This sort of thing has worked in the past you know. More often than it has failed.

So, OK, where’s the website(s) organizing the September Citizen Climate Change March on Washington anyway? Or are we just going to try to talk this thing to death?

I’ll be less alarmed by all this hand-waving when I detect the O administration and Congress talking about backing up the vaporous suppositions of W-M with a “Manhattan Project” style approach to getting us moving off fossil fuels within the span of this presidency. A silo’ed off-budget project where the politicians cannot f*ck it up (much) and where people on a mission with the right tools and money and 3 years free and clear can put their shoulders under the problem and push as hard as humanly possible. Which I can tell you is damned hard. Three years with enough money and no messing around might turn an important corner.

Might also signal — at the end, when all is said and done — that we can’t turn this ship around in the time remaining. Either way, for good or ill we’d have our options laid out before us. This “cap it and all is well” is dangerous fantasy without a solid plan to grapple with our ongoing epic fail.

cougar

Let me given a couple of examples related to agriculture. The first is the fact that major point sources of ghg’s are not even required to make any effort to measure how much they produce. Imagine every large corporate hog factory or feedlot and all of the rotting manure that they produce. This relates to methane, a ghg that is many times more powerful than CO2 even if far less persistent in the atmosphere. It seems to me that taking action here would have been a major factor in slowing the process until stronger CO2 measures were in place and effective.

The Environmental Working Group has found major loopholes in the offset as they relate to AG and this gives another pass.

This has nothing to do with whether cap and trade will work. It has all to do with whether Congress has the political will to make the entire process work.

Add to this the fact that two powerful Democrats, Sen. Byrd of WV, the man who perfected the filibuster, and Congressman Nick Rahall will do all they can to make sure that coal continues to be mined, and burned and to hell with the consequences as long as Massey Energy stock continues to go up. Rahall (WV – 3rd CD), as Chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources, could do a lot to fix the problem but he fears the power of Massey Energy to unseat him if he did.

I fear that the time has come for citizen non-violent protest, such as James Hansen did at Coal River Mountain. Congress has one chance to get this right and so far, the best grade I could give them is a D-.

Wes Rolley
CoChair, EcoAction Committee, Green Party US.

But even if Congress let the EPA ruling stand, there’s the court system. Any company could (and would) file a suit and challenge the legality of the EPA ruling in court. They already done that many times in the past. That would mean an endless round of appeals all the way up to the Supreme Court before (if) the company loses the suit and has to comply. So, for maybe 5 or 10 years they could delay having to comply with the EPA regulation — and there’s a good chance they might win and have the court throw the EPA regulation out completely.

But let’s say that on some planet (not this one) that neither Congress intervenes or any company challenges the EPA ruling in court:

We still face the practical aspects of industry actually being able to physically comply with the EPA order. What are they going to do, shut down half of the coal plants overnight? That would instantly reduce the total amount of electricity available in the U.S. by 25% to 30%. That would immediately cause massive, recurring power outages in every city across the country and guarantee a perpetual state of brownout. Is anyone naive enough to think the people of this country would put up with that for more than a week or two before they lynched everyone in the EPA and told the power companies to fire those coal plants back up?

Get real, people. As a practical matter, CO2 reduction on the scale we need it to be done cannot be “ordered” by any single government agency. It must be done through a vote of the duly elected representatives of the people of this country or not at all. That’s the real world we live in.

I don’t see any difficulty at all. EPA regulation would probably be so expensive that it would 1) make it economically impossible to reduce emissions enough to control global warming and 2) cause economic devastation with the regulations that it does implement.

By contrast, cap and trade lets industries use the lowest cost methods of reducing emissions, so it allows more reductions without economic devastation.

Can you point out where that is in the bill?

Because I haven’t seen that.

The economic impacts of an EPA mandated CO2 reduction could look very much like the “energy impoverished, job destroying” bogeyman the delayers are waving around re W-M. And therefore, backlash at the polls, new EPA Administrator, and it is back to lopping off the top of every likely looking mountain.

We need to exploit the economic benefits of efficiency and renewables, and we need to place the initial investment cost on the polluters who right now are using our atmosphere as a disposal site for their waste products (hot dirty gases) by charging them. EPA CANNOT DO THAT.

W-M takes the bulk of new revenue generated by the sale of allocations and invests that in efficiency and renewables. EPA CANNOT DO THAT.

W-M directs every electric utility in the nation to develop an electric vehicles charging infrastructure plan so that we have a viable transition away from oil. EPA CANNOT DO THAT.

W-M will deliver a whole new era of appliance efficiency, and connect these appliances to a smart grid, laying the groundwork for an efficient and renewably powered grid. EPA CANNOT DO THAT.

W-M addresses in detail transitioning our building stock to higher efficiency–and funds much of it through sale of allocations. EPA CANNOT DO THAT.

W-M takes all the lessons learned about how to make a stable CO2 market, and keep the traders honest, and makes that the law. For CO2 pricing to have the most positive outcome, we need a healthy market sending consistent signals so that emitters can do the necessary planning to stop emitting. EPA CANNOT DO THAT.

Also, I don’t consider legislation a “sure thing” for reducing emissions in the long term. We know for sure that W-M would give polluting industries huge subsidies in the short-term. As we get closer to the date when significant emissions reduction targets kick in, I consider it highly likely that a future Congress will water down the targets, citing a desire not to hurt the economy or increase people’s utility bills or whatever excuse they will use.

[JR: Weakening the targets after the fact is a virtually zero-probability outcome. Remember, that would require 60 votes in the Senate, majority in House, and a GOP President. And in 10 years, people will be starting to get desperate for deeper reductions. Finally, if you consider Petersen a climate policy expert, go with his "analysis."]

If ACES passes, it sets a guaranteed limt. EPA regulation could be strong, may not be, will likely take a long time, may not be politically or legally feasible, may not apply to older power plants, may be undone from one administration to the next, does little to promote (and could undermine) a strong international treaty, etc. The list of uncertainties is so daunting, I’m confused why people are so eager to promote EPA regulation over the sure thing of legislation.

If it’s a choice — and I confess I’m not sure why it has to be a choice — but if our elected officials say it must be a choice in order to cut the deals we need to pass a bill, to me it’s an easy one — legislation over regulation any day of the week.