Written by Kalen Pruss, intern with the Energy Opportunity team at the Center for American Progress, and Brad Johnson.

A right-wing think tank that questions the reality of climate change is speciously claiming that a study of gasoline taxes in South Carolina and New York is an honest analysis of a greenhouse pollution plan in the Rocky Mountain states. Oil and coal lobbyists are continuing their desperate drive to undermine the Western Climate Initiative (WCI), an effort by 11 western states and Canadian provinces to develop a market-based cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gases. A previous smear effort — headed by the Western Business Roundtable, a conservative fossil-fuel industry group that includes Peabody Coal and Shell Oil — amounted to little more than an industry-funded PR campaign. The latest attempt, by the Beacon Hill Institute (BHI) at Suffolk University, is similarly biased, sloppy, and deceptive.

BHI’s study, “The Economic Analysis of the Western Climate Initiative’s Regional Cap-and-Trade Program,” claims that WCI’s cap-and-trade program will cause severe “economic damage” to all its states. The misleading title hides the actual content of the study, which is a model of state fuel tax and fee increases, not of a cap-and-trade program. The authors gloss over this error in an appendix:

For the 100% permit auction assumption, we modeled the price increases an increase to the state fuel tax, in the case of households and the transportation sector, or a state fee, in the cases of the commercial and industrial sectors. We chose state fees and taxes because they best mirror how the cap-and-trade system that would (1) drive up electricity and fuel prices and (2) provide a stream of revenue to the participating states. For the 25% permit auction assumption we modeled the 25% of the price increase as a tax and 75% of the increase as an increase in the price index for the applicable sector.

The supposed “economic analysis” models an entirely different program–a straight-up energy tax that causes a specific price increase. In contrast, the WCI program allows the market to set the price of emissions allowances in a regional trading system. Despite the playground math of Republicans and right-wing think tanks, reputable economists have repeatedly noted that the value of a cap-and-trade market is dramatically different from its effect on consumer prices. In fact, 100% auction cap-and-trade systems enrich working and middle-class households, by rewarding work instead of pollution. The Western Climate Initiative should not (and cannot) be modeled as such by BHI’s State Tax Analysis Modeling Program (STAMP).

Furthermore, BHI doesn’t model the states that are actually part of the WCI. Arizona, California, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, and Utah are all left out, meaning only one out of seven states in WCI is actually modeled. Instead, BHI relied on “South Carolina, New York, Indiana and Pennsylvania”:

Currently Washington is the only the WCI state that BHI has an existing STAMP model. However, BHI has recently built STAMP models for a number of states outside the WCI areas: Washington, South Carolina, New York, Indiana and Pennsylvania. We were able to utilize these models to simulate the WCI price increases and derive the percentage changes in the economic variables of interest, such as employment and investment.

The authors seem to be of two minds on Washington, counting it both as a WCI state as well as being outside of the WCI area. They also have remarkably flexible definitions for “utilize” and “simulate.” You may as well “utilize” oranges to “simulate” an apple pie.

BHI has refused to tell the Wonk Room who commissioned their report. But the organization, part of the Roe Foundation network, has produced studies attacking climate change initiatives in Maryland, Colorado, and North Carolina, as well as a wind farm in the Nantucket Sound. Many of these studies were apparently commissioned by other regional Roe think tanks such as the John Locke Foundation and the Independence Institute.

Further, the lead author of this study, David G. Tuerck, currently the executive director of BHI, is the former director of the Center for Research and Advertising at the Exxon-fueled American Enterprise Institute (AEI). He is also a former policy expert of the climate change-denying Heritage Foundation, and is a well-known critic of government action aimed at preventing climate change. It has been during his tenure at Suffolk University that the anti-climate policy studies were released by BHI, which should come as little surprise.

Okay, I don’t mean share this post, but I did want to highlight some more changes to this site that readers have been requesting — and another way you can help Climate Progress spread climate realism.

Readers asked for an email and a print button, so I have gone back to the “Share this” button widely used by other blogs.  I stopped using it a while back because it was being misused by spammers and because it has too many social media links.

If you click on — or Mouse over — the new “Share This” button and then click on “Email,” you can now send any post to your friends (or to your enemies, if that’s the kind of person you are).  At a loss as to what post to send? Look no further than the “Most popular posts” feature on the right. These now include a variety of introductory posts for newcomers.

We also pared down the social media to just the two that have driven the most traffic here — Digg and Stumbleupon:

Read more

This post will explain why some sort of massive government Apollo program or Manhattan project to develop new breakthrough technologies is not a priority component of the effort to stabilize at 350 to 450 ppm.

Read more

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way”¦

After two-and-a-half years of work and $2.5 million of investment in research and writing, the Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP) will shut down on April 30. We will end the project in a political and social climate much like that described by Charles Dickens.

Read more

“China should at the very least be expected to commit to a cap on its CO2e emissions in 2030 at 7.8 Gigatons” (15% above 2005 levels) — so says guest poster Charlie McElwee.  This is based on a new McKinsey study McElwee discusses.  Needless to say, the U.S. must commit to deep reductions by 2030 — 42% below 2005 levels (a la Waxman-Markey and USCAP) is a reasonable figure.  But the notion offered by some — “Binding targets for the developing nations is [sic] out of the question” – is the road to Hell and High Water for the Chinese, Americans, and the rest of humanity.  McElwee is an international energy & environmental lawyer and Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s School of Law who writes the blog China Environmental Law.

In less than nine months the world gathers in Copenhagen to forge a post-Kyoto climate change agreement. Without a substantial commitment from China to address its CO2 emissions, whatever the rest of the world does will be swamped by China’s carbon juggernaut. Can the China carbon engine be retooled to save us from catastrophic climate change?

Yes, says a new McKinsey study “China’s green revolution.” It crunches the numbers and provides a framework for a real “green revolution” in China. The study concludes that by aggressively utilizing a suite of technologies that are or are likely to be commercially available no later than 2030, China can limit the growth of its annual carbon emissions to 15% or “just” 1 additional Gigaton over 2005 levels by 2030 (6.8 Gigatons of CO2e in 2005 vs. 7.8 Gigatons of CO2e in 2030).

Read more

One of the best and oldest environmental web sites turns 10 this month — no easy feat in the cut-throat online world where revenues can be quite hard to come by.

Founded in April 1999, Grist now reaches more than 800,000 unique visitors every month with its unique style — opinionated, intelligent, and funny.  It has been a great honor — and a source of many new readers — to be have my posts regularly republished there.

If you haven’t been to Grist in a while, take another look — they have redesigned their web site.  Here is their 10th anniversary press release announcing the changes:

Read more