Two issues that are being addressed by the 111th Congress and President Obama provide an interesting example of the importance of immediacy and framing. As this post’s title suggests, I’m talking about legislation to deal with our breaking climate and our broken health care system. The way potential solutions are being proposed and discussed provide an interesting contrast.
On the one hand, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 2454) was passed by the House of Representatives a couple of weeks ago. There was plenty of talk about how the bill didn’t go far enough by climate activists. Some activists, including myself, wondered if the bill should have been voted on in the form it took. As I quickly detailed yesterday, other countries are taking more aggressive steps to ramp down their carbon emissions and ramp up their renewable energy capabilities. I don’t think the ACESA bill, as currently written, will do enough to cut carbon emissions from history’s biggest polluter: the U.S, in time to prevent 2°C or more warming globally. Yet most of what I read and heard after the House vote revolved around something like this: “This bill isn’t perfect, but it’s better than nothing”; “It’s a step in the right direction” and so on. What I didn’t hear, especially from progressive House members, was a refusal to vote for a bill that didn’t get done what science demands to be done. What I didn’t hear was a refusal to vote for a bill that didn’t do what a majority of Americans wanted it to do. Does anyone seriously think Americans wanted the House to give billions in corporate welfare to the nuclear, oil, natural gas and coal industries? Because that’s what had to be stuck into the bill while at the same time reducing emissions and renewable energy targets.
It should come as no shock to most people that one reason the print version of the corporate media is failing so spectacularly is that journalistic integrity has been sorely lacking for the better part of a generation. I make it a point to write about the corporate media a couple of times a week to point out the most blatant examples of the sorry state of “professional journalism”.
Once you know what to look for, it’s easy to pick out examples of when writers had someone do their job for them. Today’s case in point: Michael Riley of the Denver Post in an article this past Thursday about Colorado Representative Betsy Markey’s vote for the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. Despite the foreknowledge that if she voted for the bill, some of the right-wing’s craziest crazies would do their darndest to smear her for the next year and a half, Rep. Markey voted for the bill.
Riley does a fairly decent job of describing the right-wing’s plans to target Rep. Markey, based on an NRCC spokeswoman’s quote. What followed is a sickening example of journalistic stenography.
The telephone ads blast the so-called cap-and-trade provision of the bill as “the largest tax in American history” because of some studies that suggest it could cost the average family several thousand dollars a year.
Because of “some studies”, Riley?!?! Are you freaking serious? What studies would those be? Does he even know what they were? I seriously doubt he does, because if he read the studies, or even knew about their general findings, he wouldn’t have included this thoroughly debunked right-wing talking point from his “news article”.
In reality, the study that Riley’s dictators are referring to was done by the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change back in 2007. It examined a number of different cap-and-trade proposals. Cons, being the duplicitous, immoral actors they are, intentionally misrepresented one of the results of the study – fitting the study’s findings around their talking points, as they often do.
One of the authors spoke with a representative of a senior Con legislators, John Boehner, on March 20 of this year. He did so to make clear that they were misrepresenting MIT’s work and to stop doing so immediately. Needless to say, this has not happened. The Cons were claiming that the cap-and-trade proposal would cost families up to $3,100 per year in additional energy costs. The MIT study actually found that MIT’s correct estimate was closer to $340 per year. It seems the Cons tacked on an extra zero to prop up their talking point. More than that, however, the author – John Reilly – publicly made the point that lower- and middle-income households could almost certainly have those costs completely offset by returing allowance revenue to those households. In other words, most American families have the potential to pay nothing more for energy as a result of implementing a cap-and-trade proposal than they do without it today.
The role of the media is to inform the American citizenry of pertinent information they need to help make decisions. By acting as a stenographer instead of a journalist, that role has been compromised. The best thing to have done was to not include this ridiculous talking point in the article. The next best thing would have been to inform the public that the NRCC’s use of this figure was incorrect, as the study’s author has vehemently argued for months.
