Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., at a news conference, with industry leaders, announcing their climate change bill on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, May 12, 2010.(AP Photo/Harry Hamburg)
If you want the complete rundown on the latest climate legislation — the newly introduced Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act, don’t miss this lengthy analysis by Darren Samuelsohn of Greenwire, via The New York Times.
The story has a rundown of all of the major provisions, as well as early reactions from various intrest groups. The bottom line:
The Kerry-Lieberman legislation will call for a 17 percent reduction in carbon pollution from 2005 levels by 2020; 42 percent by 2030 and 83 percent by 2050. Power plants will face the first restrictions, followed six years later by energy-intensive manufacturers.
The official summary released today includes this section titled “Ensuring Coal’s Future”:
– We empower the U.S. to lead the world in the deployment of clean coal technologies through annual incentives of $2 billion per year for researching and developing effective carbon capture and sequestration methods and devices.
– We also provide significant incentives for the commercial deployment of 72 GW of carbon capture and sequestration.
Let the debate begin …
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The front group ACARE has already chimed in, claiming ““Senators Kerry and Lieberman have put together an enormously expensive government power grab worse than the recently passed health care reform bill . . . this bill will prove to be a death blow to our economy.”
Curiously, they cite no data for their doomsday scenario.
Folks who are interested in reading an informed, intelligent, and supportive take on this proposed legislation should check out Joe Romm’s “Climate Progress” blog, http://www.climateprogress.org. There will be a lot on this subject over there in the coming days and weeks.
Because the survival of human civilization is at stake (oh, is that all?), it behooves people with an interest in that survival to do what they can to get a global deal that will start curbing atmospheric carbon emissions. Today, this bill is our best chance.
West Virginians, let Senators Jay Rockefeller and Robert C. Byrd know how important this legislation is to our survival. Others, do your part where your voice counts.
Yes, we can!
Good point, Tom.
And, I tried to get Sens. Byrd and Rockefeller to comment today, but haven’t had any luck yet.
Ken.
Here’s an excerpt from a recent Climate Progress post, quoting another energy industry blog:
“In the still-tentative clean energy relationships between American and Chinese firms, Ming Sung sees himself as something of a marriage broker.
A chemical engineer and former Shell executive, Sung has spent the past two years with the Clean Air Task Force nonprofit connecting companies rich in technology know-how with those rich in dollars and influence. His passion is decarbonizing coal — particularly in China, the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter — a goal he sees as a central element in mitigating the threats of climate change. “If you really want to clean up the air, you have to start with China,” Sung said, noting that coal use there is expected to double in the next 20 years. While China has made serious strides in clean energy production, Sung argued that it’s not yet enough to meet much of China’s energy needs. Wind power, for example, doubles each year, but only about 30 percent of the energy is connected to the grid. “So coal is still going to be the king,” Sung said. “There’s no other way. That’s why instead of ignoring it, we have to deal head-on with the emissions from coal.” His ambitions are starting to pay off. In Washington, D.C., this week from Beijing, where he heads CATF’s Asia Clean Coal Initiative, Sung is touting a number of key joint ventures, including one between Duke Energy and China Huaneng Group. The two power producers signed an agreement last year, now coming to fruition, to cooperate on the development of so-called integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) systems — which convert coal into a synthesis gas — as well as the development of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology.”
Without legislation like Kerry-Lieberman, the USA will have greatly reduced resources, abilities, and leverage in helping China meet the climate challenge.
But — who really cares what the Chinese do? After all, it’s not like we in the USA have to live with the results of Chinese atmospheric carbon emissions.
Ice-free planet, anyone?
Welcome back again, Tom … you’re just in time … please be so kind as to include links when you quote from another site. Thanks, Ken.
Senator Everett Dirksen once said, “The favorite sum of money is $1 billion –a billion a year for a fatter federal payroll, a billion here, a billion there.” [EMD Papers, Republican Congressional Leadership File, f. 25] My words, But pretty soon you’re talking real money.
The issue is not whether the climate is (again) changing with humans being the culprit. That serves to only skew the debate and falsely mandate government driven policy responses that are excessive, costly and unjust.
