Why did cap-and-trade fail in Senate?

Lee Wasserman blames a mix of Obama, Congress, Big Polluters and the general public. Krugman faults conservative greed, plus sellouts by a few previous backers, listing Schmuck Talk Express by name. Douthat says conservatives brought a history of skepticism to the plate, yet pointedly does not give them blank-check absolution, while referring to the same "Rube Goldberg" status of the House bill that Wasserman does.

BP, open-heart surgery, Ed Markey

Considering Big Polluter did shortcuts on drilling Deepwater Horizon, do we really trust them to do "open-heart surgery" on their own cheating failure?

That's a big negatory there. Especially since Blossoming Plumes can't guarantee even this will contain all the oil.

And Ed Markey trusted BP before?
>>There is particular acrimony that BP's initial estimate of the leak at 5,000 barrels of oil a day dramatically understated the scale of the flow, which is now put at 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day. Ed Markey, the Democratic chairman of a Congressional energy committee investigating the disaster, said BP was "either lying or they were incompetent".<< Gee, Ed, it took you now to believe BP might be lying? While you're at learning the truth, can you give us a tougher carbon-control bill than you did earlier this year? Meanwhile, a nutbar like David Vitter draws the wrong analogies after the blowout.

No, the Deepwater Horizon is not like a plane crash in general. Rather, it's like the Polish government's disastrous plane crash, where you learn the lessons of not flying a 40-year-old plane model, not letting passengers in the cockpit and other things.

Are we screwed on global warming?

Reportedly, the best latest estimates are that average global temperatures will rise at least 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century, even with the best current-level efforts AND the most optimistic pledges to address the issue by governments around the world all being honored. That is according to a report released Thursday by the United Nations Environment Program.

At 3.5 degrees Celsius, that is WELL above the 2C target of major environmental and climate change organizations.

And, as you can see from the graphic, that's only if we do everything now in the pipeline to address carbon dioxide emissions. More realistically, temperatures will climb 8.3 degrees F, or 4.5C.

The details of what this mean include a six-foot sea rise by the end of the century, an ice-free Arctic Ocean already by 2030, major plant and animal extinctions, and huge shifts in agriculture.

And, yes, huge shifts in U.S. agriculture. If conservative Southern, Southwestern and Midwestern senators can’t support the minimalist Waxman-Markey bill for any other reason, they ought to think about economic self-interest.

‘Centrist’ Dem Senators back off Waxman-Markey

The fact that four Democratic Senators want to gut the cap-and-trade heart of Waxman-Markey, the House’s climate control bill, is one of the reasons, per the poll in the right-hand rail, I think it’s already too weak. It doesn’t allow for the Senate’s angle, or conference committee cuts.
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Climate change = national security issue

Maybe the astroturfers and climate change denialists within the GOP will finally sit up and take notice. John Kerry is trying exactly that angle as the initial Senate spadework on Waxman-Markey starts.

A note on Waxman-Markey poll

The Waxman-Markey poll results have been resent to "zero"; I refuse to accept that 90 percent of people who would read my environmental stance on issues, and come here to do that, would vote for option NO. 1 as the best.

Dem senators want more on climate bill

It’s a mix of the good, the bad and the ugly, the changes to Waxman-Markey that 10 reportedly “moderate” Democratic Senators want.

I think they’re asking too much protection for coal, but I agree with their insistence that Obama support, and even toughen, the carbon tariffs of W-M, and some other of their ideas.

Specific fault of neoliberalism – cap-and-trade

Michael Lind makes a convincing argument for Barack Obama to be more Rooseveltian, especially on climate-control action, calling for a Manhattan Project type approach.

Make legislative sausage bit by bit

Citing myth vs. reality in omnibus bills of the past, like the Compromise of 1850, Michael Lind makes an argument against omnibus legislation on things like climate change or national healthcare.

Bismarck said that people should not want to know what goes into the making of laws or sausages. Better a plate of Vienna sausages than one monstrous wiener.

Good point.

What does a 'Senator Franken' mean in the Senate?

Now that former U.S. Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota has officially conceded the 2008 election and its legal challenges, which the Minnesota Supreme Court rejected earlier today, to Al Franken, now what?

(And, not, now what, on an election certificate. Gov. Tim Pawlenty would be a Grade A liar if he did not sign one.)

No, not that.

What does any of this mean on a practical level? Not quite as much as many would crack it up to mean.

First, just because you have 58 Democrats, plus two generally supportive independents, doesn’t guarantee cloture. Cloture is something decided on a bill-by-bill, even amendment-by-amendment basis.

