The Loyal Opposition -- Take 2
Recently I wrote about the need for smart criticism from those opposed to Henry Waxman's cap-and-trade plan. This week, former Virginia Governor George Allen who is out touting his new energy policy think tank, made it clear that smart criticism won't come from him. Allen did an interview with Monica Trauzzi on Energy & Environment TV. A transcript is posted at E&E here (subscription required) and Allen's talking points were positively backward. Here's a taste:
Monica Trauzzi: So, do you see a way forward about how we can handle the global warming issue legislatively then?
George Allen: Well, and this is all supposedly for global warming and they estimate 50 years from now there'll be some negligible impact on climate. Gosh, you watch the news and they'll only forecast about four or five days out and a lot of times those aren't right forecasts. I'm not a meteorologist, but they rarely get those right and they're trying to forecast 10, 50 years from now.
Wow - so wrong in so many ways. Here are a few:
Scientists are not predicting "negligible changes." They are predicting a tipping point which fundamentally alters our climate in ways that dramatically lower the quality of life.
Some changes have occurred already. Pine beetle outbreaks are decimating forests throughout the Northwest, and 160 Syrian villages have been abandoned because of prolonged and worsening droughts.
Bigger ones are on the horizon. Failure to act promptly could lead to much more serious tipping point changes, such as disappearance of the Tibetan-Hindu-Kushman glacier, which is the primary source of water for a billion people for India, Pakistan and China, three nuclear powers. The resulting tension could destabilize that part of the world. Need I say more?
Climate Scientists Don't Do the Weekend Weather. Comparing the veracity of climate scientists' predictions to the daily forecasts by the weatherman is the kind of false tautology that climate deniers love. The weathermen here in Virginia can't seem to get it right so why should we believe 10,000 climate scientists who have been studying the issue for the past two decades?
So what's George Allen's solution....wait for it....Burn more coal:
People do need to recognize though that the coal-fired power plants that are coming online now and will be coming online are far cleaner as far as emissions than they were before.
Most rational people understand we will continue using coal to generate electricity, but the point of cap-and-trade is to send price signals that stimulate the transition to renewable energy. Surely, Gov. Allen agrees with that? Nope.
There's nothing wrong with renewables and I think solar photovoltaics with advancements in nanotechnology can be helpful on individual buildings. But to think that we're going to rely on very expensive solar and wind, which is an intermittent power source for our baseload electricity is just...you're violating physics. The wind doesn't blow all the time. The sun doesn't shine all the time.
Here is a news flash, Governor: the renewable industry appears to be much closer solving the intermittent power riddle than coal is to solving the carbon sequestration issue.
I wrote about the advances recently in solar thermal power.
Similar advances are being made with wind. One company in Massachusetts is working on technology to use turbines to generate compressed air, which can be captured underground e.g., in caves or depleted gas wells. The pressurized air can be released when needed to power an electricity generator, even if wind is not spinning the turbine's blades.
If Gov. Allen - along with his new think tank - want to be taken seriously, they'll need to do their homework.
The Loyal Opposition
The Waxman-Markey bill that the House Energy & Commerce Committee's approved on last week is flawed. But it represents the first serious step to examining one of the most pressing issue of our time.
Fights over social issues like gay marriage, abortion, and health care, are trivial when you consider the future of the billion people who depend on water Asian glaciers that could disappear in a matter of decades.
It is against this backdrop that I must comment on the state of the country's opposition party, the Republicans.
I'm not the first. Frank Rich and Jim Hightower, as well as many others, have made this observation in the past few weeks. But when it comes to climate change, the GOP's performance is particularly unsettling.
Consider the following sampling of quotes:
- Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio): "The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical."
- RNC Chair Michael S. Steele: "We're cooling. We’re not warming," a sentiment echoed by right-leaning columnist George Will several months earlier.
- Rep. John Shimkus (R-Illinois): "If we decrease the use of carbon dioxide, are we not taking away plant food from the atmosphere?"
- And another one from Rep. Shimkus (on why he believes that climate change is not a threat): “The earth will end only when God declares its time to be over. Man will not destroy this earth, this earth will not be destroyed by a flood.”
- Rep. Joseph Barton (R-Texas) (explaining why CO2 emissions pose no danger): "I'm creating it as I talk to you. It's in your Coca-Cola, your Dr. Pepper and your Perrier water. It's necessary for human life. It's odorless, colorless, tasteless, doesn't cause cancer, doesn't cause asthma. There's nobody that's ever been admitted to a hospital because of CO2 poisoning."
These statements reveal a disturbing lack of knowledge on the part of the very people we need to know the most.
If you think this is just a case of selective quoting, I invite you to check out the GOP blog of last week's mark-up hearings.
The science of climate change is evolving rapidly and we need our elected representatives to stay on top of the science to avoid making terrible mistakes. The last thing we should tolerate is another poorly conceived mandate which incentivizes South American farmers to cut down virgin rainforest for new corn fields. Such unintended consequences lurk around every corner in this debate.
As Frank Rich said earlier this month, the democratic process works better with a functioning opposition. Right now, this debate needs one.
Chairman Waxman's Climate Bill
To paraphrase German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, don't ask how legislation or pork pies are made.
Think of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's new compromise on climate legislation as freshly baked pork pie.
Let's first consider the US emissions reductions goals. Did the Committee bake a pie small enough to get the US on the track to meeting scientifically defensible emissions reductions targets? No.
The bill would cap emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, instead of the original draft’s 20 percent below. Committee chair/chef Henry Waxman essentially promised (again with some poetic license to your author) to bake a smaller pie -- later. He noted the bill retains its original target reductions in the future: 42 percent by 2030 and 83 percent by 2050. We will see -- later.
