For a second day, we're lucky enough to have one of the most important figures on environmental issues join us for discussion. Today our guest is Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth. He's here now so please join in and ask your questions.
Q: The bill hands out free emissions waivers to utilities, gives many heavy industries no limits, and sets what appear to be very generous targets for other sources of emissions. Though there's a stated goal of achieving a 17% reduction by 2020, as it stands, are you confident that this legislation would actually serve to reduce the production of CO2?
Erich Pica: It’s not clear at all that this bill would actually reduce CO2 emissions by 2020. In addition to the problems you listed, the bill contains a tremendous amount of offsets that undermine its already-way-too-weak pollution reduction goal. (Offsets are sort of like indulgences. They allow polluters in the U.S. to keep polluting so long as the polluters send money overseas to pay for promised -- and often pretend -- pollution reductions elsewhere.)
At a minimum, climate legislation ought to put us on a stronger pollution reduction path than the one we’re already on. But if you take into account the fact that today we are already ten percent below 2005 CO2 emission levels (the bill uses 2005 levels as a baseline -- so the 17 percent is below 2005, not 2010, levels), the bill sets a pollution reduction course that is less ambitious than the current trend. Implementing an existing law -- the Clean Air Act -- could accelerate the progress that’s already being made. And the Obama administration is moving forward to do just that. The EPA just yesterday finalized a "tailoring rule" that will use the Clean Air Act to limit climate pollution from heavy industries. This rule it isn’t as strong as we’d like, but it will still make it harder for new coal plants to be built.
Charles Komanoff, co-founder of the Carbon Tax Center, has analyzed the carbon pricing in the Kerry-Lieberman bill and concluded that it is likely to reduce CO2 to only three percent below 2009 levels by 2020. If we wanted to get real about reducing pollution, we’d make a more ambitious target and take real steps to achieve it. The technology and economic capacity are there. There’s just a lack of political will, thanks to the entrenched power of polluting industries that want to perpetuate the status quo.
Q: It appears that the bill restricts the regulatory authority from the EPA and trusts in "market mechanisms" to limit emissions. Does this approach look workable?
EP: Over the past three years, Friends of the Earth has become increasingly concerned about proposals that would replace existing Clean Air Act protections with a relatively untested and experimental market mechanism, which is what this bill seeks to do. It seems foolhardy for Congress, on the heels of one of the greatest financial meltdowns in U.S. and global history, to go back to markets and Wall Street and put them in charge of solving the greatest environmental problem of our time: global warming.
This bill would create a carbon market that could be just as susceptible to fraud as the mortgage securities market, which of course brought us the financial meltdown and recession from which we’re still recovering. Friends of the Earth will release a tongue-in-cheek document called "Ten ways to game the carbon market" on Monday that explains different ways that carbon markets in the EU and elsewhere have already been subject to fraud. The same dangers are posed by this legislation. To be fair, the Kerry-Lieberman bill does have some stronger market protections than previous U.S. climate bills have had, but we don’t believe these protections eliminate the dangers posed by "subprime carbon."
Q: The bill expands potential areas for offshore drilling and offers states incentives for opening their waters through enhanced profit-sharing. On the other hand, neighboring states are given a mechanism to try and block drilling. With what's happening right now in the Gulf, does this approach appear at all workable?
EP: It’s ridiculous that this bill still contains incentives for expanded offshore drilling. The "veto" mechanism that the bill gives to states only allows them to veto projects within an arbitrary 75 miles of their coasts. It’s more than 75 miles from Louisiana to Florida, but the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico threatens both states and those in between. So a 75-mile zone is inadequate. Are we going to learn any lessons from this disaster and stop drilling altogether, or are we going to naively assume that something like it couldn’t happen again?
And let’s get it straight -- while the bill would make vetoing some offshore drilling an option for states, the bill’s cost-sharing provisions give states a disincentive to veto drilling. They would lead to more oil industry lobbying of state governments and increased corporate influence. Oil industry lobbying is what’s responsible for many of the loopholes and giveaways in the Kerry-Lieberman bill. We don’t need more of it.
Drilling isn’t the only problem. The bill’s summary says its goals include "ensuring coal’s future" and expanding nuclear reactors. In our view, we need to be moving away from these dirty energy sources of the past, not doubling down on them.
Q: Even though Senator Graham has already walked away from the bill, this appears to be legislation that's at best moderate and incorporates much of the changes Republicans have suggested over the
years. Do you see anything here to excite progressives?
EP: Senator Kerry is urging progressives and environmentalists to support the bill because he doesn’t think a stronger bill can’t overcome a Senate filibuster. His argument is that the next Congress will not have as large a Democratic majority and so now’s the time to move. (You can read his pitch to progressives here.)
That argument would make sense to us if the bill made at least incremental progress. But our reading is that on balance, the bill is actually a backward step. There’s a reason polluting corporations like Shell Oil and Duke Energy are supporting it. The bill rolls back key parts of the Clean Air Act, puts limits on the ways states can innovate, gives multibillion-dollar handouts to polluting industries, and expands offshore drilling. This bill sacrifices too much in exchange for inadequate pollution reduction targets that will likely be achieved anyway.
The theory was that these concessions might be enough to get polluting industries and right-leaning senators on board, but so far we haven’t seen that happen. Not a single Republican senator is supporting the bill, and many Democratic senators (on the left and in the center) don’t seem all that impressed either. So we’ve basically given away a whole bunch of stuff to the other side, and appear to have received nothing in return.
Q: If the bill came to the floor as currently written, would Friends of the Earth view it as a step forward or a step back? Would you
support this bill?
EP: Our view is that this bill is a step backward, and we cannot support it in its current form. That doesn’t mean we wouldn’t support the bill later if it were substantially improved.
To be fair, there are some positive parts of this bill. There are some incentives for plug-in electric cars and for smart urban development, both of which would reduce emissions from the transportation sector. But really, I’m grasping for straws. Are we supposed to be excited over the fact that the bill only rolls back parts of the Clean Air Act, or that it gives states the option to veto drilling up to 75 miles from their shores, or that it will only preempt some state-level initiatives?
And there are alternatives. In particular, one that merits consideration is Senators Cantwell and Collins’ CLEAR Act. It isn’t a perfect bill, either, but it protects the Clean Air Act and doesn’t have all of these giveaways to polluting industries. And unlike the Kerry-Lieberman bill, it’s already got a Republican senator on board and has the interest of consumer groups like AARP, so it seems like it would have a better shot at getting 60 votes. Why hasn’t it received as much attention as Kerry-Lieberman?
In the end, if it’s impossible to pass a strong comprehensive, economy-wide bill in the Senate this year -- one that imposes rigorous limits on greenhouse gas emissions and isn’t chock full of giveaways -- then we shouldn’t be trying to push through a second- or third-rate product. The Clean Air Act and other tools already exist that can start the process of reducing emissions, while we build the support that’s needed to get senators on board with a real climate bill.
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