Let’s look at a few key issues.

National healthcare? Party-swapping Arlen Specter might vote against cloture, based on opposition to the bill by unions. (In addition to Hagen or Ben Nelson possibly doing that, of course.)

Waxman-Markey? Stabenow might vote against cloture to protect the Formerly Big Three.

EFCA, if it ever gets to the Senate? Nelson or Hagen are obvious cloture-opposition potential.

Foreign policy? Joementum is a guarantee not only to vote against cloture, but take a neocon stance, on anything in the Middle East.

Beyond that, Sen. Franken's level of influence is dependent on what sort of legislative shepherding leadership President Barack Obama and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel display.

Treason against the planet and treason against U.S. states

With 212 traitors in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Paul Krugman didn’t mince words yesterday in discussing last week’s Waxman-Markey climate vote, talking about “treason against the planet.”

And, if we don’t want to stop at calling the 212 traitors against the planet, folks in more northern states might call any of the 212 in their area traitors against their home states:

Temperature increases on the scale predicted by the M.I.T. researchers and others would create huge disruptions in our lives and our economy. As a recent authoritative U.S. government report points out, by the end of this century New Hampshire may well have the climate of North Carolina today, Illinois may have the climate of East Texas, and across the country extreme, deadly heat waves — the kind that traditionally occur only once in a generation — may become annual or biannual events.

Hope you downstate Illinois “Little Egypt” Republicans like 40 100-degree days a year. And six months of chiggers. And tiny, but 24-hour swarming, skeeters. And fire ants moving north. Want anything else from down here?

‘Change without change’ the real Obama mantra

In Financial Times, Clive Crook says it perfectly, as the Fort Worth Police Department claims it was just doing its job.

In case that’s not clear, let’s let Clive speak in detail:

The cap-and-trade bill is a travesty. … The Waxman-Markey bill, while going through the complex motions of creating a carbon abatement regime, takes care to neutralise itself. …

If you regard universal access to health insurance as an urgent priority, as I do, the draft healthcare bills are easier to defend as at least a step in the right direction. Nonetheless, the same evasive mindset – the appetite for change without change – has guided their design. If you are happy with your present insurance, the bills’ designers keep telling voters, you will see no difference. …

The president has cast himself not as a leader of reform, but as a cheerleader for “reform” – meaning anything, really, that can plausibly be called reform, however flawed.

Clive has plenty more like that, ending with this bottom-line question:

First one must ask whether the bills really do represent progress, however modest.

On the two biggest issues, the answer is clearly no.

Obama is lying out his ass with his claims to be able to get a future, second, climate-control bill passed when he didn’t do more of a leadership job on this one.

As for national healthcare? “Change” without a single-payer option isn’t change.

Obama an idjit on green trade penalties while Congress is way too late

Acting, or rather threatening to act, the Waxman-Markey climate bill just passed by the U.S. House has a trade penalty provision against countries that don’t adopt their own global warming legislation. That’s you, China, followed by India, etc.

But, President Obama opposes it, calling it protectionist. (That said, I don’t know if such a provision is allowable by the WTO or not.)

Meanwhile, Obama admitted that the bill’s targets were modest and would not do enough to rein in global warming, but was confident more legislation could be passed in the future.

Uhh, sure.

But, the other half of the laughability factor is Democrats, led by folks like House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt, rejected doing just something like this, with teeth,as far as air pollution, in the NAFTA crafting 16 years ago.


Anyway, for visitors, I’m curious about your views, so take the poll if you would. (Multiple answers are allowed, as I have a bit of snark in it.

Free polls from Pollhost.com

What's your take on the Waxman-Markey climate bill?

Very good per the current political climate Solidly per the current political climate So-so at best in the current political climate Something is better than nothing, I guess Where was Obama's leadership on this? Sometimes the so-so is the enemy of the better I reluctantly agree with Greenpeace - dump it Weak from the start, got worse with time

Conservatives BS about ‘suppressed’ EPA global warming report

Via CNET, it’s clear that the anti-science wing of the GOP is going to try to make hay out of an allegedly suppressed report by career EPA staffer Alan Carlin, cited by Smokey Joe Barton last week on the House floor during Waxman-Markey debate.

But, let’s take a look at Carlin’s own, Googlepages website to get the lowdown on his political angle.

And we have it. Go to Carlin's website, look at his list of publications. This guy's flogging cost-benefit analysis (PDF) as THE answer on global warming, and other stuff, for years. His global warming answer is atmospheric engineering with aerosols, a HUGELY dangerous proposition.

