think a carbon tax does make more sense than cap and trade. Want to sell the tax to the electorate? Announce a commensurate reduction in the income tax, with figures based on Congressional Budget Office estimates.

Cap and trade will just create one more obscure market for the fat cats to game and manipulate.

[econ1]

Tom is sometimes wrong, and I have to admit I haven't read all 600 pages, but the fact that the bill is starting out at 600 pages does give me the willies.

By the time all the carbon consultants, auditors, verifiers, traders, buyers, sellers, hedgers, lobbyists and others get working on cap and trade the citizens are going to be paying a huge overhead in addition to the actually costs of reducing carbon. It didn't work in the EU and it isn't likely to work here.

KISS makes as much sense here as in most endeavors, and I think a simple (well, more simple) carbon tax which can also be applied to imports has a higher probability of helping the situation.

[artleads]

I don’t have the faintest clue as to which, cap and trade or carbon tax, will be more effective in garnering political support or be most effective for reducing carbon emissions that cause global warming. Like most people, I’m not up on the facts and wouldn’t, unless forced, take the time and trouble to become so. But I have an opinion about these competing modes of attack.
My opinion operates at the level of “hunch,” based on aesthetics. For some reason, I have always detested the term “cap and trade,” since it reminds me of some technical kind of dental operation. Unattractive. Tax is a simple three-letter word, a harsh cousin to sex. Of death and taxes we can be certain. I can understand the concept even if I’m not crazy about it. I didn’t see Friedman’s article, but if he’s saying that people support clear concepts that they “get” at a gut (or aesthetic) level, he might be on to something.