A cap and trade bill by Joe Lieberman and John Warner is set to be introduced tomorrow in the Senate. It's basically the biggest corporate giveaway in history. Here's Friends of the Earth:
The Friends of the Earth analysis found that the coal industry in particular stands to benefit from this legislation, precisely because it is currently the industry most responsible for global warming pollution. Depending on market conditions, the coal industry could receive permits worth up to $231 billion in the first year alone, 48 percent of the total permit allocation. It could then sell or "trade" its permits to others for their cash value, or it could emit at no cost carbon that less fortunate industries would have to pay to emit.
The Bush administration issued a pre-emptive veto threat on energy legislation late Monday, attaching a long list of demands that Democrats rejected out of hand.
Among the demands was a warning against raising taxes - effectively forbidding Democratic efforts to roll back billions in tax breaks for oil companies - and opposition to requiring power companies to increase the use of renewable electricity.
There's a huge temptation to 'do something' about global warming right now in Congress. The Energy Bill could be that 'something', but it's going to be vetoed unless all the good stuff is pulled out.
Warner-Lieberman is the next in the temptation queue. There's an interesting environmental split here, since Environmental Defense and other useful idiots to the wealthy are backing Lieberman-Warner while progressive groups like Friends of the Earth and the Sierra Club are not. It's tailor made for Lieberman, who gets to appear as if he's doing something on global warming while actually giving away more to corporate interests than the government has ever considered.
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