Meanwhile, if the science doesn’t support the actuality of global warming, then why was Carlin proposing such a solution for an allegedly nonexistent problem?

EPA's only "problem" is that Carlin wasn't smoked out and headed off at the pass six months ago.

Update: Welcome to all you Europeans coming here via “Wikio.” I hope you’re staying around long enough to learn the truth about Mr. Carlin.

Anyway, for visitors, I’m curious about your views, so take the poll if you would. (Multiple answers are allowed, as I have a bit of snark in it.)

Free polls from Pollhost.com

What's your take on the Waxman-Markey climate bill?

Very good per the current political climate Solidly per the current political climate So-so at best in the current political climate Something is better than nothing, I guess Where was Obama's leadership on this? Sometimes the so-so is the enemy of the better I reluctantly agree with Greenpeace - dump it Weak from the start, got worse with time

Romm says support Waxman-Markey

Former Clinton Administration Department of Energy technocrat Joseph Romm argues that, while the bill is flawed, it’s a good start and can be built upon in the future. He uses the analogy of the original Clean Air Act of way back in 1963, with further development after that.

Romm says Reason No. 2 for the Senate to approve Waxman-Markey is it will lay the groundwork for a bipartisan climate control accord with China, and do so before the Copenhagen environmental summit in December.

If Romm has insider information that says passing Waxman-Markey is pretty much a slam dunk as a guarantor of that, then, I’ll accept the good, or what sounds more good, as a precursor to the better. If not, I’ll stay in reluctant opposition.

Waxman-Markey passes House; and?

The House has just passed Waxman-Markey on a 219-212 vote.

That said, will it pass the Senate? It certainly won’t get strengthened there, dreams of some environmentalists aside. (That’s a fantasy I have, but not a dream, because I know it has zero chance.)

It has tough sledding. Not so much because of GOP opposition, but because healthcare reform is the hot Senate topic right now, and the issue of whether or not Obama will bypass the Senate reconciliation procedures on that issue.

That said, does Waxman-Markey matter?

Well, maybe not.

My take? Contra Gang Green enviro organzations (who, of course, value their Democratic Party “access” on a bill like this), I’m halfway in agreement, at least, with Greenpeace’s dump this sucker angle.

What’s wrong with the bill? Per Grist, a fair amount:

The biggest flaws environmental organizations have identified in Waxman-Markey include the removal of the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas regulations under the Clean Air Act, the grandfathering of old coal-fired power plants in the initial years of the cap-and-trade program, and the delay in considering the climate impacts of indirect land use in biofuel production, among others.

In other words, back to the BushCo era on CO2 regulation, back to the BushCo era, or staying there, on Big Coal, and kicking the can down the road on biofuels.

Add in the fact that the Obama Administration teamed up to shift the U.S. “target year” for greenhouse gas cuts from 1990 to 2005, and this bill is Swiss cheese.

Add in that USDA, not EPA, will regulate will regulate details of the compromise with Big Ag, and it’s factory farm Swiss cheese.

Finally, as noted in the bill passage story, the cap-and-trade credits will be treated as a kind of derivative, and we know what American financiers did with them the past several years.

Meanwhile, Gang Green group League of Conservation Voters has already promised NOT to endorse Waxman-Markey opponents, including real environmentalists who oppose the Swiss cheese.

But, now somebody else, someone whose opinion I respect, weighs in with a solid reason to support the bill and support the Senate passing it.

Former Clinton Administration Department of Energy technocrat Joseph Romm argues that, while the bill is flawed, it’s a good start and can be built upon in the future. He uses the analogy of the original Clean Air Act of way back in 1963, with further development after that.

Romm says Reason No. 2 for the Senate to approve Waxman-Markey is it will lay the groundwork for a bipartisan climate control accord with China, and do so before the Copenhagen environmental summit in December.

If Romm has insider information that says passing Waxman-Markey is pretty much a slam dunk as a guarantor of that, then, I’ll accept the good, or what sounds more good, as a precursor to the better. If not, I’ll stay in reluctant opposition.


Anyway, I’m curious about your views, so take the poll if you would. (Multiple answers are allowed, as I have a bit of snark in it.)

Free polls from Pollhost.com

What's your take on the Waxman-Markey climate bill?

Very good per the current political climate Solidly per the current political climate So-so at best in the current political climate Something is better than nothing, I guess Where was Obama's leadership on this? Sometimes the so-so is the enemy of the better I reluctantly agree with Greenpeace - dump it Weak from the start, got worse with time

What’s your take on Waxman-Markey – with poll?

