Below are the Introduction and Pro/Con sections from the "Energy and Climate" report by Marcia Clemmitt, July 26, 2009. Our economy continues to struggle. We shed 467,000 jobs in June and have hemorrhaged 3.2 million since Jan. 1. In Michigan, unemployment has soared to 15.2 percent. Yet, despite our economic maladies, Democratic leaders are pursuing a reckless climate bill that would bankrupt America's working families with no guarantee of helping the environment. The carbon mandates under cap and tax would mean the United States could not emit more in 2050 than we emitted in 1910, essentially requiring us to scale back emissions to a per capita level equivalent to those of the tiny coastal nation of Belize. Study after study has predicted cap-and-tax will result in skyrocketing energy bills and massive job losses. The Congressional Budget Office conservatively estimated that meeting the mandated reductions would cost $864 billion, while some anticipate closer to $1.5 trillion. CBO predicted gasoline costs would increase by 77 cents per gallon and diesel by 88 cents. It is not just inside-the-Beltway analysts forecasting exorbitant costs to families. In Michigan, Consumers Energy predicts hefty rate increases — in excess of 38 percent over the next 15 years — just to comply with cap and tax. The increases will surely be higher as Consumers did not take into account inflation or rising fuel and construction costs. Some Michigan manufacturers say they will solely operate at night, when electric rates are cheaper. Efforts to improve the legislation with constructive amendments were blocked every step of the way. We sought to add consumer protections to safeguard working families, but were rebuffed. Efforts to include the world's leading emitters in the legislation were also thwarted. Meaningful climate legislation requires global participation, especially by India and China. According to the July 16 edition of The New York Times, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said that if China's emissions of global warming gases keep growing at the pace of the last 30 years, the country will emit more such gases in the next three decades than the United States has in its entire history. Without international participation, jobs and emissions will simply shift overseas to countries that require few, if any, environmental protections, harming the global environment as well as the U.S. economy. We should take an “all of the above” approach to reducing emissions, with an emphasis on renewable sources of energy like wind and solar, as well as nuclear power. We can simultaneously preserve our environment and create jobs. In the short term, climate-change legislation will cause modest increases in energy costs but will help cut the federal deficit a bit. In the long run, it will safeguard us against dangerous changes in climate and help Americans become leaders in the emerging clean-tech industry. One reason for the modest cost is that the legislation will create a cap-and-trade system rather than directly telling companies how much to reduce their emissions. Cap and trade is the brainchild of economists who believe conventional environmental regulation is too expensive. The whole purpose is to cut industries' costs. Companies will get “allowances” for each ton of carbon dioxide they emit. The total number of allowances is the “cap.” Companies can use the allowances themselves or sell them to other companies. That's the “trade” part of cap and trade, and it makes the program more cost-effective. Under the bill that passed the House of Representatives, most allowances would be given away, but some would be auctioned. Auction proceeds would pay for government programs like vouchers for buying fuel-efficient vehicles and energy rebates for low-income consumers. How much would this cost? The most reliable cost estimates come from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office rather than ideological advocates like the American Enterprise Institute. A few weeks before the House passed the climate-change bill, the CBO estimated utilities would pay $15-$26 per allowance from 2010–2019. The impact on consumers would be small — a $20 charge per ton of emissions amounts to 1.4 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity. CBO later admitted that its cost estimate had been on the high side, because it ignored other ways that companies could reduce their compliance costs. When CBO's original report was released, opponents of the legislation squawked that the legislation would “cost” the government over hundreds of billions of dollars. It turns out that what the CBO meant was simply that the government was losing out on potential revenue by giving most of the allowances away instead of auctioning them. According to economists, auctioning permits is better. And what about the deficit? CBO estimates that climate legislation would decrease the national debt by $24 billion over the next decade by allowing the federal government to earn income from auctioning allowances. In short, climate-change legislation is not the huge economic burden claimed by opponents. It's a cost-effective way of combating a serious threat to our long-term well-being.
Introduction
Congress and the Obama administration are advancing policies directly aimed — for the first time — at cutting emissions from burning carbon fuels. The Environmental Protection Agency plans to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions, which scientists link to global warming. The House recently passed a comprehensive energy bill that would institute a “cap-and-trade” system imposing an increasingly tight cap on carbon emissions by requiring polluters such as electric-power companies to buy emission permits or switch to cleaner energy sources. The legislation is backed by most major energy and environmental groups. Some critics say the bill is fatally flawed, however, partly because the trading market in which big carbon-emitting companies may buy unused pollution permits will make carbon-fuel prices too unpredictable and open to manipulation. It's also unclear whether public support for regulating carbon will continue if the effort significantly raises prices for electric power and manufactured goods.
