Grist - Comment Feed for Some enviro groups not happy with Waxman-Markey bill

Comment #1 by Royal Enfield

Fri, 15 May 2009 22:10:38 -0700

Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and Public Citizen can continue to exist in their world, however the real one is moving towards climate legislation. Industry may be kicking and screaming and influencing as they are pulled by their noses; but, they are being pulled.

A comprehensive climate policy at this point will eventually require 3 things: Mitigation, Adaptation, and Geoengineering. We start with mitigation, and we are starting right now.

Thankfully, only an isolated fraction of the movement is interested in throwing out this necessary and long overdue beginning for wishful thinking.

Comment #2 by LaurieWilliams

Fri, 15 May 2009 23:42:54 -0700

As long-time public-sector environmental attorneys, my husband and I have been speaking out in our personal capacity as parents and citizens. Based on our enforcement experience and my husband's experience with cap-and-trade and offsets, we believe that the Waxman-Markey bill will fail to deliver even the weakened goals that it claims to establish. NRDC, EDF and other individuals and groups that are endorsing the bill are ignoring the complete lack of integrity introduced by offsets. They are also relying on the "success" of the Acid Rain program as the basis on which they recommend the cap-and-trade portion of the Waxman Markey bill. (Note: Acid Rain did not have offsets.) In addition, they ignore the many differences between Acid Rain and Climate Change. Acid Rain involved a relatively simple fuel switch to lower sulfur coal at existing facilities. There is no simple fuel switch for existing facilities that will solve the climate change problem. Rather, we need to correct the relative price advantage that fossil fuel energy currently has over clean energy alternatives and to improve incentives for conservation. The proposed cap-and-trade system cannot get us from where we are to where we need to be. There are valuable measures in the Waxman Markey bill, like energy efficiency standards. However, the cap-and-trade and offset provisions should be eliminated and carbon fees with per capita rebates should be put in their stead (phased in fees to gradually make clean energy cost-competitive with fossil fuel energy and monthly rebates to cushion the impact for consumers). If the American public is not ready for an effective climate bill, we should not substitute an ineffective climate bill. We should ask the Administration to provide town hall meetings that improve public understanding of the threat and the potential solutions, staffed by the National Academy of Sciences, our National Security Advisor, and other experts. A short synopsis of our arguments: "Why cap-and-trade is not the answer" can be found at: http://www.carbonfees.org/home/EnvirFinance03_09.pdf Our 17-page discussion paper (the most complete statement of our argument (2/21/09) "Keeping Our Eyes on the Wrong Ball" is located at: http://www.carbonfees.org/home/Cap-and-TradeVsCarbonFees.pdf Thank you! Laurie Williams

Comment #3 by Max8806

Sat, 16 May 2009 00:52:01 -0700

For 10 years the cap doesn't even decline under Waxman-Markey. In the 10 years from 2013-2022, only 2013 allowance level is lower than 2012's, every other year offers more allowances. So how the bill maintains it reduces emissions 17% or so by 2020 is beyond me, unless they're counting expected gains in international deforestation. But clearly they are not planning on reducing covered sector emissions (about 80% of the total) at all, or even likely US emissions overall, which is a huge problem. I will rarely side with Sierra Club over NRDC, but this bill is bad news.

See page 407 here:

http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090515/hr2454.pdf

Comment #4 by RussellLowes

Sat, 16 May 2009 08:26:47 -0700

This bill has a Trojan Horse in it. Here is the sage perspective of Nuclear Information and Resource Service. They have thought this out thoroughly.

--Russell Lowe

THIS IS IT FOLKS!

EITHER WE STOP THE "CLEAN ENERGY" BANK OR WE GET DOZENS OF NEW NUCLEAR REACTORS

WE CAN WIN THIS ONE: ACT NOW!

May 14, 2009

Dear friends,

We've asked a lot of you this past several months. As the Obama administration has moved into power, the pace of activity has increased; we know that.

So we don't waste your time asking you to take actions that aren't meaningful.

And right now, we're asking you to take the most important action of the year.

Write your House member and Speaker Nancy Pelosi now. And then forward this message to everyone you can think of.

Write your House member here.

Write Speaker Nancy Pelosi here.

We should have figured it out earlier, but we didn't. The section in the bill was so obscure we all missed it. But the "Clean Energy Bank" legislation sponsored by Senate Energy Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman and Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) includes UNLIMITED taxpayer loan guarantees for construction of new nuclear reactors. Not $50 Billion, or $100 Billion. UNLIMITED!

In other words, under the guise of a clean energy program, the nuclear power industry could get taxpayer money to build as many reactors as they wanted, regardless of their cost, regardless of their projected default rate.

That's just unacceptable.

We need to act on this as loudly and clearly as possible.

