Big Hoopla Over Climate Change Proposal

By Ucilia Wang

The climate change policy debate is heating up as nicely as the Earth’s surface temperatures.

The U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a consortium of big businesses and environmental groups, on Thursday unveiled its recommendations on what Congress and the new White House should include in a climate change bill. The proposal, which took two years to conceive, outlines what a carbon emissions cap-and-trade system should look like, including targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions over time.

Plenty of special interest groups have offered their takes on what the legislation should include, including one presented by an industry group for electric utilities yesterday. But the proposal by the USCAP seems to have drawn a lot more attention (criticism) from politicians and environmental groups, noted the WSJ’s Environmental Capital blog.

Jim Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy (DUK) in Charlotte, N.C., helped to present the USCAP’s proposal before the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing.

The Republicans on the committee were miffed that they were given little time to review the USCAP proposal before the hearing, the first held by the new committee chairman, Henry Waxman of California. The Republicans also don’t like the cap-and-trade program to begin with.

A cap-and-trade program would (ideally) set strict emission limits and requires any polluters that can’t meet the emission requirements to buy credits from those that pollute much less than allowed. The European Union has run a cap-and-trade program since 2005.

The goal of a cap-and-trade is to nudge companies into cutting emissions, or else they will have to pay. They might have to pay to get those credits in the first place, something that Barack Obama has advocated during the election campaign (in Europe, companies get their first allowances mostly for free, although that might change). Some critics say a cap-and-trade system would be too costly for businesses, especially during an economic downturn.

Obama wants to use the cap-and-trade program to raise billions of dollars over time to pay for a variety of initiatives, including greentech research and business developments.

The USCAP wants the government to give away a big portion of the emission allowances for free, and that doesn’t sound right for some lawmakers and environmental groups. Its schedule for reducing emissions over time also drew ire from groups such as the Union for Concerned Scientists, which wants to see tougher targets.

Comments

[ArtfulDodger:]

These are blind guides leading a blind nation. Every one of them believed in WMD and the Y2K-Con. The "global warming" hoax is worse!

Suckers the lot of them!

Jan 16 07:53 AM

[Barnyard:]

The cap and trade plan is nothing more than a way for the government to collect another tax and a way for the "Market" to make money. The plan will not reduce greenhouse gases, any additional cost will just be added to the end product cost.

Jan 16 08:32 AM

[Mmarrkk:]

Yeah global warming! Largest/deepest snow pack in 56 years, snow on the gulf coast of Texas, yeah folks. This old earth is a cooling! hah haha

Some humans are vain enough to think that we can actually impact this earth. They are giving us way too much credit. Global warming is a hoax. While hundreds of scientists profess it, other groups of hundreds debate the fact. But we never get to hear from these scientists. But we do get to hear from that dolt AlBore. This is just another way for government and Al to steal more of our money!

just wait, maybe 3 years, then they'll all be running around talking about the new ice age. That's what the worry was 10 years or so ago.

And newsflash: the polar ice caps expanded last year. Didn't see that in the NY Times, did you? The NY Times is a waste of our natural resources!

Jan 16 08:50 AM

[john s. gordon:]

cap'n trade trading reminds me too much of enron energy trading, an opportunity for fast operators to game the market.
> jack

Jan 16 09:30 AM

[Clarence Beeks:]

Consider this: even if global warming isnt happening and is in fact a hoax, it still makes alot of sense to move quickly away from fossil fuels due to pollution, health care costs caused by pollution , national security threats, economic security and war avoidance. Anyone who cannot see this is blind. And if the polar ice continues to expand and global warming ceases to be a problem then we still win, win, win. : ^ ) or... we can continue to turn a blind eye to the obvious and poison the planet until nothing else lives.

Jan 16 10:09 AM

[Ferdinand E...:]

Cap-and-trade is either a farce or a scam or both. Anybody who has studied the situation in Europe should know this, although knowing it is no guarantee that they will reject it. The situation here is like the one where Herman Goering looked up during one American bombing raid on Berlin, and not only saw bombers, but also American fighter planes - Mustangs, the best figher plane in the world, and with enough range to escort bombers anywhere in Germany. That was when he knew that his side had lost, he said, but even so he didn't pass the word on to the other members of the executive suite.

Jan 16 10:38 AM

[R Herbert:]

After being trained in envronmental sciences and observing evidence over 30 years, I have to agree with 90% of trained climatologists that global warming is not a hoax. Better knownas climate change our planet is going through excelerated change. It is funny how people mistake weather trends for climate change. Uninformed critics like Rush and big oil funded spokesmen have created a good "hoax" smoke screen.

Face it, continued increasing use of fossil fuels with little regulation towards cleaner technoligies is poisoning our planet. Mercury in most of our water, acid rain, and heavy particulate matter in our air affects us all. The Americain Lung Assoc estimates that ~23,000 people die each year from crappy air. We don't pay the true cost of dirty power at the pump or the meter, We pay for it with degraded health and lower quality of life.

So if global warming is a hoax yet we clean up our act, then we still all benefit. If not a hoax and we dismiss the evidence and continue to increase, not just carbon emissions, but also associted toxins, we'll all suffer the ramifications.

Cap and trade may or may not be part of the solution. Cleaner technoligies and greater efficiencies need to be adopted.

People seem to accept change slower than the climate changes.

Jan 16 11:35 AM

[scfranklin94:]

Cap and trade is just a tax on carbon emissions via a bureaucratic mish mash of credits, so why not do straight carbon taxes instead? Do you really think that if US Steel was running out of emission credits and couldn't afford the current price for additional credits, that they wouldn't lean on their congressional allies to get some new ones from the gov't? Why create a new commodity that will be gamed by all the financial houses?

Carbon taxes would probably be spent on something other than renewable energy, but at least we can calculate the receipts and see how much the gov't spent on such projects. Cap and trade is much more opaque in calculating it's success or failure.

Jan 16 12:01 PM

[Stockguy456:]

It does not matter if it is 1 year, 5 years, 10 years or more. There will be new forms of energy to make fossil fuels extinct!

Jan 16 01:06 PM

[Gil 1937:]

Does anyone here not believe that 95% of global warming is caused by water vapor??

Jan 16 01:44 PM

[longtermstocks:]

www.independent.co.uk/...

Jan 16 11:26 PM

[Mr.Golf:]

Follow the money folks.

Jan 17 01:28 PM