Press Action ::: A New Stone Age or the Same Old Stonewalling?

Saturday, November 22, 2008

A New Stone Age or the Same Old Stonewalling?

Myron Ebell, the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s point man on energy and environmental issues, thinks we’re heading back to the Stone Age if the climate change legislation proposed by Henry Waxman, the new chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is adopted.

“This should provide a loud wake-up call to American business leaders that the 111th Congress is not going to play nicely with them on energy rationing policies. The cap-and-trade bill that Chairman Dingell proposed this fall would dramatically raise energy prices for American consumers and producers. Chairman Waxman, who represents Beverly Hills, introduced a cap-and-trade bill in this Congress that would send us back to the Stone Age,” Ebell said in a Nov. 20 statement after the Democrats voted to replace automobile industry water boy John Dingell with Waxman as head of the committee.

Why does Ebell make this startling claim? Because Waxman introduced a bill, the Safe Climate Act (pdf), which calls for an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2050. Specifically, the bill would freeze greenhouse gas emissions in 2010 at 2009 levels. Beginning in 2011, it cuts emissions by roughly 2% per year, reaching 1990 emissions levels by 2020. After 2020, it cuts emissions by roughly 5% per year. By 2050, emissions will be 80% lower than in 1990.

What about the cap-and-trade portion of Waxman’s proposal? First of all, as with all climate change bills introduced in Congress in recent years, it includes a so-called “market-based” approach to cutting emissions. As stated in the bill, Waxman proposes to “impose a cap on the greenhouse gas emissions of sources and sectors” and “allow emissions trading among covered entities.”

What are Waxman’s goals for his cap-and-trade program, which Ebell says will send the United States “back to the Stone Age”?

* Maximizing public benefit and promoting economic growth.

* Mitigating the effect of any energy cost increases to consumers, particularly low-income consumers.

* Providing equitable transition assistance to any workers and regions affected by a transition away from high carbon-emitting energy sources.

Does this sound like legislation that will take U.S. society back to the Stone Age? Hardly.

Waxman’s bill is a modest and likely ineffective proposal to avert environmental catastrophe, which itself could send those of us who survive back to a pre-Industrial Revolution way of life. But Waxman’s bill is definitely more aggressive, compared to other bills introduced the last couple years, in its goal of reducing GHG emissions 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 and its incremental approach to achieving these cuts.

Rather than setting goals that would need to be met 30, 40 or 50 years into the future, like other bills do, Waxman’s plan would set incremental deadlines, forcing pollution emitters to make cuts at shorter intervals, thereby making it easier to reach the longer-term, more ambitious GHG reduction target.

Even with Waxman installed as the new chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and with Barack Obama entering the White House, the odds of Waxman’s climate change bill or similar legislation getting passed remain slim. The business community—led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and second-tier anti-environment groups like the Competitive Enterprise Institute—the energy industry and labor groups will wage aggressive campaigns to thwart passage of Waxman’s plan.

As the U.S. economy slips into a major recession, Democrats and Republicans might be reluctant to push hard for the passage of climate change legislation, fearing they could get blamed by the mainstream news media for driving the economy deeper into ruin.

With or without passage of climate change legislation, U.S. economic policies—albeit muted by a recession—will continue to devastate the natural world. Global fossil fuel reserves remain sufficient to spur U.S. economic growth once credit markets get unlocked in the next couple years. When this happens, it will be full steam ahead with the destruction of the living planet.

While free-market environmentalists lobby hard for the passage of Waxman’s “Stone Age” cap-and-trade legislation or similar proposals, others will work on dismantling a political and economic system that gives polluters credits, or allowances, for poisoning the planet. Rather than supporting legislation that promotes economic growth, as Waxman’s Safe Climate Act does, other activists will work toward ending human domination of the natural world and building a sustainable relationship with the environment.