PLEASE forward this Alert to everyone you can think of. In 24 hours, we generated more than 3,000 letters in opposition to the pro-nuclear Murkowski amendment to the Senate energy bill. That's pretty good for one day, and we thank everyone who wrote (the Murkowski amendment has not yet been considered, it will likely come up next week). But we need to generate at least 10,000 letters to Pelosi and House members to stop this fake "clean energy" bank. Please help everyone you can think of to send letters now by forwarding this Alert. Phone calls to House members would be very effective too: 202-224-3121.

A NIRS blog posting on the "clean energy" bank is available here. It provides a lot more background info on this issue. You have our permission to re-post this everywhere and anywhere you want. Please do so.

This really is it folks. The effectiveness of our actions now will determine our energy--and quite possibly our economic--future. There is just no reason for inaction; let's all do everything we can.

Pass the word; send an e-mail to your friends, forward this Alert everywhere. Put in on Facebook and MySpace. Twitter it. Blog it. Print this and take it to meetings. Do whatever you can. We can't let this stand.

We need thousands and thousands of people responding to this Alert; please act, please do everything you can to expand our reach.

Thanks for all you do,

Michael Mariotte

Executive Director

Nuclear Information and Resource Service

(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_lwd0AJeAJQ').innerHTML = output; //]]>

www.nirs.org

Comment #5 by rheilmayr

Sun, 17 May 2009 14:45:58 -0700

Max, I'd just note that the percent of economy emissions covered increases as well. Industrial emissions fall under the cap in 2014 and natural gas emissions in 2016. The increases in allowances in those two years reflect this expansion in the program. The draft of the bill had similar jumps and yet was able to pull total US emissions on a downward trajectory (http://www.wri.org/publication/usclimatetargets - We'll hopefully have an update to reflect the new targets after the dust clears this week.)

Comment #6 by Tyler Durden

Sun, 17 May 2009 15:18:51 -0700

Wow! First I merely agreed with Greenpeace and the other groups that oppose the bill on the ground that it won't actually accomplish anything significant. Making people feel like they've done something when they haven't is worse than doing nothing and being honest about it.

But after reading Russell's post, it's much worse than I thought. This bill will actually cause far more environmental harm than it will stop! I will be writing my representative opposing this legislation in its current form as soon as I finish this post.

It seems to me that there are two basic types of people who want action on global warming. One type realizes that we must change the way we live and make sacrifices, whether perceived or real, for the good of the planet. The people who oppose this legislation because it's too weak fall into this category. Then there are those who mainly want technological solutions to be implemented and are not willing to change anything significant or substantial about the way that they live. The people who support this legislation as is fall into this category.

While those of us in the first group certainly support using the least environmentally harmful technologies possible, without simplifying our lifestyles the science is very clear that we will solve nothing. The laws of physics, chemistry, and biology do not change in the slightest because of artificial human constructs like realpolitik/pragmatism, economy or lifestyles. Either we put our strictly human agendas aside and deal with physical reality, or we burn up our planet. Our choice.

Comment #7 by Tyler Durden

Sun, 17 May 2009 15:24:51 -0700

No, the real world is burning up, among other things, because governments are, at most, passing phony legislation that is having no real effect on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The "real" world is not defined by political realities, but by physical ones. Nor is it defined by what just one species out of millions wants at the expense of all other species and ecosystems. Just like people who voted for Obama expecting real change, it is people who support a useless and harmful bill like this one who are not living in the real world, but in their own myopic one that only includes humans and their artificial constructs.

Comment #8 by Max8806

Sun, 17 May 2009 20:30:31 -0700

Thanks, that certainly explains it, although can't say its a particularly encouraging explanation.

Comment #9 by woodsygirl

Mon, 18 May 2009 12:16:00 -0700

If it's a choice between a bad bill or no bill at all would we rather have no bill??? This bill may be unacceptable but passing what we want may be impossible right now. The science says ii's not enough, soon enough. But if we can't get what we want, then we want no imporovements....??? Is that it??? I'm not sure what the answer is but I think it might get us closer than we are now. Then we can take more steps later. We can't just force people to vote our way because we want them to. It may be easier to take several small steps rather than one huge one.

Comment #10 by sialia

Tue, 19 May 2009 11:15:10 -0700

"the key issue is to start this trial and error process as quickly as possible. Let’s avoid the symbolic debate over the level of reductions we will achieve in 2050. Let’s focus on what we can do by 2010 and 2012. Let’s get started."

http://www.observer.com/2009/understanding-climate-policy-debate

Comment #11 by bailsout

Tue, 19 May 2009 18:12:28 -0700

How can any bill that purports to address climate change and carbon excesses fail to include an incentive plan to reduce human population? What a bad joke.