It’s trendy to be undead these days. Sure sexy teenage vampires get all the media attention. But don’t forget those mad (political) scientists who toil tirelessly in their labs, assembling the best (worst?) parts of corpses, mixing in 100 million gallons of oil, and zapping the finished product with, say, the enormous power furnished by an electric (utility) cap.
I think we might call the resulting assemblage Lugar-Kerry-Lieberman-Graham-Cantwell-Collins-Waxman-Markey-Bingaman. The conventional wisdom for months in this town, as I’ve noted many times, has been that a climate bill is dead, dead, dead. How dead? We’re talking stick a fork in it and eat it with fava beans and a nice chianti!
As an aside, Hannibal Lecter may well have been the original Tea Partier, since the full quote is “A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.” But I digress.
Yes, it turns out, that as with the hero in the Princess Bride, the climate bill was only “mostly dead” after being put on the rack for a full year.
With the kind of dramatic irony one expects to see in the movies, the people who killed the climate bill are the very ones to jolt it back to life — and just like in the movies, you never come back from the grave quite the same way you left.
So of all people it was Lindsey Graham, Republican of Transylvania, who said he would be open to an energy bill that capped electric utility emissions, in an interview after Obama’s big energy speech last week:
Interestingly, on Friday, Rahm Emanuel — one of the vampires most often blamed for sucking the lifeblood out of team Obama on energy and environmental matters [see The unbearable lameness of being (Rahm and Axelrod)] — also endorsed “a limited Senate climate bill that focuses on capping greenhouse gases from power plants“:
Rahm Emanuel told the Wall Street Journal that “a whole range of ideas will be discussed” when Obama hosts senators at the White House next Wednesday, including placing a mandatory limit solely on the heat-trapping emissions from electric utilities.
“The idea of a ‘utilities only’ [approach] will also be welcomed,” Emanuel told the newspaper in an interview.
Obama is expected to discuss the pending Senate energy and climate bill with about a dozen Democrats and Republicans at the White House, including Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), John Kerry (D-Mass.), Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), Lisa Murkowksi (R-Alaska), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.).
I’m not certain how useful such a big meeting is, and having Dirty Air Lisa there is a complete waste of time, if not directly counterproductive.
There are currently two scenarios for getting the cap on utility emissions — one where it is included voted on this summer directly in the Senate bill voted on this summer, and the other where the Senate passes an energy only bill and a utility cap is conferenced in after the election (since the House climate bill had an economy-wide cap and this would be the compromise).
My sources give the overall odds of something like this happening at maybe 50-50. E&E News (subs. req’d) reported on the optimism of key climate bill cosponsor Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT):
Lieberman said yesterday the Senate has a “fighting chance” at getting the 60 votes needed to pass a bill that caps carbon dioxide emissions, especially now that Obama is making the bill a priority.
“I’ll tell you what my count is in the Senate,” Lieberman said. “There are 50 — in my opinion, there are about 50 senators who want to vote for a strong comprehensive energy bill that puts a price on carbon pollution. There are 30 who are set against it and there are 20 undecided.
“You have got to get to 60 to pass anything in the Senate. We need half of the undecided, and we can do it. And the fact that the president has now made this a priority, and not just in his Oval Office statement last week, but in reaching out during the week on the phone and calling a bipartisan group of us to the White House Wednesday, I think we have got a fighting chance at this,” Lieberman added.
Now you are probably wondering whether this undead hodgepodge bill would be better than no bill at all, would it be good monster or a bad monster, a funny Young Frankenstein monster, or the kind of tortured creature in the original Mary Shelley book, “a sensitive, emotional creature whose only aim is to share his life with another sentient being like himself.”
That depends on what parts are used to create it, of course. I’ll blog later on the pros and cons of a possible bill, but a good place to start for now is the piece by Grist’s Dave Roberts, “Is a “utility-only” cap-and-trade bill worth passing?“
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
And Obama released a video today saying he will find the votes to pass “comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation”!
http://my.barackobama.com/CleanEnergyUpdate
Whatever your opinion is, we running out of time. That includes business opportunities while civilization drifts into a more chaotic state.
Obama and Senate finally dive in on climate and energy bill
Tick … tick … tick … The Senate now has about 30 working days before its August recess to decide how serious to get about dealing with greenhouse-gas emissions. By the end of this week, particularly after a confab Wednesday between President Barack Obama and top senators, we should have a clearer picture of whether they’ll go wading pool on us — an energy-only bill — or take a deep dive and actually impose a cap on carbon emissions.
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-06-21-obama-and-senate-finally-dive-in-on-climate-and-energy-bill/
Obama made three huge, bold claims in his “weak” Oval Office speech (as I recall it):
1 — that BP would pay for the damage;
2 — that we would restore the Gulf; and
3 — that we would get a clean energy bill.
So far BP has ponied up $20B for damages; the cleanup, if possible at all, will take our lifetimes; and suddenly a clean energy bill is “undead”.
Not bad for a weak speech.
The climate bill would cost you up to $146 extra a year; what does that mean?
legislation would cost the average American household between $79 to $146 extra a year.
