This last Thursday the latest big climate bill predictably failed in the Senate. Not just failed, like didn’t get enough votes, or even couldn’t break a filibuster. No, it got pulled from the legislative calendar. There wasn’t even a single minute of debate before it came to a rather pathetic end, without so much as a self-satisfied “well, at least we tried” whimper. It’s rather funny though, if not delusional, how many pundits and green lobbyists talked incessantly about how this was going to be the time. And yet this is the fourth such failure, after the three previous failures in ’03, ’05, and ’08.
I mentioned that this bill had no chance to every green intellectual I know and the most common reaction was one typical of our era defined by non-stop Hope branding. They laughed me off as irrelevant, or at the very least unimportant. They talked about how the cap could be simplified to just the utility sector. They trusted blindly in the power of Harry Reid. All the while, the bill lost it’s only Republican co-sponsor months ago and didn’t have anything close to the votes. And the biggest giveaway of all that it had zero chance? There’s 2 BLEEPIN’ weeks left on the legislative calendar and they haven’t even voted on the Supreme Court nominee, the BP spill response, or any budgets. And it’s, rather ironically, hotter than hell in DC and everyone just wants to get mandatory votes out of the way and flee to their summer vacations. Even with a strong coalition and Presidential support, both completely lacking in this half-assed effort, the calendar itself doomed this initiative. Trying to tackle the largest environmental legislation in history one week after passing a two year financial reform effort, and two weeks before vacation is either a) greenwash- political campaigning or b) delusional and impossible.
I’ll use that very dangerous word again- hope. I sincerely hope that this town will think rationally for a moment. And rather than letting every staffer, lobbyist and interest group on the Hill insert their page into the next aspiring climate bill, that we use a little Econ 101. We won’t have declining emissions until we replace dirty energy with clean energy. And we won’t ever have clean energy unless it is cheaper than dirty. And seeing as dirty energy can literally be scooped or dug out of the ground, and all amount of disaster and environmental catastrophe will never quell our appetite, and all the well-intentioned retrofitting and Prius rebates in the world will not reduce emissions so long as the world is growing, China and India are modernizing, and coal is abundant, the only way to achieve this is through altering the price of dirty energy. The equilibrium of supply and demand is determined by the price. Price is the only mechanism. And we wouldn’t even have to do anything- just put this gem of a bill on the calendar! 19 pages, no buy-offs, a clear price signal, how refreshing! http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-1337
To me it is obvious that those who have so strongly pushed for cap and trade meant well. Emissions targets, done the right way without too many offsets or free allowances, will reduce emissions. But it is just too complicated for most Americans or businesses to accept. And it tries to buy off so many groups that some will inevitably perceive themselves to be the losers and pose strong opposition, or throw some elbows at the trough to try and get theirs. A price is very simple. And it is equitable. Above all, cap and trade is a cynical structure. It seeks to hide the price increase of GHGs with a new name. “Cap and trade” is still a vague and confused topic to most Americans. The Greens know this, and they mistakenly think it will make it more appealing politically. How many failures must we endure before we realize this isn’t true? Will number four be enough? White House pollsters and media consultants explicitly told staff not to mention the climate change or price part, just green jobs. They've been saying fluffy, lazy stuff like this for a long time, and guess what, the White House wasn't any better served by it. Shit still didn't sell. If you're going to go out, why not do it at least authentically, discussing the issues directly. Their branding didn't help at all. Maybe a few of these slick 3 Blackberry toting, $5,000 suit NYC media types actually, gasp, don't know what the fuck they're talking about. Maybe they're overpaid losers, not the winners we always assume them to be. What the fuck do they know about policy, about climate change? And why would we purposefully play the American people. No. We should be as direct as possible.
We should just level with the American people. Do not underestimate them or try to hide the ball. Tell them we need to make clean energy more affordable and investment-worthy by making people pay for their pollution. And then tell them that this won’t cost them anything more, because we’ll rebate all the taxes right back into their bank account. This seems so obvious, but what any political pollster will tell you is that you can’t mention taxes. But what if we did? What if we had a straightforward debate on this? If the President laid out all the options for solving climate change- e.g. cap and trade, renewable portfolios, regulations, carbon tax or feed-in tariffs/subsidies. And then explained how a carbon tax is the best method. Why not? Because it makes too much sense.
Until then, R.I.P. cap and trade:
http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/2010/07/time_to_bury_cap_and_trade_and.shtml
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