The Issues:
* Are climate-focused energy proposals too costly?
* Will the Waxman-Markey bill help reduce climate change?
* Will Democrats' alternative-energy policies produce enough energy?
Pro/Con
Will the Waxman-Markey bill harm the economy?PRO
Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich. Ranking Member, Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Environment. Written for CQ Researcher, July 2009 CON
Daniel A. Farber Professor of Law, University of California Berkeley School of Law. Written for CQ Researcher, July 2009
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Energy and Climate
What are you doing for Earth Day?
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The New Report: Confronting Warming
Can states and localities prevent climate change?
Growing concern about climate change has led states and cities to adopt new policies to try to conserve energy and reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. California recently adopted new rules that aim to reduce such gases by 30 percent by 2020, while a cap on carbon emissions in the Northeast took effect Jan. 1. But critics say the efforts are more symbolic than substantive, pushing real sacrifices far off into the future. Many business groups, meanwhile, complain that the new rules will increase the cost of energy and hurt the economy -- despite current promises that a “Green New Deal” can create jobs. The Obama administration promises to be far more aggressive in addressing global warming than the skeptical Bush White House. Even though the issue is coming to the fore in Washington, states and cities that have filled the policy vacuum in recent years pledge to stay vigilant in addressing the issue.
* Should states regulate carbon emissions?
* Can local governments prevent global warming?
* Should state and local governments do more to prepare for the consequences of climate change?
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Overview of the Report on Confronting Warming
John Coleman concentrates on cutting energy use for the city of Fayetteville, Ark., as if his job depended on it. In fact, it does.
“I got the City Council to let me hire this person based on the promise that we would reduce our energy consumption to more than cover his or her salary,” recalls Fayetteville Mayor Dan Coody.
Coleman has found easy pickings all over town -- even at City Hall: inefficient thermostats, wasteful light-bulbs, computers that are left on all night. In 2007, Fayetteville budgeted $1.9 million for utility costs, but thanks to Coleman ended up spending about $180,000 less than that. “You just barely covered my salary,” Coleman joked at an end-of-year meeting. “I get to stick around for another year.”
Actually, they more than covered his salary of $57,000. Coleman is one of dozens of so-called sustainability directors now employed by cities around the country. (Coody got the idea from a similar program in Seattle.) By switching police departments from paper tickets to electronic ones, or looking for dramatic savings by putting municipal utilities on an energy diet, these environmental specialists are helping city officials like Coody make good on their promise to cut down on emissions that cause global warming.
Scientists say a buildup of six types of heat-trapping gases in the Earth’s atmosphere are beginning to cause potentially dramatic climate changes, such as planetary warming, melting ice caps, rising sea levels and intensified droughts, floods and hurricanes. The gases -- called “greenhouse” gases (GHG) because they act as a greenhouse by retaining the sun’s heat in Earth’s atmosphere -- are emitted when carbon-based fossil fuels like oil, coal and natural gas are burned. Under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, industrialized countries were asked to reduce their GHG emissions -- often referred to as “carbon” emissions because carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most abundant greenhouse gas -- by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. The U.S. reduction target was set at 7 percent.
Although the U.S. government is not bound by the treaty, hundreds of mayors, including Coody, have pledged to abide by the protocol, even though it was never ratified by the Senate and has been explicitly rejected by President George W. Bush. But local officials believe it still provides a good guidepost for their own efforts in the fight against climate change.
During the Bush years, global warming became an increasingly pressing topic -- yet growing public concern never translated into serious policy breakthroughs in Washington. While Congress and the White House slept, however, state and local governments throughout the country have come up with their own methods for limiting pollutants that scientists believe are contributing to climate change.
“I was one of many Americans who were outraged when my country would not sign the Kyoto Protocol,” says Minneapolis Mayor R. T. Rybak. “The federal government dropped the ball on a critical environmental issue.”
Cities are not only tightening their own energy belts but increasingly issuing new rules, such as stricter building codes, to make sure that residents and businesses cut back as well.
Among states, California has been leading the way. A 2006 law imposed the first statewide cap on carbon emissions. California also adopted the first statewide green-building code last summer, and the state has long been the leader in setting fuel-efficiency standards for vehicles.
Numerous states -- but not all -- have engaged in other serious efforts to address climate change. About half the states, for instance, require utilities to generate a significant share of their power from renewable, non-carbon-based sources such as wind and solar. And many states are encouraging greater use of biofuels, such as ethanol. Groups of states in the Northeast, Upper Midwest and interior West have formed regional compacts to create “cap-and-trade” systems.
Under cap and trade, large polluters such as power plants are issued permits for each ton of carbon they emit. Companies that reduce the amount of pollution they spew are able to sell, or “trade,” permits they don’t need.