As the federal climate control bill, often known as Waxman-Markey from the bill’s originators, Congressmen Henry Waxman and Ed Markey, moves toward a vote today, what’s your take on the bill?

Me? Contra Gang Green enviro organzations (who, of course, value their Democratic Party “access” on a bill like this), I’m halfway in agreement, at least, with Greenpeace’s dump this sucker angle.

What’s wrong with the bill? Per Grist, a fair amount:

The biggest flaws environmental organizations have identified in Waxman-Markey include the removal of the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas regulations under the Clean Air Act, the grandfathering of old coal-fired power plants in the initial years of the cap-and-trade program, and the delay in considering the climate impacts of indirect land use in biofuel production, among others.

In other words, back to the BushCo era on CO2 regulation, back to the BushCo era, or staying there, on Big Coal, and kicking the can down the road on biofuels.

Add in the fact that the Obama Administration teamed up to shift the U.S. “target year” for greenhouse gas cuts from 1990 to 2005, and this bill is Swiss cheese.

Add in that USDA, not EPA, will regulate will regulate details of the compromise with Big Ag, and it’s factory farm Swiss cheese.

And Gang Greeen group League of Conservation Voters has already promised NOT to endorse Waxman-Markey opponents, including real environmentalists who oppose the Swiss cheese.

Former Clinton Administration Department of Energy technocrat Joseph Romm argues that, while the bill is flawed, it’s a good start and can be built upon in the future. He uses the analogy of the original Clean Air Act of way back in 1963, with further development after that.

Romm says Reason No. 2 for the Senate to approve Waxman-Markey is it will lay the groundwork for a bipartisan climate control accord with China, and do so before the Copenhagen environmental summit in December.

If Romm has insider information that says passing Waxman-Markey is pretty much a slam dunk as a guarantor of that, then, I’ll accept the good, or what sounds more good, as a precursor to the better. If not, I’ll stay in reluctant opposition.


Anyway, I’m curious about your views, so take the poll if you would. (Multiple answers are allowed, as I have a bit of snark in it.)

Free polls from Pollhost.com

What's your take on the Waxman-Markey climate bill?

Very good per the current political climate Solidly per the current political climate So-so at best in the current political climate Something is better than nothing, I guess Where was Obama's leadership on this? Sometimes the so-so is the enemy of the better I reluctantly agree with Greenpeace - dump it Weak from the start, got worse with time

Obama ‘optimistic’ US can lead on climate – but won’t lead!

Just.Another.Politician.™ reached yet another level of bullshitting yesterday, with his claim he thought America was ready to take over the lead from Europe on climate change issues.

This comes after his own climate negotiator, earlier in the week (as I blogged), said the U.S. might not even have climate change legislation ready for December’s Copenhagen summit, and the administration that won’t commit the U.S. to get seriously below 1990 CO2 limits at anytime in the foreseeable future because it wants 2005, not 1990, to be used as the benchmark year for measuring CO2 reductions. (Of course, that’s not all Team Obama’s fault; that baseline is part and parcel of the Waxman-Markey bill, which looks crappier all the time.)

This is also the Obama Administration whose EPA says CO2 can be regulated as a pollutant, then punts further leadership on the issue to Congress.

President Obama told German Chancellor Angela Merkel with a straight face:

“Ultimately the world is going to need targets that it can meet. It can't be general, vague approaches.”

Yep, that’s some leadership. Practice what you preach.

‘Buy American’ for climate control? What a laugh

So the U.S., the biggest climate-control foot-dragger among developed nations, and worse in some ways than China or other “Tier 1” developing nations, has Members of Congress suggesting a “buy American” provision in the Waxman-Markey climate change bill now working its way through the House.

I can understand the U.S. Chamber of Commerce being against it, as the C of C always looks to cheap labor in underdeveloped countries as the “solution” for everything. (And, no, what is “good” for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, or even your small town’s chamber of commerce, is often most assuredly NOT good for America.)

And, yes, it could violate WTO rules. Ottawa is already steamed.

Sure, we might stiff Canada. But, what if Beijing gets hacked off?

Beyond that, there’s my original point. We’re the biggest foot-dragger on climate control, in part because neither half of the duopoly wants to piss off the American business from whom we’re supposed to buy?

I’m at the point where I hope House Ag attaches such onerous provisions to Waxman-Markey, or the Senate simply digs in its heels, and either way, the bill gets killed.