Indeed, the article presents the reader in the very next paragraph a figure from the CBO – a nonpartisan group – of costs being less than $200 per year, less than what the MIT study estimated. Oh, that $200 per year wouldn’t kick in until after 2020 – a far cry from the Con’s claim. The NRCC’s political motivation of using several thousand dollars per year is directly contradicted by the unmotivated CBO’s figure, yet both are presented to the reader as being equal. That is immoral.
I don’t wonder why the print media is failing. The evidence pointing to that failure is in front of us every day.
Now that the U.S. House has voted on H.R. 2454, the American Clean Enenergy and Security Act of 2009, and the Senate is loosely scheduled to take up their version of the legislation later this summer, a number of corporate media outlets have written something up on the effort to do something about how energy use will shift. One such article, “Energy legislation could bring deep change” is one such article. Unfortunately, like many other articles, it messes up on a number of key points.
Let’s start with the biggest problem: it omits any analysis on what would happen if the legislation hadn’t passed. Leading up to the vote, very little of this kind of information could be found via the largest media entities, which is an incredible disservice to news consumers. How are people to determine if the projected costs are worth incurring if they don’t have any similar numbers on what costs of inaction would be? The information is available through a number of reliable, non-partisan outfits. Today’s “journalism” is disappointing.
Next, read this paragraph:
Not all the higher energy costs would show up in people’s utility bills. Households, as well as business and factories — including those, for example, making plastic for toys — could use less energy, or at least use it more efficiently. The poorest of homes could get a government check as a rebate for high energy costs. That money would come from selling pollution allowances for industry.
Um, using energy more efficiently means that less energy is used for the same activity. That’s a pretty basic concept that isn’t unique to this context of energy. The fact that the article messes this point up is particularly glaring: the greatest amount of short-term cost reductions will be found by implementing higher energy efficiency technologies that are available today. Indeed, so much energy efficiency is available for us to take advantage of that total energy usage should decrease in the next 20-30 years, even with additional population. Our electricity system, for example, wastes the vast majority of energy it is supposed to deliver to users. That electric grid needs to be completely replaced with newer, better, more efficienct technologies. So households and businesses should have every reason to support this portion of the legislation – decreasing energy demand will decrease energy costs. Will energy utilities pass those savings along to us?
The article goes on to point out that the complication to carbon sequestration from coal plants will be citizens’ hesitation to do so “in their backyard”. This is absurd since there has been no demonstrated technology capable of even capturing the carbon from coal plants on a utility scale in the first place, despite being researched for over 20 years. Where to store something you’re not even collecting is a ridiculous question. Moving on to cite potential citizen complaints about that stored product is even more ridiculous. The icing on this cake is no similar statements are provided for nuclear waste after the article points out that the nuclear industry will receive billions more dollars in funding. That’s a product that is being generated today, and indeed nobody wants in their backyard – for obvious reasons. Until the nuclear industry can demonstrate it can safely store nuclear waste for hundreds of thousands to millions of years, they shouldn’t expect taxpayers to foot the bill to subsidize their energy production.
The article doesn’t point out that the true costs of nuclear power aren’t included in the electric rates charged to consumers – Americans that don’t receive nuclear power are included in the corporate subsidization of taking care of the details under the rug. These kinds of practices must stop. Let’s get every energy source put their true costs on the table – as the mis-labeled “free market” is supposed to do. Let’s get the government assistance out of the way and let each technology truly compete against one another. Americans would quickly realize that clean energy technologies like solar, wind and geothermal look pretty darned attractive in the long-term. The article’s refusal to mention anything close to this is telling.
One of the strongest arguments to take aggressive action regarding our greenhouse forcing is the threat of desertification – the process by which arable land that can be farmed or otherwise productively used by people turns into a desert.
Desertification is another process that would otherwise be natural if people didn’t exist. With people, desertification can be amplified and dampened. Due to unsustainable farming and water-use practices, desertification is expected to become amplified in the 21st century, absent the action I and other climate activists call for.
Case in point: Italy. The deserts of Africa are spreading north and south as freshwater from water tables is being used faster than it can be replenished. Saltwater takes the opportunity to spread in some of the affected places.
[The] Italian environmental protection group Legambiente warns that the livelihoods of 6.5 million people living along its shores could be at risk.
