Congress in 2008
Federal climate change legislation may be on the way. The Senate has targeted a vote in June, and the House by the end of the year, although a bill both chambers can agree upon is unlikely until 2009, if then. It would be a great mistake, however, to view 2008 as a lost year on the climate front. The fundamental elements of Senate and House bills will be debated and accessible to all who probe beneath the surface. The fundamental regulatory structure and economic impact of climate legislation will have been thrashed over thoroughly by the end of the year. To interested stakeholders, the time to weigh in is now. [summary]
While the candidates count delegates, key Senators and Members count votes and try to predict how far toward climate legislation the Congress will progress this year. The short answer: final legislation is not likely this year, although both chambers may come very close. Because the Senate has targeted a vote in June, and the House by the end of the year, it would be a great mistake to view 2008 as a lost year on the climate front, however. To get to these votes, or even to try to get legislation in shape for a vote, means that the fundamental elements of the Senate and House bills will be debated and visible to all who probe beneath the surface. Passage is quite likely in 2009, but the fundamental regulatory structure and economic impact of climate legislation will have been thrashed over thoroughly. The Congress in 2009 will not by any means be writing on a clean slate. To interested stakeholders, the time to weigh in is now – if not already past.
In the Senate, Senator Lieberman optimistically reports that he believes a vote would be veto-proof at sixty votes if the June vote occurs after the Lieberman-Warner bill reaches the Senate floor soon after the Memorial Day recess. But approval may falter if the many amendments Senators are likely to seek come into play. To reach the 60-vote total, the co-sponsors may have to agree to amendments that, while attracting support from fence-sitting senators, may cause others thought safely on board to fall off the fence. Thus, for the US Senate to approve a strong bill this year, the managers will have to walk a fine line from here on out.
Does Senator John McCain support the bill? His support for decisive action on climate is well-documented. But his desire and determination for a role for nuclear power in addressing the climate challenge may place a serious obstacle in the path of approval, because many "climate senators," including the Chair of the Committee on Environment and Public Works that has favorably reported out the Lieberman-Warner bill, Barbara Boxer of California, have expressed opposition to inclusion of incentives for nuclear power. When other ticklish issues are added to the long list of amendment-prone provisions, the prospects for passage this session look decidedly less optimistic.
In the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and special climate committee chair Edward Markey (D-MA) were not joking when on April Fools Day they expressed their determination to have climate legislation pass the House by the end of the year. But they have complicated their own task by stressing the importance of including India and China in climate solutions. Strictly speaking, there is no role for addressing these two nations' large GHG emissions totals in domestic US climate legislation; Pelosi and Markey are hoping that India and China will be addressed either through the Kyoto agreement process or through the time-tried pathway of bilateral agreements. But bringing up India and China, the twin Achilles' Heels of climate action, the two members appeared to be drawing attention to their critics' strongest reason for avoiding unilateral US action until the largest global emitters are brought into some sort of accord on joint action.
The issues to be addressed in a domestic climate law are truly daunting, and suggest that next calendar year, after the presidential election, is a more likely time to expect climate legislation for the US. Even then, the challenge cannot be overstated. The issues include negotiating out provisions to cover caps and baselines fairly and effectively, with key decisions to be made about how each plant, company, sector, and state will be expected to comply, not to mention vital assumptions going into a domestic framework regarding the limits to be placed on GHG emissions for the nation and the planet. Baselines need to be set, and the effects of mergers, acquisitions, and corporate reorganizations taken fairly into account. These issues exist even before taking up the much-discussed topic of the role trading/banking/offsets will play, especially vis-a-vis Clean Air Act-California AB 32-style performance standards. One of the very largest and most contentious areas will cover congressional decisions – no doubt after fierce lobbying – of the impact of legislation on different economic sectors (transportation, chemicals, manufacturing, not to mention electrical utilities and fuels production and consumption). In this connection, legislation can be made (or derailed) by proposed provisions regarding phase-in, byes and safety valves, and cost-spreading.
Allocating emissions allowances is about as controversial as the new legislation can possibly become, with major debate about the grandfathering existing sources, whether to auction all or just some of the rights to emit, and allowance retirement. After both creating enormous value in the form of legislative permission to emit GHGs, and auctioning or allocating the newly-minted rights to emit, already it is clear that a large federal direct and indirect subsidy program will be launched, that may favor green technology and conservation and disfavor existing unaltered high-GHG emitting technologies. Early action credits will certainly receive attention, but to what extent and in what form? This has yet to be fully resolved, nor has the point at which allowance purchase may finally be set to occur: upstream/downstream, at the point of energy use or the point of carbon release.
