The reason the cap applies only to those facilities that import or burn large amounts of fossil fuels is a logistical reason. Otherwise how would you provide an offset to someone who decided to buy a more fuel efficient car? Or someone who decided to turn his thermostat down? How would you reward or manage all the individuals out there who burn fossil fuels? If I decide to bury the coals I was going to use for my barbecue, shouldn't I be compensated?

Thus the 'gatekeepers' of fossil fuels are the ones being managed. If the cost of importing oil increases because of L-W, then the cost of gas will increase and the consumer will be dis-incented to buy gas. Likewise electricity will get more expensive, making efficiency improvements more attractive. The end result will be using less carbon-intensive energy sources and products while those carbon producing entities will produce less under the cap.

There are much more efficient ways to incent the right people.  Why, for example does LW impact coal-fired power plants but not natural gas-fired power plants?  Why does it not regulate steam boilers (after all, every one of those already has to get an emissions permit, so it's not as if the environmental compliance mechanisms aren't already in place).

And even if there really was more logistical simplicity in this approach (and whatever else one things of L-W, it's really hard to argue that it is a paragon of simplicity!), you still have to factor in the cost of that approach - and as I've noted above, this creates no direct incentives to lower GHG emissions for the vast majority of actual GHG releasers.

How do you figure it doesn't cover natural gas plants?

           (7) COVERED FACILITY- The term `covered facility' means--

                  (A) any facility within the electric power sector that contains fossil fuel-fired electricity generating units that together emit more than 10,000 carbon dioxide equivalents of greenhouse gas in any year;

                  (B) any facility within the industrial sector that emits more than 10,000 carbon dioxide equivalents of greenhouse gas in any year;

                  (C) any facility that in any year produces, or any entity that in any year imports, petroleum- or coal-based transportation fuel, the use of which will emit more than 10,000 carbon dioxide equivalents of greenhouse gas, assuming no capture and permanent sequestration of that gas; or

                  (D) any facility that in any year produces, or any entity that in any year imports, nonfuel chemicals that will emit more than 10,000 carbon dioxide equivalents of greenhouse gas, assuming no capture and destruction or permanent sequestration of that gas.

Isn't a natural gas plant a part of that definition? And furthermore, covered facilities relies on the amount of carbon being produced, not how it's produced. You might be right, but that's how I read it.

Also, you mention incenting ghg releasers, but my argument still stands: how do you create a system that virtually every person on the planet has access to? In other words, each of us emits ghg, so how would we individually recieve credit/pay penalties for compliance or non-compliance? Opening the system up that wide would beg the question of who gets the credit, the manufcaturer of some efficient appliance, the consumer of that appliance, the utility territory that appliance is used in or the fossil fuel supplier to that utility?

Good point, nzigelbaum. Sean?

http://www.nwf.org

i think you're right, but I'm not sure why the library of congress is wrong. The text I had was "as introduced" which has been ammended with the important change you note in the post. Coal power plants are still covered, but natural gas isn't in the new definition. I would guess that the nat. gas plants out there bucked at the idea of being covered when so many people burn natural gas in their homes. This is the issue you support by saying that all the GHG producers need to be covered. The bill, as ammended, seems to try to cover natural gas through the people who import it or process it (the domestic producers, I think).

So I still think the definition isn't as bad as you do. But one place we agree is that there's very little the importers or producers of fossil fuels can do to lower their carbon footprint since they import and produce whatever the market demands. What will happen is that the cost of importing/producing will increase, reflecting the environmental cost (theoretically) of producing all that carbon. Thus the price will increase and facilities that buy the imported/produced fuel will now be incented to become more efficient. Second to the importers/producers are the coal power plants and the rest of the covered facilities (and I agree, natural gas should be a covered facility as well) which will seek efficiency to avoid having to buy offsets AND to mitigate the increased cost of fossil fuels.

I think the definition could be stronger, but as it is now, all major fossil fuel burners, importers and producers will have to pay (some more, some less).