A recent report by Legambiente estimated that 74 million acres of fertile land along the Mediterranean were turning to desert as the result of overexploited land and water resources.
Desertification is one process that adds to political instability, as we’ve seen for decades in Africa already. Due to the developed world’s lack of concern, primarily because they weren’t personally affected by such events, the process has had the opportunity to reach the shores of Europe. What will happen when millions of Europeans suddenly can’t eat? As in Africa, it will cause governments to tumble – there’s nothing special about European politics that would insulate them from massive food riots.
The time to act is now. Desertification is one reason why European countries have been more proactive about their response to climate change. They understand the implicit threats to their livlihoods – the short-term costs are much smaller than the long-term costs. Citizens in the U.S. have become increasingly aware of the similar threats to their livlihood. They have begun to accept the short-term costs as a hedge against those long-term greater costs. Passing H.R. 2454 – the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES) in the House was one good step toward doing something on a national scale. The Senate now needs to take up and pass similar legislation so President Obama can sign it into law. As Italy and the Mediterranean show us, this cannot happen soon enough.
I read an article from yesterday that provides a good place to bring a number of climate and energy related items together. Controversial deals behind climate bill presents the unfortunate circumstance of some Democrats’ refusal to back the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES) unless agriculture intensive areas were largely exempted from paying for the measures included in the legislation. This concession was won despite the fact that farmers and rural areas get a disproportionate amount of their energy from coal plants – the dirtiest and most polluting energy sources in use today. Among those Democrats are Rep. John Salazar (CO-03) and Rep. Betsy Markey (CO-04).
I make this point while holding a good deal of respect for farmers – the actual folks who are out on their land far earlier in the morning than I’m up and who work until later than I do every day – often just to survive, both physically and economically. But the point of any legislation that says it deals with energy and security needs to address the usage of fossil fuels, among many other purposes. By that, I mean that the legislation needs to reduce our bad habits and encourage good habits. Burning coal needs to stop – the sooner the better. By ensuring that rural citizens won’t have to face any temporary cost increases on the way toward phasing out coal burning, Democrats are passing the costs along, which is pretty irresponsible.
Someone, somewhere will eventually have to pay for reducing greenhouse pollution. Will it be urban citizens today? Will it be rural citizens in the near future? Will it be urban and rural citizens at a future date? The answers to those questions seem very relevant to me – and in my opinion, they’re not being addressed by the corporate media in any regularly meaningful way. It’s good for me as a blogger that some recent articles were written that get at these details, which I will share and try to tie together below.
H.R. 2454 (ACES) is coming up for a vote this afternoon in the House. As a quick action item, I’m providing some numbers for Reps. Markey and Salazar, cited as some of the fence-sitting Dems. Give them a quick call and ask them to vote for H.R. 2454.
Rep. Markey:
p. 202.225.4676
f. 202.225.5870
Rep. Salazar:
p. 202.225.4761
f. 202.226.9669
As currently written (to the best of my knowledge), the bill in the House would set a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 17% of 2005 levels by 2020 and 80%+ by 2050. As someone who has followed the science surrounding greenhouse gases and climate change pretty closely for a few years now, I want to be clear that I don’t think the 2020 goal goes far enough. I certainly hope I’m proven wrong as the measures in the bill are enacted and take effect.
Among the many specific details in this legislation, it worries me that the Dept. of Agriculture and not the Environmental Protection Agency will be responsible for deciding how farms will have to curb their emissions. There is nothing in the Dept. of Ag’s mission that indicates that they have experience with or are interested in monitoring or reducing greenhouse gas emissions. That’s not a knock against the agency – it is a straightforward observation. Neither am I saying that the Dept. of Ag won’t seek emissions expertise from other government agencies. However, something that bedevils all government agencies is a tendency to become insular – robust collaboration across agencies with regard to implementing policy isn’t the first characterization of those agencies that comes to mind.
