Breakthrough: A Fairytale Alternative to CSA

Just as the utterly disappointing Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act (CSA) goes up for debate, Congressman Ed Markey has released his own version of climate legislation. The "Investing in Climate Action and Protection Act" (iCAP Act - PDF) also establishes a cap-and-trade system, but it attempts to correct a lot of the CSA's major shortcomings.

Starting at 94 percent of emission allowances auctioned, it moves to 100 percent auction by 2020. It invests half the funds raised in clean energy RD&D and efficiency; that comes out to $25 billion per year, each - no small sum. The other half of the money raised is a direct rebate to low and middle-class Americans. Needless to say, this is a big improvement over the CSA, and an illuminating window to the kind of thinking going on among the more liberal House members.

If it sounds to good to be true, it's because it most definitely is. Cost-containment provisions are the bane of the CSA - the bill is so caught up with avoiding an industry backlash that it ends up eviscerating any chance of actually having an effect on emissions. But Markey's bill is the opposite extreme, including no cost-containment provisions whatsoever. It's sure to be a dud in the House.

The challenge is to craft legislation that raises enough money for clean energy, while carrying sufficient cost-containment to assure industry and consumers that prices won't rise too high. So far, nobody has managed to get the balance quite right. At least we're starting to hear some voices calling for large federal investments in clean energy. Let's hope this is the beginning of a trend in new climate policy proposals.

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Shellenberger is as off the mark as his pseudo-environment book is (see my review at www.lornasalzman.com or www.culturechange.org). It is "cost containment", otherwise known as cheap energy, that got us into this mess to begin with. If we had proper energy pricing and carbon taxes, consumers could be compensated from these revenues with rebates or subsidies for things like weatherization and public transportation, or payroll taxes could be completely eliminated (tax shifting). Why should we care about industry's costs when they care more about profits than global warming? Furthermore, revenues from cap and auction and/or carbon taxes shouldn't go to the big energy companies anyway, who should get their R&D from the private sector...free market? The notion of our paying industry to do what they should have been doing for thirty years will get high praise from corporations but not from consumers. But I guess we shouldn't be surprised at the Shellenberger shell game, coming from a staunch supporter of the WTO, IMF and globalization who thinks Prosperity, not radical political change, is the answer to the world's problems. Prosperity, confined to the top 1% (mostly Americans) IS the problem. The neo liberal scam that technology, economic growth and the cap and trade regime that lets coal plants live out their natural lifetime is being foisted on us to distract from the imperative urgent need to massively reduce energy consumption as quickly as possible. By 2050 the game is over for all of us. But our Break Through friends won't have trouble finding more grants from the neo liberals seeking profits from global warming. Posted by: Lorna Salzman at June 10, 2008 8:29 PM

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