[JR: As I've blogged, I doubt politically they could reduce the rip-offset limit below the relatively modest amount that are actually likely to be purchased. I would like to sunset the rip-offsets. But other than that, I would focus my efforts on more important things, like making sure the Senate retains the energy efficiency provisions, toughening up the renewable standards, keeping the 2020 target as strong as possible....]

[JR: The CAA actually gives only limited authority to be EPA under the endangerment finding. Again, you can choose to live in an imaginary world where Obama can use the EPA to quickly put in place a sharply shrinking CO2 cap -- but that is a pure fantasy. If W-M fails, the international community will realize that the US is not capable of agreeing to even modest reductions and that will be pretty much the end of that.]

You wrote about how this bill could be better earlier this year. Since then the bill has gotten worse with all the payoffs to get votes.

[JR: Not sure what exactly "payoffs" you are talking about, but in any case, "payoffs" as you call them, have little impact on the environmental outcomes of the bill.]

[JR: You'd have a point of EPA were given the authority by Congress to reduce emissions, as it has in the past (and as this bill does). As it is, the allocation of allowances to utilities has nothing whatsoever to do with the ability of this bill to cut emissions. You are aware that under the wildly successful acid rain program, 97% of the allowances were given to utilities.]

[JR: Wrong on both counts. This bill almost certainly will cut U.S. coal use by at least 20% by 2020. The endangerment finding most certainly does NOT let it place emissions control on every carbon output now. It does allow the EPA to require reduced emissions from new sources, but trying to regulate existing sources would take many many years, which would certainly be followed by many many more years of litigation. Indeed, some states could probably delay the process for a very long time, given how the CAA is written. The first Republican president could stop the entire process. Also, failure of Waxman-Markey would be the end of the international negotiations, and thus it would be quite irrelevant what EPA did at that point.]

Actually, this sort of “undoing” is possible in *any* democracy — that’s the nature of the beast. The reason we have such a see-saw situation in the U.S. is because our voting populace is so evenly split between the two polarized factions with precious few moderates and genuine “independents” who might vote either way to make much of a difference in negotiations and national elections.

The only long-term hope is that the biggest block of Republican voters are elderly people who are living out their last years right now. If the Republicans don’t figure out a way to sucker in some younger voters soon, the balance will tilt in favor of the progressive Democrats going forward.

I think the really big story has been missed — that of the 44 Democrats who voted *against* Waxman-Markey. That is the most troubling event of recent weeks in this country as far as I’m concerned. Yet you don’t hear the Democrats screaming for the blood of those 44 the way you hear the Republicans crying out to lynch the 8 members of their own party who voted for Waxman-Markey.

That is just another example of the fundamental difference in the mindsets of the fascist right and the progressive left in this country. Unfortunately it is the reason the right has been winning more often than they have been losing over the past 30 years, because most Democrats aren’t willing to be real dirty street fighters the way they are.

[JR: Well, Pelosi gave those 44 a pass once it's clear their votes were needed. That is NOT how I would have done it -- I would have tried to run up a bigger margin. But then I don't have to run for office in this brutal political environment.]

ACES will move the American economy to a more efficient stance. Paid for by CO2 emitters. Cost neutral or cost positive. That is my view on the bill.

Yes it could be undone. Suggestions?

Mine would be to inform the American public on why efficiency improves our lives, and lessens our impact on our world.

As soon as Dave Massey makes enough money to be happy, Tom, and, then we’ll have Clean Coal.