... that the additional permits released upon the triggering of the "offramp" would be borrowed -- that they wouldn't change the total number or the trajectory of reductions.

But that provision was already built into the cost-containment of the original LW draft. So it's hard to see what's new here. Are they just trying to highlight this rhetorically? Or is there something more devious in the fine print?

Guess we'll find out tomorrow.

grist.org

There wasn't any language about a specific price threshhold in the original bill.

The Wonk Room

   A "safety-valve" or "off-ramp" is essential for the stability of a cap-and-trade system.  (The Boxer-Lieberman-Warner "off ramp" seems to mean borrowing future permits).  

   Otherwise, price spikes will completely destroy political support.  Imagine the screaming if electricity rates tripled in the middle of a hot summer!

   Boxer doesn't include provisions to auction ALL the pollution permits (as Friends of the Earth, Obama and Clinton have suggested), and doesn't return the revenues as tax reductions or dividends, which means it isn't revenue-neutral.  It's a net tax increase.  

   Not necessarily bad, except for where she'd spend it: Among other things, more carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) research.  To "capture" (condense) CO2 from the hot gases leaving a coal-fired power plant requires a lot of energy.   What's the energy source for that?  Coal.   How much net energy after we capture the CO2?  CCS looks a lot like is a bandaid for the coal industry, the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel.  It helps justify building new plants that supposedly could be retrofitted.  

   100% wind-generated electricity from PEPCO Energy Systems here in DC runs me about 25% more than coal-generated power.  Which suggests to me that wind power is ALREADY much cheaper than coal would be with CCS.  No way they're going to capture and sequester CO2 for less than a 25% energy premium.  And wind will get cheaper as we go.  CCS will get more expensive as the easy places to sequester CO2 are used up.  

   Let's stop with the subsidies.  That's how we got corn-based ethanol.  The government should not be in the business of picking technology winners (certainly not this early in the race).

   A gradually-increasing carbon tax would soon make wind economical and let coal die and would push everyone to make carbon reductions.  

   Boxer needs to start over with a revenue-neutral carbon tax as British Columbia is implementing.  The Congressional Budget Office concluded that a carbon tax would be FIVE TIMES as effective as a fixed cap with emissions trading.

   Now that  we're starting to agree on the disease: Global Warming, let's be sure we pick medicine that works: Carbon tax and dividend.   See http://www.carbontax.org.