The Democrats were somewhat justifiably concerned about potential rising energy costs. I say “somewhat justifiably” for a few reasons. The easiest is their lack of public concern regarding rising energy prices in the past due to other pieces of legislation or especially corporate greed. Energy prices outpaced inflation and real-wage increases (which were actually zero) this entire decade, most of which had Bush and the Cons running the country into the ground. The same Democrats threatening to go home pouting now (not Salazar or Markey, btw) were nowhere to be seen on the energy price front until last summer when they skyrocketed so high so fast that the corporate media’s obsession with infotainment couldn’t mask them anymore. Their concern doesn’t seem to be morally founded, which is disturbing.
There are trustworthy cost estimates available, more so now than before this Congressional session. The latest, by the Congressional Budget Office, estimates that the annual cost by 2020 would be $22 billion on the entire economy; or $175 per household on average (note that averages tend to be skewed by outliers). Cons, as usual, spent yesterday talking about gross costs as well as citing cost estimates that have been thoroughly debunked by climate and energy activists.
As I’ve written about before, groups like the McKinsey Group have shown in a couple of reports that actions taken to reduce our greenhouse forcing can be revenue neutral. By 2030, McKinsey estimates a 0.6-1.4% cost to the global economy. By 2050, McKinsey estimates a 1% rise or a 5% decrease in costs are possible.
Might there be a short-term cost involved? It looks likely. In contrast, what are the costs incurred by doing nothing? That’s a subject the Cons don’t want to go near – and nobody in the corporate media is making them answer that easy question.
For starters, the link between climate change and extreme weather events is by now evident. Extreme weather events such as intense drought and torrential rains when they do come are only going to become more common and intense if action continues to be delayed. Papers like Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate and the Earth Policy Institute’s Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization give us a clear view of the dangers involved with further delay. The bottom line: climate change will challenge societies worldwide more than any other issue in the 21st century. 1C warming translates to a 10% reduction in staple crop yields. With 2C-10C possible warming in select regions, massive crop failures would be the result, especially in the face of populations that continue to rise. How much would a 10%, 20% or more reduction in yield cost farmers? More than that it’s a short road from crop failure to political instability. Falling governments compared to a couple hundred dollars more on an energy bill – the choice seems pretty clear to me.
The problem, of course, is none of this is being communicated to the interested parties. How many farmers know about the downside of doing nothing about climate? Even if they knew, would they still not support action if it meant higher costs?
The Denver Post front-paged an article about the bill this morning, citing Salazar and Markey as potential swing votes as the bill comes up in the House today. It also notes that the Wildlife Action Fund and the League of Conservation Voters are watching Markey’s vote especially close. I have close to the same sentiment as the LCV – I will have a very hard time supporting a Democrat, no matter the district, if they vote against this bill. It’s not a progressive vs. con issue. It’s a moral issue.
Given the reasons to vote for the bill, as I outlined above, it is disheartening to note that political backers of this bill don’t mention the climate change effects a business-as-usual approach would entail. Economic arguments have taken sway, which is perhaps natural considering the sorry state of the economy. Unfortunately, Rep. Markey’s spokesman Ben Marter was quoted in the Post article pooh-poohing the environmental angle:
Markey will “ultimately make a decision in the best interest of her district, the state and the country, not for any one group.”
That sounds really good as a soundbite, Ben. If the Eastern Plains turn into a desert, as is currently predicted under business-as-usual conditions, I don’t think the 4th district will be particularly happy with that outcome. The environmental ramifications dominate the interests of the district. I hope such short-sightedness doesn’t derail or stall the necessary actions we all must take.
Here are Rep. Markey‘s Washington contact numbers. Please take a moment this morning to give her office a quick call and encourage her to vote for H.R. 2454.
p. 202.225.4676
f. 202.225.5870
Here are Rep. Salazar‘s Washington contact numbers. Please take a moment this morning to give his office a quick call and encourage him to vote for H.R. 2454.
20% lower emissions in 2020 than 2005 levels was a key point in the legislation. As of the 12th of May, the bill’s provision was for 17% below 2005 levels by 2020. Then-candidate Obama campaigned on a 80% reduction of 1990 levels by 2050. Put simply, an 80% reduction by 2050 isn’t possible to achieve if 2020 levels are only set at 17% below 2005 levels. And we need to achieve the 80% of 1990 levels reduction. That was one big reason I supported Obama in the 2008 election. This slide occurred due to the inherent weakness of the levels proposed in the bill’s introduction, as I discussed in my 1st follow-up post.
