Sen. Boxer’s summary of her Manager’s Amendment to Lieberman-Warner 5

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1. 

   Tasermons Partner Posted 10:00 am
   19 May 2008

   Good start......but not quite enough.  We'll need more than a 66% reduction by 2050, but I guess they figure private efforts will take up the slack.
   Much more money goes to helping compensate utilities and manufacturers than goes for renewables or mass transit (though all recieve billions), which is somewhat irksome, since I think the utilities need it less.
   Still, compared to status quo, it's a big improvement.  

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2. 

   cgurkin Posted 12:40 am
   20 May 2008

   Maybe wait until next year?If you think Bush wouldn't use Title 17, subtitle B to completely neuter this thing, you're crazy.

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3. 

   Sean Casten Posted 12:40 am
   20 May 2008

   My quick readIs that this is just re-arranging the deck chairs.  The problems with Lieberman-Warner are structural, in the sense that it starts from the presumptions that:
   
   
   GHG mitigation is incompatible with economic growth;
   
   Government know who the economic losers will be;
   
   Government shall throw money at those losers to ease their pain.
   
   
   These changes would appear primarily to redefine the list of losers (I note that manufacturers get a lot more largesse under this amendment than the prior version), but it still frames the policy in the same way, per the 3 stipulations above.  I personally think all three of those stipulations are wrong.  But even if one disagrees, shouldn't we at least craft a bill with a bit less hubris?

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4. 

   Will Candler Posted 1:45 am
   21 May 2008

   Cannot Get There From HereWe have to thank Senator Boxer for working so diligently to improve Warner-Lieberman.
   That said the sad truth is "We cannot get there from here".  All those billions of subsidies to "ease the pain of Uncle Tom Cobley and All", are "revenue neutral".  How come? Well the billions are to be generated by auctioning allowances.  The cost of these allowances will, of course, be passed on to the consumer:  So the billions of subsidies represent billions of unnecessary pain for consumers. Unnecessary?  Yes, because the billions could be returned to consumers as equal per capita monthly energy dividends or rebates.  (See http://www.carbontax.org or http://www.capanddividend.org or my book "Global Warming: The Answer.  (The Energy Dividend)").
   Another equally sad truth is that Warner-Lieberman is a decade (or two decades) too late. The Bill aims to reduce emissions below 81% of their 2005 level by 2020, and to 29% of this level by 2050. Total US emissions to 2050 are expected to be more than 33% of what they would have been without the Bill.  This is just not enough reduction (see for instance
   
   http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/5/18/14359/9757 and
   
   http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/3/19/13140/3196).  
   The simple facts of global warming are:
   
   *    Global warming is real
   
   *    It is caused by human use of fossil fuels
   
   *    We need to stop using fossil fuels.
   There is no way (Barbara Boxers best efforts notwithstanding) to amend Warner-Lieberman to ensure that we cease to use fossil fuels, and as quickly as possible.
   "To get there from here" we need something like a $250 a ton of carbon fee or tax that would approximately double the cost of coal based electricity, and yield revenue of about $420 billion a year. This would be sufficient to pay a monthly rebate or dividend of $240 per registered voter (dropping to $166 a month when all voters registered). The tax/fee should be collected at the mine, well-head or port of entry, and should be supported by a tariff on energy intensive imports (steel, aluminum, ceramics, cement, etc) that had not already paid a carbon fee. This program is described at greater length in the above book, available from Amazon, or
   
   http://www.powells.com/biblio/61-9781434345080-1  of as a free pdf file on request from (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
   
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5. 

   F James Handley Posted 4:43 am
   24 May 2008

   Carbon Tax better than Boxer's patchesSen Boxer says she's listening to scientists, but is she ignoring economists and the Congressional Budget Office conclusion that a carbon tax would be FIVE times as effective as a fixed cap?  
   CBO noted ways to improve cap-and-trade which would make it more like a tax:
   
   
   Auction ALL the permits.
   Make it revenue-neutral ("Cap and Dividend")
   Build in a safety valve to mitigate price spikes, and
   Keep a very close eye on the traders who profit by speculation and volatility.  
   
   
   Boxer's proposed "Emergency Off-Ramp" is a stab at #3.  Basically, a borrowing system to mitigate price spikes.  And she proposes oversight by a "trading board" -- an attempt at #4.  But 100+ %price volatility in the SO2 (acid rain) emissions trading system (even with oversight) suggests that's not enough.  
   The remaining problems with cap-and-trade are potentially fatal and don't arise with a carbon tax. Two brave whistleblowers in EPA Reg. 9 wrote an open letter to Congress describing the flaws and manipulations of cap-and-trade as attempted for smog emissions in LA.  It's at http://www.carbonfees.org.
   Will the best medicine for the escalating climate crisis, a revenue-neutral carbon tax, remain on the shelf because of its ugly label?  
   For more on the advantages of carbon taxes, check out the Carbon Tax Center at http://www.carbontax.org.  
   (And yes, Will Candler, "cap and dividend" would address #1 and # 2, but still leaves problems #3 and #4.)

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