Climate and energy

According to the calendar of the U.S. Senate, the Warner-Lieberman Climate Security Act (which proposes a cap and trade system of carbon regulation) will be debated on the Senate floor sometime after 2:00 east coast time today. (You can listen in live on C-SPAN 2.)

Why is this important? Because this is the first time that the chamber has discussed a climate change bill since 2005.

Lots has changed since then – and, well, lots hasn’t. Climate change is even higher on the public radar. So, however, is climate change denial.

This piece of legislation is full of compromises that at least got it out of committee. Neither side is particularly happy with the result. Opposition will be bringing lots of amendments to the floor to weaken the bill, and supporters will be trying to strengthen it. If the bill is too weakened in the process, supporters plan to pull it. It is unclear whether the legislation has enough votes to pass, at any rate.

If that’s true, then what’s the big deal about the debate? The big deal is that the legislation – regardless of flaws – is a big step forward in policy at the national level. The international order is moving ahead on treaties dealing with climate change. Across the nation, most state policies on climate and energy are lightyears ahead of the feds. Under court order, the White House just released its climate plan four years late (AP).

Some of the provisions included in the legislation, according to Grist:

The bill calls for a cap on greenhouse-gas emissions starting in 2012, with electric utilities, refineries, and the industrial and transportation sectors required to cut their emissions 19 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and a 71 percent by 2050. Other provisions of the bill are expected to reduce greenhouse gases from additional emitters 66 percent by 2050.

For the primary industries covered, emissions cuts would be achieved through a cap-and-trade system that would let polluting entities buy and sell the right to emit carbon. About 20 percent of emissions credits would be auctioned initially; the rest would be given out free to emitters and states. The percentage of credits auctioned instead of given away would increase gradually over time. (Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have both advocated for auctioning 100% of credits from the beginning, a position widely supported by enviros.)

Some new provisions in the bill are intended to help consumers deal with any increases in energy prices. There’s an $800 billion consumer tax relief package and a $911 billion allowance to local electricity and gas utilities to help them cushion consumers from price swings, invest in renewables, and promote efficiency. This would all be paid for by the revenue from auctioning emissions credits, expected to total $3.3 trillion over the life of the bill. Funds from the auction would also go to worker transition programs, block grants to local governments for energy-efficiency programs, international adaptation programs, and deficit reduction.

As NPR also describes the legislation:

The legislation would require factories, power plants, refineries and other heavy industry to pay the government for permits to emit greenhouse gases, mostly carbon dioxide. Companies also could trade permits among themselves and even bank them to use when needed. Economists who’ve analyzed this “cap-and-trade” program say it could generate about $6 trillion by 2050 — most of it from industry coffers.

Some of the objections that are supposed to be raised in the debate today: cost containment, where the money should go (to renewable energy, or to nuclear power development?), how to allocate the credits (auction them all off to polluters, or allocate some/ auction some), and can states have stronger emissions standards than the federal government.

Perhaps the biggest issue of all – is the target for emissions set low enough to actually head off the worst effects of climate change? Scientists widely agree that carbon dioxide levels must be reduced 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 (the target also endorsed by Obama and Clinton).

BTW, if you want to support Warner-Lieberman, click here – and if you don’t, click here.

We will be listening to the debate here at CEP. Actually, Maril is currently driving Eileen nuts with a nervous countdown – “Thirty minutes! 29 minutes! 23 minutes!”

Very exciting.

— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org