The House passed a climate change bill all the way back in June. In November, the Senate declared they would take up the bill in the spring. Now, it appears likely that the Senate will take up the bill never:
Bruised by the health care debate and worried about what 2010 will bring, moderate Senate Democrats are urging the White House to give up now on any effort to pass a cap-and-trade bill next year.
"I am communicating that in every way I know how," said Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), one of at least a half-dozen Democrats who've told the White House or their own leaders that it's time to jettison the centerpiece of their party's plan to curb global warming.(...)
"We need to deal with the phenomena of global warming, but I think it's very difficult in the kind of economic circumstances we have right now," said Indiana Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh, who called passage of any economywide cap and trade "unlikely."
"I'd just as soon see that set aside until we work through the economy," said Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.). "What we don't want to do is have anything get in the way of working to resolve the problems with the economy."
"Climate change in an election year has very poor prospects," added Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.). "I've told that to the leadership."
If 2009 taught us one lesson that can be applied to climate change legislation, it should be that cap and trade is never going to pass through the 60-vote Senate. This leaves two options:
- Get rid of the filibuster
- Abandon all attempts at congressional action ASAP, and turn immediately to the Executive Branch
Since #1 isn't going to happen in the short term, that makes #2 the only option for 2010. Fortunately, earlier in the month, the EPA began to take action:
In Monday's much-anticipated announcement, the Environmental Protection Agency said that six gases, including carbon dioxide and methane, pose a danger to the environment and the health of Americans and that the agency would start drawing up regulations to reduce those emissions.
"These are reasonable, common-sense steps," EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said, adding that they would protect the environment "without placing an undue burden on the businesses that make up the better part of our economy." At the same time, however, EPA regulation is no one's preferred outcome -- not even the EPA's. Jackson said her agency and other administration officials would still prefer if Congress acted before they did.
The Obama administration did not want to go this route, for two reasons. The first reason was an argument about how a law passed by Congress would be more difficult to overturn than a regulatory process conducted by the EPA. However, given that an emissions permit market also requires regulation, that was always a pretty flimsy argument. Further, a poorly regulated emission permit market could actually result in another financial bubble. As such, it is entirely unconvincing that the legislative route creates less peril under a future administration that refuses to enforce regulations.
The second reason was political: the Obama administration did not want sole responsibility for pushing greenhouse gas regulations. Well, at this point, nuts to that. Tough. With the 60-vote Senate, and the administration's ongoing protection of conservative Democrats, there is no realistic legislative option. The executive branch is going to have to continue doing the heavy lifting itself.
Lester Brown came to our office today and had a nice chat with us Gristers.(...)
One thing from our chat jumped out at me. In the context of a debate about the clean energy bill in Congress (he thinks it's worse than nothing), Brown made the point that there's actually a lot of good carbon policy in the pipeline, which will get us some big gains in the short-term. He cited the boost in fuel efficiency standards from the EPA and DOT; green stimulus spending flowing through DOE and states; EPA's denial of recent coal mining and power plant permits; new federal enforcement of appliance efficiency standards; EPA's new CO2 reporting requirements; and various state-level policies like renewable mandates.
These are indeed good policies! Notice anything they share in common? That's right: they bypass the U.S. Congress.
My gut tells me that we should have killed the climate change bill in the House back in June. Doing so would have forced the executive branch's hand on the endangerment finding at least four months earlier. The legislative approach was always a dead-end, and so the executive branch needed to be pushed earlier and harder.
Any further time we spend trying to pass a DOA climate change bill of questionable value through the United States Congress is a waste of resources. It is time to cut our losses, and focus our efforts on areas where a difference can actually be made.
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