Let's consider the allocation of the highly valuable rights to emit. These are akin to slices of the pork pie.
The President campaigned on selling slices to fund clean energy and beleaguered consumers. But the Congress would prefer to get the credit for giving away pieces of pie itself.
In fact, this was Chef Waxman's secret ingredient. He bought support for the climate bill by doling out valuable slices for free. The bill gives 35 percent of the allowances to local electric distribution companies -- over a third of the entire pie in one gulp. Another free slice goes to the auto industry for research on new technology. Another one may go to refineries. Still more slices will be given to ailing manufacturing industries such as steel and cement.
That's a lot of pie.
Indeed, the pie is disappearing fast. It's over halfway eaten already.
Once it seemed likely that free slices might go to leaner, fitter wind, solar, biomass, and other green technologies. But did the committee dole out slices to clean energy when it sliced up the pie? If they did, we missed it.
Chef Waxman surely understands what he is doing. But is this the way the pie-baking was supposed to go? Chancellor Bismarck was right: don't ask how legislation or pork pies are made.
Breaking News: Climate Compromise in the House
The big news today in Washington is that the House committee working on climate change legislation has actually reached a major compromise that allows significant progress toward federal climate legislation this year.
The new deal calls for a 15 percent renewables target for a Renewable Electricity Standard by 2020, with an additional 5 percent to come from energy efficiency measures. The deal will expand the amount of biomass generation included, a crucial concession for southern lawmakers who worry their region might suffer economic impacts dispropornal to the rest of the nation.
On the structure of cap-and-trade, electric utilities will get 35 percent of the system's pollution allowances for free. The administration has pushed for auctioning all of the pollution allowances, while the House discussion draft distributed earlier remained silent on the issue.
A full version of the bill is expected as early as today with debate in House Energy and Commerce committee expected next week. Chairman Henry Waxman promised to get a bill to the House floor by Memorial Day. He now appears on track.
Is a Climate Deal Imminent?
Here in Washington, every day brings a new rumor about the fate of the attempt to pass comprehensive climate change legislation this year.
Today, the same day The New York Times ran an editorial supporting quick action on climate change, the Capitol is abuzz with the possibility that a deal is in the works.
The focus of speculation is, as it has been for months, the House Energy and Commerce committee, where members have been wrangling over the details of the Waxman-Markey discussion draft introduced this March.
Soon after, House leaders all held hands and said they thought it could get done this year. Then in late April, we heard leaders suggest that the focus was shifting to health care legislation, and that cap-and-trade would get shelved. (The leaders indicated they might push ahead with one piece of the bill: a federal Renewable Electricity Standard that is arguably a more potent short-term solution. That is looking increasingly palatable politically as well as a new wind industry poll indicates that 75 percent of votes support it.)
Now, according to Carbon Control News, a deal to advance the Waxman-Markey discussion draft is being worked out under which utilities would receive emission allowances free (rather than having to purchase them at auction).
We cannot assess the strength of this latest rumor, but it has always been our view that 2010, rather than 2009, was the year to circle on your calendar.
Despite energetic efforts by groups such as Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection -- whose director (Cathy Zoi) was tapped to lead energy efficiency and renewable energy programs at DOE -- nothing we have heard has caused us to change our view on this.
Climate Legislation Made Easy
Democrats in Congress released their most recent climate change bill yesterday.
The so-called Waxman-Markey discussion draft attempts to satisfy all constituencies:
The US Climate Partnership -- the powerful coalition of utilities, car makers, manufacturers and environmental organizations -- got its vision of a cap-and-trade scheme adopted. That means the environmentalists are pleased with strong GHG emission reduction targets (80 percent below 2005 levels by 2050). Meanwhile, heavy industrials (iron and steel, aluminum, cement, glass, chemicals and paper) will benefit from a 15 percent reserve of the system's emission allowances -- a structure designed to keep down allowance prices (and thus the cost of compliance) for businesses most vulnerable to international competition.
The renewable industry got a renewable portfolio standard, which would force utilities to provide at least 25 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2025. The coal industry also came out with $10 billion to fund carbon capture and sequestration research. (That's on top of the billions already provided under the recently enacted stimulus plan.)
As critics have already noted, the bill fails to take on the make-or-break issues. For starters, it skips the thorny question of how to distribute allowances. The Obama administration wants to auction all of the pollution allowances while businesses are pushing to distribute some allowances for free.
Avoiding that issue allowed the bill to avoid another tricky one: where should any auction money go.
Critics will see these omissions as a fatal flaw -- akin to introducing a carbon tax proposal without a specific tax percentage.
I see this as a master stroke. The best chance for passing a cap-and-trade bill is to get the key adversaries -- environmentalists, vulnerable industries and coal -- to the negotiating table. Or at least to agree on the shape of that table. Then they can have a debate about these key issues out in the open.
Waxman and Markey have done just that. And set the stage to actually pass ambitious climate legislation this year.
The Week in Cap and Trade: The Waiting Game
All eyes continue to be on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman. Waxman has promised to deliver legislation on energy and climate change with a cap-and-trade provision to the full House by Memorial Day, but so far has released no draft bill for debate.
Committee member Congressman Mike Doyle told Point Carbon (subscription required) last week that he expects to see a draft of the bill “in the next week or two.”
Meanwhile, the man who lost his chairmanship to Waxman, Rep. John Dingell called for the administration to craft its own legislation, instead of leaving that task to Congress, reports E & E News (subscription required). "If they don't,” Dingell predicted, ”the drafting or completing of the legislation will be very difficult."
Any legislation may have a hard time generating popular support. A new Gallop poll released last week showed weakening support among voters for environmental action. When asked whether they would sacrifice the environment for economic growth, a majority of Americans responded “yes” for the first time in 25 years.
