ACES

The Waxman-Markey Climate bill is coming to the floor of the House today. I hope it passes. The vote is later today, and you still have time to call your Representative to encourage a yes vote.

Having said that, the bill is pretty much a disappointment. If you look at the language that was used in the campaign last year, or that was used by climate change experts like Van Jones or Al Gore, in order to be at all effective, climate change legislation would have to

1. bring down carbon emissions significantly (25-40%) from 1990 levels, which means
2. pretty much eliminating new coal-plant construction,
3. offsets would have to be sold at market prices to raise money to pay for
4. putting more of our eggs into the renewable energy basket.

Because of the combination of the legislative process, the power of the coal and energy lobby and Obama's focus on health care legislation, we're not getting any of this. You can look at this posting by devilstower on Daily Kos today, but the gist of what is about to be passed is

1. the decline in carbon emissions will be 4% below 1990 levels at best,
2. "clean coal" (an oxymoron, remember, as none of the technology talked about is much past the theroetical stage) is getting massive subsidies and (as this LA Times article explains) coal will continue to provide the lion's share of the country's energy needs for many years to come,
3. up to 85% of the offsets will be given, not sold,
4. Renewable energy standards are weak.

So it's not much. In fact, although Al Gore and Sierra Club (and other big, Beltway-focused environmental organizations) are strongly supporting the current legislations, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace are opposed to it as too little. Potent quote (h/t Meteor Blades, also on Kos):

There's a simple reason polluting and irresponsible corporations support the Waxman-Markey bill: It showers them with hundreds of billions of dollars, but doesn't require them to reduce pollution fast enough to avoid devastating climate change impacts. Worse, the bill guts the EPA’s preexisting authority to use the Clean Air Act to reduce this pollution.4 That means the bill is actually counterproductive — enacting it into law would be a step backward. What we need from Congress is much stronger legislation that puts us on a path to the clean energy future President Obama talked about during his campaign.

An energy bill written by corporate polluters is not a solution.

The same Kos diary also links to Chris Bowers, who stresses that without lines in the sand, either from Obama or from progressives in Congress, all the compromises on climate legislation will be to the Right:

Without a hardline group of progressives willing to join with Republicans and defeat Democratic legislation unless that legislation meets certain progressive criteria, every legislative fight will follow this process of backroom deals with corporate interests resulting in an inexorable right-wing slide. Further, this group of progressives, which I call a Progressive Block (and yes, the "k" is intentional), needs to publicly draw clear lines in the sand long before draft legislation is introduced. Such public announcements allow the netroots and grassroots to help organize around the line in the sand. Otherwise, given the backroom nature of these dealings, there is no way for the progressive activist base to play any meaningful role in the legislative process, and all negotiation power is ceded to corproate lobbyists.

So why am I supporting it? Good question. I guess I think that if this legislation is defeated it will result, not in better legislation, but in no legislation at all for the term of this Congress, and maybe this presidency. We have to establish a baseline of climate change legislation that can then be strengthened later, and not give climate deniers and do-nothings the chance to claim victory. In other words, I agree with Sierra Club et al when they say,

We believe this is one of the most important votes of our time. There are rare moments in American history when the urgency to act is clear, the stakes are high, the costs of inaction are untenable, and the need for courageous leadership is paramount. Now is one of those moments. An opportunity like this may not come again for many years.