Now, that will be even harder to achieve.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama’s top energy adviser says there is no way Congress will be able to pass a bill on climate change this year.

“That’s not going to happen,” the adviser, Carol Browner, said Friday.

Browner made the statement at a conference organized by The Atlantic magazine, just days after Senate Democrats introduced a major bill on climate change. In a video posted on the magazine’s Web site, Browner was asked about the prospects of enacting climate legislation by the time negotiations on a global climate treaty begin in December in Copenhagen.

Sep 10th 2009 | NEW YORK AND HOUSTON
From The Economist print edition
The second big bill before Congress is also in difficulties

COMPARED with the argy-bargy over health-care reform, this summer’s public conversation about controlling carbon emissions has been a model of restraint. In August, a Zogby poll commissioned by the National Wildlife Federation found that 71% of likely voters in America support the Waxman-Markey bill, a proposal to create a cap-and-trade mechanism for carbon dioxide that cleared the House of Representatives in June. But the bill still faces an uphill climb in the Senate, which resumed work on September 8th.

The bill’s future is clouded partly because health care consumes virtually all Barack Obama’s political capital, and partly because Republicans, whatever the polls may say, think cap-and-trade is a political loser for Democrats. When public attention swings to the issue, they can paint it as a stealth tax on energy—and during a recession at that. Republicans who were formerly committed to climate legislation include John McCain, last year’s presidential nominee, as well as Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Richard Lugar of Indiana, a centrist and internationalist who appreciates the importance of climate change to global opinion. All have disengaged from the negotiations.

Bill Clinton’s presidency has served as a roadmap for Barack Obama’s—a roadmap, that is, of what not to do. Don’t try to pass health care reform without congressional input. Don’t tackle controversial social issues early in your presidency. Don’t alienate the military. Now there’s another lesson: Don’t promise the world you’re going to fight climate change when you can’t.

In his speech to the United Nations Tuesday, Obama rattled off the administration’s energy accomplishments, from tightening fuel emissions standards to tracking greenhouse gas pollution. He praised the House of Representatives for passing climate change legislation last June. But he was careful not to promise a finished bill. That’s because, thanks to the long slog of health care reform and the galaxy of political interests that must be appeased, a Senate bill by the end of the year—let alone by the time of the global environmental summit in Copenhagen in early December—is looking unlikely.

It was no barnburner of a speech, but President Obama’s address at the U.N. Climate Summit Tuesday morning amounted to the boldest climate change speech of his presidency. That’s because it was essentially the only climate change speech of his presidency.

Until now, President Obama’s message about energy has been all clean-tech innovation, green jobs, and economic growth, with just passing mentions of climate change. Candidate Obama, to be clear, had plenty to say about climate (example: his interview with Grist in July 2007). On Tuesday he finally returned to the topic.

“No nation, however large or small, wealthy or poor, can escape the impact of climate change,” he said in the address to world leaders. “Rising sea levels threaten every coastline. More powerful storms and floods threaten every continent. More frequent drought and crop failures breed hunger and conflict in places where hunger and conflict already thrive. On shrinking islands, families are already being forced to flee their homes as climate refugees. The security and stability of each nation and all peoples—our prosperity, our health, our safety—are in jeopardy. And the time we have to reverse this tide is running out.”

Posted 8:59 PM on 22 Jun 2009
by Kate Sheppard

The House Committee on Rules posted the bill on its website late Monday—with 255 additional pages, bringing the total page count to 1201. The bill’s prospects for going to a floor vote this week looked dim just a few days ago. But the site notes that there’s a deadline of 9:30 a.m. on Thursday for amendments—meaning there could be a vote on Friday before legislators head home for the July 4 recess.

We’ll have more soon. Stay tuned!

Posted 4:31 PM on 21 May 2009
by Gar Lipow

Waxman-Markey is a big split personality of a bill. Its efficiency and renewable requirements would make a dent in greenhouse gas emissions, even if not a very big one. But the cap-and-trade at the heart of the legislation is another story.

Why do we need cap-and-trade or a carbon tax or something similar? If we could just flip a switch and turn off emissions quickly, there would be no need to discuss complex schemes. In that case, the best approach would just be to notify everyone they were required to stop polluting a year or three from now. Because greenhouse gas emissions are so interwoven into our infrastructure, we have to phase out this type of pollution slowly, over decades.

Waxman-Markey’s approach to this is to issue permits each year for a total amount of pollution we will allow. Polluters must obtain permits for every bit of smoke they belch. The idea is to allow pollution very close to the current level the first year, then issue fewer permits every year, so the amount of pollution allowed gradually falls. The total number of permits is the cap. As that total drops the cap is said to tighten. Sale of those permits is the “trade.”

Now, it is easy to argue over whether this type of system can be implemented properly, but whatever your stand on the theoretical issue, it is pretty obvious that Waxman-Markey’s implementation is a series of disasters.

A much more difficult policy for Canada to imitate is the proposed U.S. cap-and-trade policy that has begun to wind its way through Congress under a House bill sponsored by Representatives Henry Waxman and Ed Markey. It would impose a hard cap to reduce aggregate U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 3 per cent from 2005 levels by 2012, 20 per cent by 2020, 42 per cent by 2030 and 83 per cent by 2050. With permit trading, regulatory costs are alleviated since companies facing high compliance costs purchase credits at less cost from those who emit less than their allowance.

With a growing economy, these requirements will be a challenge unless economic technologies are adopted in sufficient time. The system will apply to large emitters (with more than 25,000 equivalent carbon tons of emissions) in the utility, petroleum, industrial and other sectors. As part of the package, companies may buy domestic and international offsets, borrow allowances from other years and bank current allowances to be used in other years.

While Mr. Obama’s initial proposal would require the full auctioning of credits, thereby raising $1.2-trillion over 10 years, the proposed scheme has bought political support from the coal-based regions and power companies by giving away 85 per cent of permits. This will blow another hole in the U.S. budget, adding to its already immense, Italian-style debt burden. (“What’s a trillion?” to paraphrase C. D. Howe.)

Moreover, the allowances soften substantially the impact of energy plans on the electrical coal industry, which accounts for the largest share of emissions in that sector. Surprisingly, allowances are far less generous to natural gas, which is a much cleaner source of power. Of course, the oil industry is a substantial loser; refining costs are expected to skyrocket.

Cap-and-trade schemes are quite complex and intrusive, not much different from imposing a new value-added tax with multiple tax rates on goods and services. The U.S. Congress is well aware that energy-intensive goods will be most affected by a cap-and-trade system; the new bill includes unspecified subsidies as an offset for internationally competitive, energy-intensive sectors.

Much to its discredit, the U.S. bill’s free distribution of permits and subsidies mitigates the impact of carbon pricing on consumer behaviour, because consumer price impacts are softened. To some extent, this will shield consumers from price hikes, which would encourage better conservation practices and energy efficiency. It is not a good way to go.

It also gives the President the power to impose border adjustments on a case-by-case basis. Call it a tariff on foreign manufacturers and importers who would pay for special allowances to cover carbon contained in U.S.-bound products. Supposedly, countries with similar carbon pricing schemes would be exempt.