A just released World Wildlife Fund poll shows that there is overwhelming support for virtually everything in both Waxman-Markey and Boxer/Kerry Climate Cap and Trade bills – - that everybody from James Hansen to James Inhofe says they hate. Bizarre? I’ll say!
The WWF (pdf) polled 800 Americans, who were distributed proportionally throughout the country, and demographically representative of the electorate. I show the poll questions; showing the exact wording and approval levels, and the corresponding legislation activity in ACES, the House Waxman/Markey bill, and CEJAPA (Clean Energy Jobs & American Power Act) in the the Senate.
Energy companies mock ACES legislation - but so does ActForClimateJustice
76% support: “A global warming plan that requires energy companies to reduce this pollution by 20% over the next decade”.
In ACES/CEJAPA? Check. After setting the Cap, the House bill requires a 20% (and the Senate version a 17%) reduction by 2020.
88% support: “An energy efficiency plan that includes new standards and incentives to use smarter energy technologies and save energy where we live, where we work, and on the road”.
In ACES/CEJAPA? Check. For example, a business can save energy by installing a combined heat & power energy plant. This would earn them credits they could sell to polluting companies. They then take that money from the polluter company and pay back their investment in saving energy. That’s an incentive to use smarter energy technologies.
75% support “A global warming plan that holds energy companies accountable for their pollution and requires these companies to steadily reduce the carbon pollution from coal and oil”.
In ACES/CEJAPA? Check. In the energy bill before congress now, there is exactly this accountability. It is called a Cap on emissions. To make them keep reducing emissions, the limit ratchets down lower every year. One of the best ways to reduce greenhouse gases is to set a limit. Step 1 of Cap and Trade. (A carbon tax does not place a limit on emissions, nor make energy companies accountable. For the rich, it would be inconvenient, but there would be no limit. For the poor, it would be ruinous: so they would allied with energy companies to prevent a carbon tax passage. This is why energy companies are now clamoring for a carbon tax instead.)
Cap and trade creates the funding from dirtier companies themselves to make the switch.
To pay back for capital investments in greenhouse gas reduction technologies,more energy efficient companies trade credits with dirtier companies, who will need to buy “pollution permits” if they continue business as usual.
This creates a technology race to the most efficient technology, because financial reward is tied to reducing polluting energy faster than your competitor. If companies choose to go on polluting, they can pollute only up to the limit (which is a lower limit every year), but doing so will be costly for them, and they are prevented from passing down the costs to customers.
The “feebate” carrot and stick system funds the incentives to use smarter energy technologies and save energy by charging polluters more; consequently ratcheting down greenhouse gas emissions steadily. That’s Cap and Trade.
But everyone hates Cap and Trade, right?
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About Susan Kraemer
But this post has nothing about the core problems within the main cap-and-trade bills. And the poll (May 2009) does not even mention cap and trade or carbon trading. The more recent polling finds only 2% for cap and trade. What’s really needed, since legislation is going nowhere, and since the rest of the civilised world (especially small island states and Africa) demand the US reduce by 45% from 1990 levels by 2020 (not 4% as in the present legislation), is the Environmental Protection Agency to go to work, and activists to find polluters – like WV mountaintop blasters and Chevron – and stop them at source, as they are doing with such passion, especially in the SF Bay area. Wouldn’t supporting such activism be a better use of our time, than websurfing/spinning? Cheers, Patrick (advisor to http://www.storyofcapandtrade.org)
Patrick, I think Susan’s very point is that people support the content and goals of the bill when they don’t identify it as cap & trade, which is why it was important for the poll to *not* mention carbon cap & trade. Having the EPA go to work is a great idea except that, as Lisa Jackson said in Copenhagen, any EPA regulations will be stopped on day one by lawsuits and then tied up in the courts for years.
Patrick, see Jeff. Jeff, that’s scary news. “Lisa Jackson said in Copenhagen, any EPA regulations will be stopped on day one by lawsuits and then tied up in the courts for years.”
I had thought the only downside to using the EPA bludgeon was that (until we build in the feebates like with the current cap and trade bill) that the carbon tax could just be passed down to innocent parties by the polluters.
EPA actually has the power to set up a feebate system just like the cap and trade bill. They’ve already done it with NOx and SO2, and it’s working, and industry seems to favor it. In fact, not being so subject to compromise, they could set up a better cap and trade system than Congress. But they are vulnerable to lawsuits in a way that Congress is not. So EPA’s bludgeon is a good bludgeon to motivate Congress, and it could *eventually* be a good bludgeon to solve the problem, but with time so short, what we really need is good legislation. Which is what makes Republican opposition, in my view, so criminal.
Thanks for this interesting and informative post, Susan.
The basic tenets of this survey are like asking people if they like motherhood and puppies. Few say “no”. The issue most have with the mandate approach is the idea that energy producers will actually be ‘prevented from passing down the costs to customers’ for the penalties imposed on them is ludicrous at best. Of course the costs will be passed down to the consumer. It may be in the form of “distribution improvements” since the areas where solar, wind and tidal power can best be harvested are NOT where most energy producers are currently located and massive changes to the nation’s electrical distribution grid will have to occur in order for energy producers to comply will have to occur. Since the country will likely be on spending life support by then, federal dollars will likely not be available to support these needed infrastructure changes.
Another accounting trick to pass on costs will likely be “research and development of GREEN technologies”, which sounds great, but will likely be a catch-all for any ‘new’ costs associated with these conversions, including all fees except direct penalties. This includes legal fees, accounting fees, equipment conversions and maintenance upgrades, touch labor to perform all these new tasks, the costs of monitoring and managing these ‘new’ requirements, etc. Additionally new properties and facilities will have to be acquired and these costs amortized by rate increases.
No, the costs of Cap and Tax WILL be real and WILL be borne largely by the consumer. While some of this is palatable to most eco-conscious consumers, the current questions on the economy, Obama-care, and out-of-control federal spending make the concerns of Cap and Tax hard for most thinking citizens to swallow.
Have those “thinking citizens” thought about who will bear the costs of climate change, Mr. Swank?