“States have been tripping all over themselves to show national leadership on this issue,” says Barry G. Rabe, a professor of environmental policy at the University of Michigan. “California, I would argue, has made as heavy an investment in time and treasury into climate change as any government on Earth, including the European Union.”
President-elect Barack Obama has said he will approve a waiver for California and 19 other states to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. California passed a law in 2002 to do just that, and it has been widely imitated by other states. But states have not been able to enforce the policy absent a waiver from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which the Bush White House has blocked.
Obama has promised to do more than just sign off on state actions, though. “When I am president, any governor who’s willing to promote clean energy will have a partner in the White House,” Obama said in a videotaped address to state leaders gathered at a climate change summit in California in November. “Any company that’s willing to invest in clean energy will have an ally in Washington. And any nation that’s willing to join the cause of combating climate change will have an ally in the United States of America.”
As a candidate, Obama pledged to pursue a national cap-and-trade system to limit carbon emissions. Prominent supporters of cap and trade now hold key committee posts in Congress, including Henry A. Waxman, the new chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Barbara Boxer, chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Both are California Democrats.
But attempts to pass cap-and-trade legislation have failed four times over the last five years, and it’s not clear the outcome will be different this year or next. Even if federal lawmakers do act, so much momentum has built up in this area among state and local leaders that it’s unlikely they’ll suddenly concede the issue to Washington.
At the November climate change summit, California Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and leaders of more than a dozen other states and provinces from other countries pledged to work together to slash greenhouse gas emissions. Fighting global warming, Schwarzenegger declared, couldn’t be just a matter of national policy but must go “province by province.”
Not everyone has climbed on board the limited-carbon bandwagon, however. In November, Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas, argued strongly against a national cap-and-trade policy, warning that it would “cripple the Texas energy sector, irreparably damaging both the state and national economies and severely impacting national oil and gas supplies.”
And not everyone who supports limiting greenhouse gases believes state and local efforts are effective. “Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring gas that is fairly well blended in the atmosphere around the world,” says Myron Ebell, director of energy and global warming policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free-enterprise advocacy group. “If California does something and China and India don’t, then what we do is virtually useless.”
Ebell and other critics also argue that the efforts undertaken thus far may have been good public relations but are not effective at reducing carbon emissions. Often, public officials have done little more than pledge to reduce emissions or increase use of alternative fuels at some distant date in the future. In a way, Ebell suggests, their actions have been reminiscent of a famous prayer of Saint Augustine: “Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.”
But the policies pursued by state and local leaders have been evolving rapidly. A decade ago, few people thought they even had a role in addressing an issue that was global in scope. State and local laws, however, have quickly changed from being mainly symbolic to having real teeth, with penalties for noncompliance for entities ranging from utilities to developers, all in the span of a few short years.
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New Report: Protecting Wetlands
By Jennifer Weeks, October 3, 2008
Is the government doing enough?
The nation’s millions of acres of wetlands are valuable natural resources. Ponds, lakes, swamps, bogs, bays and marine estuaries not only shelter countless fish, birds and animals but also filter pollutants from water and soak up floodwaters. Since the United States was settled, more than half of its wetlands have been lost, and crucial areas like Louisiana’s coast and the Florida Everglades are eroding daily. Although the U.S. is now gaining more wetlands every year than it is losing, scientists say too many acres of crucially needed wetlands are still being lost. For several decades national policy has called for protecting wetlands, but the powerful construction, energy and agriculture industries say current environmental regulations make projects too expensive. Conservationists, sportsmen and many state officials argue that stronger regulations are still urgently needed. Meanwhile, recent Supreme Court decisions have intensified debate over how broadly the federal government can oversee activities affecting wetlands.
* Does the Clean Water Act protect most wetlands?
* Are federal agencies doing enough to protect wetlands?
* Does mitigation work?
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Overview of the New Report on Protecting Wetlands
On wet, spring nights across the Northeastern United States, wood frogs and salamanders go on the march. These amphibians spend most of their lives buried in forest undergrowth, but they need to breed in watery places where no fish will eat their eggs. So they migrate to vernal pools – ponds that form during the wet seasons and range from a few feet to several acres across. If all goes well, their offspring will hatch and grow large enough to breathe air before the pools dry up in summer. Some species, such as fairy shrimp, spend their entire life cycles in the pools, leaving eggs behind that stay dormant through dry months and hatch when the pools reappear a year later.
Vernal pools are wetlands – areas where the soil is always or usually saturated with water and that support plants and animals adapted to moist conditions. Many states protect vernal pools because they provide habitat for rare animals. For example, in Massachusetts it is illegal to dump materials into state-certified vernal pools, install septic systems nearby or cut down more than half of the trees within a 50-foot radius.