For perspective, $146 a year is:
* about $0.40/day, $3/week, or $12/month;
* two text messages a day at $.20 each;
* about one Starbucks coffee a week ($4.05);
* a 24 pack of Coca-Cola Classic a month ($11.04);
* $63 less a month or $756 less a year than the average cost of cable;
* about the average cost of toilet paper ($140) for a family per year;
* less than the savings a day ($.91 – $1.62) from substituting Evian ($1.58/bottle) or Fiji ($2.29/bottle) bottled water for Poland Springs ($.67/bottle) when buying a 24 pack;
* a monthly subscription to Netflix ($8.99) plus a weekly supply of buttered microwave popcorn ($.75/pack); or
* about a monthly trip to the box office ($7.50) and a small popcorn ($4.75).
Would the American people pay as much to save the world as they pay for toilet paper? Would they pay as much as they pay to go to the movies? I have to believe they would.
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-06-16-climate-bill-cost-you-up-to-146-extra-a-year-what-does-that-mean/
Hrm, quite an emission (er, admission) at the beginning of that Graham interview… he basically said that he was in the Kerry/Lieberman/Graham bill until he couldn’t get offshore drilling any more… What? I thought it was a fit about the Democratic leadership ordering an immigration bill ahead of the K/L/G climate bill. Why do we believe what he says? Isn’t he just a bit too good to be true (for a GOP senator)?
I’m concerned that the prospect of a utility only cap on carbon would just be another concession that may not get a bill passed.
Joe,
I hope the cap and trade component doesn’t become the new “public option”.
[JR: Both are idiotically named, focusing on a process rather than on a outcome or benefit to the public. But the shrinking cap is vital to a climate bill far more so than the "public option" was to HCR.]
Great news! I know it can take up a week of Senate cloture time, but I think shelving all other business is worth it to force the issue as Reid did with Wall St, and Healthcare.
It is THE big issue. This is our LAST CHANCE. 2013 was the tipping point. EPA says we still have a 75% chance at a livable future with the K-L APA climate bill (and only 1% without it). Add in some building codes for Wyoming etc from Lugar, and (even a 5%) RES for the remaining knuckledragger states with no RES from Bingaman, and we’ll do better than 75% chance.
Fretting about every little item in it doesn’t get it passed. Remember that Texas’ world wind dominance began with just a tiny 3% RES. Things build naturally once begun.
Lieberman, you love the 60-vote senate, because it makes you very important. This is your last chance to save it. If you don’t get this passed this year, the 60-vote senate is dead. Either because of filibuster reform, or because 60% of humanity will die.
(OK, Lieberman surely believes “apres moi, le deluge”; and senators can push to the back of the death line; but I have to believe in the livable future.)
The ACES bill had its headline cut of US GHGs set at 3.67% off 1990 by 2020, with a de facto cut still outstanding of just 1.67% (following the emissions decline since 2008).
Can anybody say whether a bill capping only the electricity utilities would mean a pro rata reduction of the cap’s effect, i.e. with the US cut falling to around 0.90% off 1990 by 2020 ? Or would the full force of the 1.67% cut (1/60th of US GHGs in 10 years) actually be maintained ?
In diplomatic terms this is arsing about. It is doing nothing of any significant benefit at all. It is a commitment to stasis.
What it does, to the many nations around the planet that have begun to fear the outcomes of accelerating climate destabilization, is to let them know that the US couldn’t care less for their wellbeing, prosperity, safety or even survival – upholding the US ‘way of life’ comes first.
The subtext of this US messaging is about the long established US attitude to a climate treaty – on the lines of “We ain’t interested in signing anything we didn’t write . . .”
With the so-called ‘Danish’ text blown out of the water at Copenhagen (predictably) and then the ad hoc back room deal being rejected, the messaging has become still more remote, with any US commitment now being “perhaps in South Africa in 2011.”
What the US understands about the steady weakening of its position over time is unclear. It seems patently obvious that no, God hasn’t reserved a special climate haven for Americans, and that the US is going to get hammered as hard as anywhere just from current GHGs’ timelagged effects in the coming decades, let alone by the additional sources of warming. Yet it is perhaps less obvious that, as increasing damage occurs globally, there will predictably be increasing resentment of US conduct in prevaricating and denying its climate liabilities.
As Stern put it at Copenhagen (more or less, not verbatim) – We recognize historical US emissions, but they pose no liability for the US -
Perhaps Obama has yet to learn that America’s soft power, its capacity for suasion to win other nations’ agreement to US preferences, is already in decline, and will predictably erode faster as climate damages ensue globally ? Presumably the joint chiefs’ concerns over global warming as a ‘threat multiplier’ are an aspect of that foreseeable erosion, but they aren’t mandated to recommend diplomatic strategy.
So is the US diplomatic fraternity maybe caught up in a delusion of expecting greater flexibility as sovereign nations suffer damages, when the reverse is actually the more likely outcome ?
The twenty-year policy of Brinkmanship with developing nations (as embodied in relations with China) which Obama appears to have accepted as an inherited constraint, must logically become counter productive at the point when the self-reinforcing climate threat outweighs the expected benefit of a tougher burden-sharing deal with China et al.
