Waxman-Markey, Now Somewhat Watered Down, Is Still Hugely Important

As the price of passage, it looks like the Waxman-Markey energy/climate bill is getting watered down somewhat. Joe Romm deems the new legislation a B or B- bill rather than the B+ it started out as. I would say that, warts and all, this is a historic piece of legislation and seeing it enacted into law would be a very good thing. Had the non-watered-down version of the bill passed, there would have been need for further action in years to come. This watered-down version to some extent changes the nature of the further action needed in years to come but the basic shape is the same—huge progress, much work left to be done.

But let me take some time out to express outrage about one aspect of the change that doesn’t really have a huge environmental impact, the decision to give away the carbon permits to utilities. The conservative bloc on climate/energy issues has a clear position. They think emissions should go up and up and the earth should get hotter and hotter and we’ll just kind of cross our fingers. The moderate bloc, by contrast, has portrayed itself as concerned with the climate crisis but worried about the tradeoffs with short-term economic growth. But the concession they’ve forced here doesn’t do anything to boost short-term growth. Instead, whereas auctioning the permits would have made rich people bear most of the cost of reducing emissions, by giving the permits away you make poor people bear most of the cost.

The environmental impact of the two methods is similar, and the overall costs are similar. But the moderates acted swiftly and decisively to reallocate a portion of the costs onto the backs of the poor. And they’ve done so specifically under guise of looking out for the interests of the working class. They ought to be ashamed of themselves.