A nationwide 25% renewable energy portfolio goal by 2025. This is imminently do-able – it’s well within our current technological capabilities, to say nothing of developments that will help achieve this goal to be developed in the next 10-15 years, especially with aggressive legislation pushing for it. After the May 12th “compromise”, conditions were set to 15% renewable and 5% efficiency gain (efficiency has the potential to really eat up a lot of slack in the energy system – far more than 5%, by the way). The current language would allow governors of states to adjust those numbers to 12% renewable and 8% efficiency. They shouldn’t have to be traded like this. Efficiency can easily be doubled to 10% while still attaining 25% renewable energy nationwide. That would put us much further down the path of needed action.
The worst “compromise” thus far has to be pollution allowances. President Obama wanted all of them auctioned and then use the money to assist lower- and middle-income consumers pay for efficiency and clean energy projects around their houses. Assistance for energy bills would also have been made available. That way, as the government mandated renewable energy come online in a massive way, any increased building and operating costs that utilities would have passed along to consumers would have been largely nullified. We all would have been using clean energy and our bills wouldn’t have increased (at least not by much). Instead, House Cons, who have no interest in voting for the bill anyway, managed to convince enough ConservaDems that the poor old energy industry shouldn’t be made to incur greater operating costs, despite all the greenhouse pollution they’re emitting because they’ve decided for decades to not invest in clean technologies (just cheap ones). So the pollution permits will be given away to polluting corporations – for free. They will be allowed to pollute for years to come because they’re spending millions of dollars on lobbyists to convince Representatives to give them a huge financial break. The return on that money will be large, indeed, as it usually is. In the meantime, greenhouse pollution won’t be effectively curtailed for a long time, ensuring that we lock in ever-increasing cliamte change effects for the next 1,000-10,000 years.
Perhaps the worst news of all is that these compromises giveaways to industry will only continue as this legislation continues to make its way through Congress. Enough could be done to the bill to make it as Orwellian in name as much of the legislation passed under the Con Congress of the early 2000′s. Case in point, I heard about the 450 Con amendments to this bill that could be introduced this week. Instead of working with Democrats in good faith, the Cons are putting forward amendments that would do the opposite of the language already in the bill and/or are geared towards making sure ConservaDems vote for the amendment so that they won’t be called names back in their home districts in the 2010 campaigns. Or so the theory goes – I’m willing to be they’ll still be called names, even if they do vote the way the Cons want them to. One amendment in particular is typical of Con posturing – if 1,000 jobs are lost in one state, the entire law’s provisions would be suspended. If Cons cared that much about employment, they would have offered similar solutions to other important pieces of legislation. They didn’t, which makes this hypocritical action all the more immoral.
Since it’s introduction last month, the Waxman-Markey climate change/energy bill has been in committee. To most people, the bill is being negotiated prior to vote by the Energy and Commerce Committee. To those who are closely following the bill’s progress, the process strikes us as less negotiation and more like watering down a few key details. Unfortunately, that was what I expected would happen after reading the bill’s summary. It didn’t start from what I consider the most appropriate positions (yearly emission levels, among others). Now it appears as though key provisions of the bill are suffering substantial hits in order to garner one additional vote here or there from House ConservaDems. Here are a few of the details:
Negotiations on the climate bill continue to focus on four key issues: the stringency and timetable of the cap-and-trade program’s emission limits, the use of offsets to ease industrial compliance costs, allocation of valuable allowances and the structure of a nationwide renewable electricity standard.
A deal is close to being made on the distribution of emission allowances that begins by giving away as much as 55% of the credits for free. That means industry would receive credits for free for 10-15 years before an auction system is fully brought online. Um, what’s the point then? If industry is allowed to continue polluting and using credits to count against that pollution for 10-15 years, it won’t matter how good that auction system would be – the climate system will likely have already passed several important tipping points. The worst effects of climate change would be locked into the system for hundreds to thousands of years – well beyond the insignificant time-frame that industry would be allowed to profit off of their polluting ways. Rep. Waxman is taking the role of good negotiator with the following:
While the final details remain to be worked out, Waxman acknowledged that he is comfortable with distributing credits for free as a way to help industries transition into a low-carbon economy and during the period when an international climate agreement takes shape.