Given that even with stringent global cuts, and rapid global carbon recovery, and efficiently engineered albido restoration it is now uncertain whether a habitable global climate can be maintained, it seems abundantly clear that the strategy of a Brinkmanship of Inaction has passed that point of counter-productivity, and needs replacement.
Obama maybe needs to understand that as far as getting a global deal is concerned, circumstances pre-2012 are probably as good as it gets for the US. It is time the US agreed, as the initial step, the framework of an equitable and efficient climate treaty, whereby it could clear its climate liabilities over time in an affordable manner. Only then would it be able to help the nations cohere into better co-operation to face the coming climate stresses in concert, rather than falling apart into conditions of acrimony, desperation, and bitter conflict.
And as for the climate bill, well, it would be nice if it were to have the word climate in it somewhere, but if it yields less than an all-sectors GHG cap, it will lack any international relevance.
As Einstein described it :- Nationalism – the measles of humanity’s infancy.
Regards,
Lewis
Joe it’s good he’s sitting down with the group of them! That’s why we elected him, to show leadership like this! Although I agree having Murkowski there is pointless, she’s an oil industry shell.
A utility only bill would be less efficient than more coverage, but would be a start – we can always increase the coverage later.
The main thing that I would want to keep is the price floor.
*I meant shill*
Also, Mark, I agree with you, although it wasn’t the perfect speech climate activists want (as the great Bill McKibben wrote), he gave the nation a primetime speech on clean energy and called for action. We’re getting somewhere now, this is exciting.
Graham is quite the snake ain’t he? But I hope he finally comes over from the Dark Side like Darth Vader and finally helps push through the bill he helped create. A carbon price in the only direction for the future.
As always, an excellent analysis Joe. The only thing I disagree with you on is that it may actually be worthwhile to invite Senator Murkowski. The way I see it, Obama is going to have to seriously reach out to a small handful of Republicans to even get this 1/3 cap and trade bill passed, and I think Lisa represents a good opportunity to see how willing the Republican leadership will be to compromise with him, and then he can work his backwards to reach out to the still conservative but tad more moderate Republicans whose votes he ultimately will need.
sorry, I meant to say ‘work his way backwards’…
Here’s how I look at all this: Big Picture, Little (or In Front of Your Face) Picture. The Big Picture is that we know climate cataclysm has begun, we just don’t know how bad the manifestations will be or the pace of climate change. It may well be that we’ve already passed the tipping point and nothing we could do will prevent runaway climate collapse.
The Little Picture is we have to do the best we can, because that’s all we can do. In the Little Picture, I’m thinking President Obama knew this movement in the Senate was a possibility or even that it was happening when he made his Oval Office address, and made a specific pitch about listening to all ideas. So this is good. Good enough? The truth is that many or most or all of us may never know.
Captain Future – “The Big Picture is that we know climate cataclysm has begun, we just don’t know how bad the manifestations will be or the pace of climate change.”
We can assume that the outcome is underestimated, because so far most projections underestimated the observed trends.
For example flooding and positive emission feed-backs from these areas. Something which i not saw anybody mention so far.
Captain Future – “It may well be that we’ve already passed the tipping point and nothing we could do will prevent runaway climate collapse.”
I’m not saying this is impossible (venus syndrome) but we have still a lot of ways to prevent this from happening. So far we just increased our greenhouse gas output and do nothing to prevent further carbon sink lose.
The way I see it, Obama is going to have to seriously reach out to a small handful of Republicans to even get this 1/3 cap and trade bill passed, and I think Lisa represents a good opportunity to see how willing the Republican leadership will be to compromise with him, and then he can work his backwards to reach out to the still conservative but tad more moderate Republicans whose votes he ultimately will need.
It is THE big issue. This is our LAST CHANCE. 2013 was the tipping point. EPA says we still have a 75% chance at a livable future with the K-L APA climate bill (and only 1% without it). Add in some building codes for Wyoming etc from Lugar, and (even a 5%) RES for the remaining knuckledragger states with no RES from Bingaman, and we’ll do better than 75% chance.
The Senate now has about 30 working days before its August recess to decide how serious to get about dealing with greenhouse-gas emissions. By the end of this week, particularly after a confab Wednesday between President Barack Obama and top senators, we should have a clearer picture of whether they’ll go wading pool on us
Even David Frum is getting on the bandwagon:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/06/21/frum.oil.reality.check/index.html
Too bad all he’s really (disingenuously) trying to do is get Obama to commit political suicide.
RE #11
Lewis you expressed the sentiment of most any thinking person following the US Congress fear of action.
But, you said,
a framework would be able to help the nations cohere into better co-operation to face the coming climate stresses in concert
I offer Haiti and the continuing suffering of Haitians in the already storming hurricane season as a sharp lesson for future “co-operation” among nations to face the coming climate stresses in concert.
Its every country and countryman for his/her self.
John McCormick
“Throw the 3rd scenario!”
“Not the 3rd scenario, Professor!”
Yes, how about a carbon-adjusted RPS (Renewable energy Portfolio Standard)?