A leaked version is now available of a draft of the American Power Act [21-page pdf], the proposed climate change legislation. There is a summary here [4-page pdf].
Joe Romm, at Climate Progress has more than one analysis up at his site:
So does it meet the criteria in "What to look for in the bipartisan climate and clean energy jobs bill"? That would require that the bill help ensure that by the 2020s that we have
• substantially dropped below the business-as-usual emissions path
• started every major business planning for much deeper reductions
• goosed the cleantech venture and financing community
• put in place the entire framework for U.S. climate regulations
• accelerated many tens of gigawatts of different types of low-carbon energy into the marketplace
• put billions into developing advanced low-carbon technology
• started building out the smart, green grid of the 21st century
• trained and created millions of clean energy jobs
• negotiated a working international climate regime
• brought China into the process
Yes, I think it does.
There really is no Plan B. Certainly leaving this to the EPA and a few states won’t achieve most of those, especially the crucial international deal.
Sadly, the conventional wisdom is that even this moderate bill has no chance — and I certainly think it doesn’t have very much chance if Obama doesn’t start pushing for it as hard as he pushed for healthcare. |
David Roberts at Grist offers his opinion about the chances of passage here:
This is what everyone keeps asking me. (And everyone keeps asking everyone else.) The smart money, of course, is on No. Generally, predicting the death of major legislation is a smart move when it comes to the U.S. Senate. And after Sen. Lindsey Graham's (R-S.C.) bailing and the oil spill, lots and lots of folks are completely convinced that the coalition's fallen apart and the bill's dead.
I don't necessarily disagree that the odds are against passage. But I don't think the chances are as bad as conventional wisdom now has it -- i.e., I don't think they're zero. (Wo0t optimism!) Put another way: I think the chances are roughly as good as they've ever been in the Senate: low but non-trivial. |
Meanwhile, Connie Hedegaard, the European Union's climate chief, said significant progress is unlikely to occur at the Cancun climate change summit in December unless the United States passes a bill:
"The absence of movement on domestic legislation in the U.S. is without a doubt a key obstacle to progress in the international negotiations," Hedegaard said today in a lecture at the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development. ...
"It is hard to imagine that China will be willing to bring its domestic actions into an international framework," she said. |
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At Daily Kos on this date in 2008:
What a coincidence.
Just as the Alaska State Legislature allocates $2 million for a conference promoting climate change deniers' "expert" analysis of why polar bears aren't really endangered, a poster boy for polar bear junk science emerges from the woodwork. |