Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) will release their climate bill on Monday if all goes well (and they're still nailing down some controversial points).
Will the climate bill come before an immigration bill? Will it be effective? Will you get any money out of it? Answers to a dozen frequently asked questions below the fold -- now updated to include a baker's dozen.
- Which Comes First,
Chicken or Egg Immigration or Climate?
Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to take up immigration now. There's a good reason for that: the House has already passed its version of a climate bill last June. Yesterday, a couple of anonymous sources told CNN that immigration would come first. Anonymous sources aside, the two people to watch are Lindsey Graham and Harry Reid. Graham is working on both the climate bill and an immigration bill, and Thursday he said that the Senate isn't ready to take up immigration, and working on immigration now would destroy any ability to do energy and climate. Since his support is necessary to overcome a filibuster on both, his opinion matters. Arizona's hateful law will increase the outcry to do something about immigration, but climate should remain on deck after financial regulation.
This morning, Senator Kerry expressed confidence that Reid will push climate. Reid has the final say on scheduling priorities, and he's called them both priorities, so watch what he does.
- Who Stands With The Bill?
BP, Shell, and ConocoPhillips will support the bill. That's no surprise, because Conoco and Shell have been smiling ever since Obama announced his offshore oil drilling plan.
Greenpeace won't support the bill -- hardly surprising, since it denounced the House bill (ACES aka Waxman-Markey). I expect that Friends of the Earth and Center for Biological Diversity (generally percieved as purist) will follow Greenpeace, while Environmental Defense Fund (generally perceived as pragmatic) will embrace the bill.
Watch the Sierra Club, which has a new activist director who's warned of multiple trigger points -- including offshore oil and gutting the Clean Air Act -- that may cause the Sierra Club to pull its support.
- Is the Nuclear Industry Getting Enough to Please Sen. Alexander (R-Tennukessee)?
Twelve new plants (or, at least, loan guarantees to fund them) will be in the bill. Alexander wanted 100 nuclear plants. He, Bob Corker (R-TN), and Johhny Isakson (R-GA) are considered longshot yes votes.
- What About Coal?
Likewise, $10 billion to the coal industry for "clean coal technology" that will capture emissions from coal-fired power plants, plus an accelerated bonus for early deployment of this technology.
On the one hand, any money being given to the chimera of clean coal is most likely a waste of taxpayer money. On the other hand, $10 billion is chump change by the standards of this Congress, so perhaps it's a relatively cheap bribe to Senator Rockefeller.
- Hey, I Thought You Said There Would Be Good News?
If you liked the Cantwell-Collins CLEAR Act, or if you just like getting money, you'll like this: two-thirds of the revenues generated by auctioning off pollution allowances for utilities would be returned to consumers through local distribution companies. Beginning in 2013, utilities will have to buy pollution allowances, which can be traded even though this is not a cap and trade bill. They'll presumably pass the cost on to consumers, but two-thirds will be rebated.
- Any Other Good News?
Quoting the Washington Post's blog: "Oil companies will be subject to pollution allowances that will be retired over time." Does this mean a phaseout of oil? The excellent Kate Sheppard at Mother Jones reports, less dramatically, that "there will be no fee—or "gas tax"—on transportation fuels. Instead, oil companies would also be required to obtain pollution permits but will not trade them on the market like other polluters. How this would work is not yet clear."
- Will Senators Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman Sleep This Weekend?
Not if they're still negotiating between forest companies and environmentalists on biomass. The division of offshore oil drilling revenue hasn't been worked out yet. And they're losing support on the left over matters such as state preemption and offshore drilling.
- Will the Environmental Protection Agency Be Tossed Aside Like a Used Rag?
No. The EPA will monitor and enforce compliance with the new law. However, the Clean Air Act will not apply to greenhouse gases.
- Isn't that a really bad thing?
Yes, according to many progressive activists.
No, according to some policy experts and lawyers in the field. The Clean Air Act was written to remove pollutants from the atmosphere, but it's not a very effective tool for capping carbon. See, for example, David Roberts' Everything you always wanted to know about EPA greenhouse gas regulations, but were afraid to ask, with fluffy bunny pictures, and Joe Romm's The dangerous myth that the EPA's endangerment finding can somehow stop dangerous warming if the climate bill dies. The EPA isn't even very accurate in measuring pollution emissions leaks from pumps and valves (updated per comments by SolarMom, who also points out that EPA is very good at measuring big picture emissions).
Over the last few months, the EPA has had to rewrite-through-regulation the Clean Air Act, which is supposed to apply to anything emitting 250 tons of pollution, by using a "tailoring rule" for greenhouse gases so that only businesses emitting 25,000 tons of carbon pollution will be affected. Republicans would rather moan and whine that the EPA will put every diner and donut shop out of business than actually solve a problem, so they'll challenge the tailoring rule. The EPA shouldn't be in the business of rewriting laws, so it's unclear whether its tailoring rule will stand up in court.
- What about preempting the ability of states like California to impose tighter regulations?
First, distinguish carefully between preemption of states' ability to regulate greenhouse gases and preemption of states' renewable electricity standards (RES). All indications are that the states' ability to regulate greenhouse gases, not RES, will be preempted.
The environmental economist Robert Stavins at Grist thinks preemption of regulation is a good thing:
If federal climate policy comes into force, the more stringent California policy will accomplish no additional reductions in greenhouse gases, but simply increase the state's costs and subsidize other parts of the country. This is because under a nationwide cap-and-trade system, any additional emission reductions achieved in California will be offset by fewer reductions in other states.
If the bill doesn't preempt states' RES, then states will still be free to mandate that 20% or even 25% of their electricity come from renewable sources.
- Will the bill be effective?
Senator Kerry claims that the bill will achieve the same aim as the House bill did -- reduction of 2005 levels of greenhouse gases 17% by 2020 and 80% by 2050. This goal is both woefully insufficient by scientific standards and lofty by political standards. Further, the Senate bill lets so many industries get off to a late start that the 2020 goal seems hard to achieve.
- Does the good, bad, and ugly bill have a chance of passing?
Senator James Inhofe (R-River in Egypt) sees only 26 votes, thus proving he's as bad at math as he is at science. For the rest of us: ==========================>>
(New!) 13. When will the bill really be unveiled?
Not Monday. Apparently Graham has decided that Reid's comments about immigration and climate weren't reassuring, as the NY Times reports. Without his participation in what he previously dubbed Offshore Oil Day, Kerry and Lieberman are holding off. Stay tuned.