As Joseph Romm points out at the post I linked to above, this might be alright if the allocations are required to sunset. I probably shouldn’t hold my breath expecting future Congresses not to tinker with that provision, however. Although, realistically, such a statement holds true for the legislation as a whole. Future Congresses can alter and update this legislation as they see fit.
More negotiation details:
Lawmakers are also narrowing in on a 2020 emissions limit, another central piece of a final agreement. Obama’s budget request suggested a 14 percent cut below 2005 levels by 2020, while Waxman had pressed for a 20 percent cut. Several of the Democratic moderates had initially suggested a 6 percent target for 2020, but Waxman balked at that proposal.
Butterfield [Rep. G.K. Butterfield, N.C.-01] said yesterday that he would be willing to accept Obama’s targets. “Let’s shoot for 14 percent,” he said. “I can live with 14 percent.”
This is an extremely poor decision, brought about by the initial weak proposal put forth by Reps. Waxman and Markey as well as the proposed number proposed by President Obama. 14% below 2005 levels almost gets us to 1990 GHG emission levels. Not concentrations, emission levels. Given the current state of climate research that I’ve read about in the past couple of months, this simply will not fix the crisis that is devleoping. We need at least 20% below 1990 levels by 2020. That might not be viewed as politically viable today, but when large portions of Rep. Butterfield’s district is covered by rising sea levels, perhaps he and other politicians will have a different opinion. The same goes for other Dems acting in the interests of the fossil fuel industry: when your districts bear the brunt of whatever changes you lock us into, will your constituents will be kind enough to thank you for looking out for industry and not them? The politics of the 20th century are not equipped to deal with the emerging crises of the 21st, that much is clear.
House Energy and Commerce Chair Henry Waxman and Energy and Environment Subcommittee Chair Ed Markey released their draft energy and climate bill last Tuesday. It’s very comprehensive. It’s also far from perfect. It’s also, for now, just a draft, sure to change and be amended. For those of you who just want a quick peek at what this bill is about, here is the bill’s 5-page summary (pdf) and here is a portion of the introduction:
The legislation has four titles: (1) a “clean energy” title that promotes renewable sources of energy and carbon capture and sequestration technologies, low-carbon transportation fuels, clean electric vehicles, and the smart grid and electricity transmission; (2) an “energy efficiency” title that increases energy efficiency across all sectors of the economy, including buildings, appliances, transportation, and industry; (3) a “global warming” title that places limits on the emissions of heat-trapping pollutants; and (4) a “transitioning” title that protects U.S. consumers and industry and promotes green jobs during the transition to a clean energy economy.
Overall, the bill is pretty decent. It’s not as strong as I think it should be. Knowing that it will be amended and changed in subcommittees, committees and during Senate-House negotiations, I’m afraid I see too much room for major weakening to be done. There is no time left for weakening. The U.S. needs to take an aggressive stance on greenhouse forcing. We’ve caused plenty of change to the climate system already with even more to come that’s “in the pipeline”. Whatever this legislation ends up doing, it will take time to implement and then more time to take effect. Then there will be interactions with the international community. As the world’s largest greenhouse forcer, it is up to us to take responsibility for our actions and start leading the world on the most critical 21st century issue we’ll face.
Below, I go through most of the 5-page summary items. The items stack up to a pretty big list. Having this draft summary is important as we’ll see what changes are implemented in the next couple of months and what the final legislation ends up containing. Oh, and if you’re feeling really adventurous, here is the entire draft bill (Big pdf!).
As currently written (to the best of my knowledge), the bill in the House would set a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 17% of 2005 levels by 2020 and 80%+ by 2050. As someone who has followed the science surrounding greenhouse gases and climate change pretty closely for a few years now, I want to be clear that I don’t think the 2020 goal goes far enough. I certainly hope I’m proven wrong as the measures in the bill are enacted and take effect.