Other wetlands play similar roles. Estuaries (mixed salt- and freshwater zones where rivers flow into the sea) are among Earth’s most productive ecosystems.
“Shallow marsh channels are important habitat for fish,” says Doug Myers, science director of People for Puget Sound, a Seattle conservation group. “Chinook salmon rear their young in estuarine deltas, coves and lagoons in the Northwest. And birds migrating along the Pacific Coast stop to feed along the mud flats.”
Many wetlands that are far from coastlines also are important. For example, lakes carved by glaciers across the upper Midwest, known as prairie potholes, are critical breeding and nesting areas for millions of ducks, geese and other waterbirds.
Until the 1970s Americans widely regarded wetlands as swampy places that were useless unless they could be drained or filled in. Before settlers arrived, the continental United States contained more than 220 million acres of wetlands. Today less than half of that area (107 million acres) remains. Some of America’s most famous and valued wetland areas, such as Florida’s Everglades and Louisiana’s Gulf Coast, are also its most degraded.
For the past 20 years policymakers have tried to prevent more net losses of wetlands. President George W. Bush raised the bar in 2004, arguing that the United States could achieve net annual increases by creating and restoring more acres than it developed. But environmentalists, outdoor advocates and regulators say that not all wetlands are equal, and that more action is needed to protect and restore high-quality wetlands.
“We see a lot of threats to wetlands around Puget Sound, including urban growth, shoreline development and polluted stormwater runoff from paved areas,” says Myers. “It’s death by a thousand cuts.” Nutrient pollution from farms (excess fertilizer and animal waste) and septic systems washes into lakes and bays nationwide, generating huge algae blooms that deprive aquatic organisms of sunlight and dissolved oxygen.
And many advocates fear that recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings limiting federal jurisdiction over wetlands have made some more vulnerable to development.
Wetland protection affects a range of industries that often excavate or drain land, including commercial and residential construction, agriculture, mining and energy. Under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, when a project involves dredging or filling in the “waters of the United States” – a category that includes many wetlands – a permit must be obtained from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps then must consult with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which has veto power over permit decisions.
This process can be lengthy and expensive. A 2002 study of 103 permit applications found that the average general permit for lower-impact activities cost $28,915 to prepare and took 313 days to gain approval. Individual permits for higher-impact projects cost $271,596 on average and took more than two years. Developers who proceed without permits face civil penalties of up to $32,500 per day and criminal penalties up to $50,000 per day plus three years in prison.
Many trade groups say they support reasonable wetlands protection but that current standards are too broad and the permitting process too cumbersome. “While [the permits’] environmental purposes are laudable, they do add to the cost and delay the completion of the public and private infrastructure that literally forms the foundation of our nation’s economy,” Associated General Contractors of America CEO Stephen E. Sandherr told the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in July 2007. Contractors, growers and other such groups would like to see the Corps and EPA eliminate or limit federal protection for small, isolated and temporary wetlands.
But environmentalists argue that destroying wetlands could end up costing the country much more, because wetlands provide billions of dollars worth of ecological services that benefit the public. Often referred to as “nature’s kidneys,” they filter out pollutants from water and trap suspended particles. They also absorb flood waters and release them slowly, like natural sponges. According to one estimate, wetlands cover less than 3 percent of Earth’s surface but provide up to 40 percent of annual, renewable ecosystem services such as purifying water and cycling nutrients.
After Hurricane Katrina caused at least $125 billion in damages along Louisiana’s Gulf coast in September 2005, several studies indicated the storm surge would have been lower if large swathes of coastal wetlands had not been obliterated by Mississippi River flood-control projects and coastal oil and gas development. In 2007 Louisiana approved a master plan for protecting and restoring its coast that, if fully funded, is expected to cost more than $50 billion and take up to 30 years to complete.
Since the 1980s regulators have used a process known as “mitigation” (preserving, enhancing or creating wetlands to compensate for destroying others) as a tool to balance wetland conservation and development. Initially, owners who wanted to fill in wetlands had to do mitigation projects on the same site or nearby. To make the process more flexible, however, agencies developed mitigation banking, in which developers buy credits from a wetland “bank” (acres restored by a third party) to compensate for acres that they drain or alter.
The National Mitigation Banking Association, a trade group, calls mitigation banking “a unique concept . . . that unites sound economic and environmental practices.” But skeptics say the process often helps developers rather than maximizing the quality of U.S. wetlands.
“If a developer fills in wetlands for an urban project and restores something 50 miles away, flooding may be caused in the city where the wetlands used to be. There’s no net loss of wetlands, but you have a big loss of [ecological] value” says Jon Kusler, associate director of the Association of State Wetland Managers (ASWM).
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