Environmentalists who want strong U.S. action to protect the climate have a lot not to like in the Waxman Markey or ACES bill passed by the House in June and now awaiting action by the Senate. At 900+ pages, the bill is a big target.
Identifying the bill's worst shortcomings is important, so activists can try to have them changed in the Senate version or use them to argue for defeat of the bill if they aren't.
The worst feature of the bill is not that it strips the EPA's newly won authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. (This is pretty bad.)
It's not the way permits are handed out free to carbon emitters.
It's not that it creates a market for carbon permits that will let Wall St. in on the action and skim off profits that should go to clean energy.
It's not that it fails to establish a carbon tax, which economists say is a more effective and efficient way to lower emissions.
It's not even that the cap is much too high and is lowered much too slowly over time, not doing nearly enough to prevent the worse effects of climate change.
It's that this cap will also establish a floor below which U.S. greenhouse emissions won't fall. (That is, if I understand the bill correctly, hence the "?" in the title.)
Here is my main beef with W-M bill. Corporation X, say your local electric company, will get a carbon emission allowance under the "cap." If they put out more CO2 than their allowance, then they have to buy permits for the excess from other emitters. If they put out less than their allowance, then they can sell their extra permits to other emitters. Hence the "cap" will also establish a floor below which greenhouse gas emissions won't be likely to fall. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong about this.)
This might be okay if the "cap" were very ambitious, setting an aggressive (low) goal akin to putting a man on the moon, but this is far from the case. James Hansen, probably the most respected U.S. climate scientist, has said that if we don't hold atmospheric CO2 below 350 parts per million (ppm), "we're toast." We're now at about 389 ppm, and the bill's cap isn't tight enough to hold it below 450 ppm.
Here's what is likely to happen if the Waxman Markey bill is passed in something like its current form.
The rapidly increasing movement of people who are alarmed about climate change, who are listening to Hansen and who are aware of the multiplying, alarming signs of climate change, will work at the local and state levels to lower CO2 emissions and their own. But the permit system will make sure that their efforts are meaningless.
Cut your own electricity use? Sorry, your utility will sell the permit for your kwh, which they will own, to another emitter.
Get your state to lower the speed limit to 55 mph, saving millions of gallons of gas a day? Sorry, it won't help save the climate for your children. The oil companies will just sell more gas (at a slightly lower price) in other states. (BTW why the heck hasn't Congress lowered the speed limit already? It would lead to safer texting.)
If I'm right about how this will work, this system is not the moral equivalent of all out war (which we need). It's the moral equivalent of G.W. Bush telling us to support the country by going shopping after 9/11.
Senator Barbara Boxer, head of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and Senator John Kerry are expected to a revised bill in September.