Sen. Boxer, Don't Reward Polluters

I have the greatest respect for Barbara Boxer and the work she's doing on the issue of global warming. However, I think it's a shortsighted approach for working to pass a bill that she thinks George Bush can sign, a climate change bill that would set up a cap and trade system and just give carbon credits away to polluting industries. There's been a simmering battle between environmental groups on this bill, and now it's exploded into the open, with the Sierra Club coming out against the bill, known as Lieberman-Warner (which should tell you something).

Fast-forward to present day: the carbon industries are lobbying to get a deal done this year that would give away carbon permits free of charge to existing polluters -- bribing the sluggish, and slowing down innovation. And politicians are telling us that while it would be better to auction these permits and make polluters pay for putting carbon dioxide into our atmosphere, creating that market unfortunately gets in the way of the politics.

We are being urged to compromise -- to put a system in place quickly, even if it is the wrong system. Given that we only have one chance to get this right before it's too late, our top priority must be to make sure that we do not settle prematurely and sign a weak bill into law in the name of doing something about global warming. With momentum for strong action and a friendlier Congress and White House building every day, it's no coincidence that some wish to settle their accounts now.

This will tie the hands of the Presidential candidates on the Democratic side, who have far better proposals for their cap and trade system, including selling the carbon credits at a 100% auction, using the funds to promote green energy and research for renewables. It's the wrong bill at the wrong time.

I know that Sen. Boxer wants to use her status as the head of the Environment Committee to push this compromise bill forward. But the political calculus next year could be excellent for a real bill with real teeth, and Boxer would be leaving that on the table. As I mentioned earlier this week, Sens. Obama and Clinton are co-sponsors of this Lieberman-Warner bill, which was initially authored by John McCain, and so this has the potential to totally take global warming as an issue off the table for the 2008 elections. As Matt Stoller writes:

...it's the huge number of new liberal anti-carbon energy voters out there that are going to allow the public to get a sustainable deal on climate change next Congress. There's some evidence that Obama might make global warming his highest priority, having promised to begin negotiating a new Kyoto-style treaty even before taking office.

All of this is excellent and game-changing news that we've seen happen in the last week or so. As a reminder, here's what Boxer said just two weeks ago about Friends of the Earth, which has waged a campaign called 'Fix it or Ditch it' about the massive Lieberman-Warner bill to subsidize polluting industries.

"They're sort of the defeatist group out there," she said. "They've been defeatists from day one. And it's unfortunate. They're isolated among the environmental groups."

This nasty slur, while not true at the time (Greenpeace was opposing the bill), is now silly. At least one big green group has moved in response to Wynn's loss to get a better deal, and the business right, the coal producers, the nuclear industry, and the oil guys know they will have to deal soon. The Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth have said that we must work on global warming, but that it must be done smart and sustainably.

We've been down this road before. The rising cost of gasoline and worries about peak oil led everyone to go running toward biofuels in a desire to "just do something," and now we're learning that the production of biofuels costs more energy than the savings from biofuels themselves. So now we've created this giant windfall for agribusiness, and nobody wants to reverse the ship because it'd be politically unpopular to enact what some would see as an "anti-environmental" initiative.

A "deal" on a bad cap and trade bill would have the same effect. It would lock in a giveaway to polluters on the order of trillions, and make it very difficult for the next President to do anything about it. If you care about the environment, I think you need to let Sen. Boxer know that only a real climate change bill that hits the necessary targets is sufficient. Otherwise, she has to walk away from this.

UPDATE: I should note that the CBO came out with a report showing that a carbon tax is CLEARLY the best option for reducing emissions, the easiest to implement, and arguably the most cost-effective. Unfortunately, that's a dead letter as we continue to use the subprime carbon market.