This is espescially true in recession based, jobless economy, unless you count government generated jobs, which siphon more income from the largest job engine The United States has; Small and Entrepreneurial Companies.
The fundamental issue is this: Are humans causing imminent, unprecedented, global climate-change disasters? And can we prevent those supposed disasters by dramatically increasing the price of carbon, drastically curtailing hydrocarbon use, reducing living standards and imposing government control over industries and people’s lives as proposed in the Kerry -Liebermann Cap and Trade Bill?
According to Paul Driessen of CFACT (Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow) there is no evidence to support these claims. Indeed, all the headline-grabbing disasters and a third of the citations in the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s massive 2007 climate report were newspaper articles, student papers and press releases from climate activists and lobbyists – not peer-reviewed studies.
Crisis scenarios conjured up by computer models are no better. The models reflect CO2-centric assumptions, presume clouds exert only warming influences, often rely on massaged temperature data from urban heat islands – and are little better than computer games like FarmVille or SimEarth.
They help scientists visualize how climate systems work, but they’re useless for predicting the future. They create virtual realities and virtual crises and then “solve” them with virtual solutions. We need reality-based science and public policy.
The new Kerry-Lieberman climate bill mandates a 17% reduction in US carbon dioxide emissions by 2020. It first targets power plants and refineries that provide reliable, affordable electricity and fuel for American homes, schools, hospitals, offices and factories – and then, in six years, further hobbles the manufacturing sector itself.
The House-passed climate bill goes even further. It requires an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050. Once population growth and transportation, communication and electrification technologies are taken into account, this translates into emission levels last seen around 1870!
House Speaker Pelosi says “every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory,” to ensure that America achieves these emission mandates. This means replacing what is left of our free-market economy with an intrusive Green Nanny State, compelling us to switch to unreliable wind and solar power, and imposing skyrocketing energy costs on every company and citizen.
Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency is implementing its own draconian energy restrictions, in case Congress does not enact punitive legislation.
It’s time to ask these politicians some fundamental questions.
1) Even slashing carbon dioxide emissions to 80% below 2005 levels would reduce projected global average temperatures in 2050 by barely 0.2 degrees F, according to a study that used the UN’s own climate models. That’s because China, India and other developing countries are building new coal-fired power plants every week, even as the United States and Europe shackle their economies and send more jobs overseas. How do you justify such destructive, punitive, meaningless legislation?
2) Reflecting agreement with thousands of scientists, most Americans now say climate change is natural, not manmade. Fully 75% are unwilling to spend more than $100 per year in higher energy bills to “stabilize” Earth’s unpredictable climate. What provision of the Constitution, your oath of office or your duty to the overall health and welfare of this nation permit you to ignore the will of the people, the mounting evidence that “climate disasters” are the product of manipulated data and falsified UN reports, and the job-killing impacts of the laws and regulations you seek to impose?
3) If carbon dioxide is causing “runaway global warming,” why have average global temperatures not risen since 1995, and why have they been COOLING for the past five years – even as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have continued to rise to levels unprecedented in the modern era?
4) What properties does manmade carbon dioxide have that enable it to replace the complex natural forces that clearly caused the Ice Ages, Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age, Dust Bowl, ice-free Arctic seas in 1822 and 1922, Alaska’s 100 degree F temperature record in 1915, and all the other climate and weather changes and anomalies, blessings and disasters that our planet has experienced during its long geologic and recorded history?
5) What physical or chemical properties does manmade carbon dioxide have that would enable it to overturn the laws of thermodynamics – and cause temperatures in Antarctica to rise 85 degrees F (from an average of minus 50 F to plus 35 F year-round, or 48 degrees C, from -46 C to +2 C), to melt that continent’s vast ice masses, raise sea levels 20 feet or more, and flood coastal cities?
6) Precisely what chemical, physical and thermodynamic processes would drastic carbon dioxide reductions alter, and how? Precisely what weather and climate improvements would those reductions achieve? Precisely how will CO2 reductions stabilize planetary temperatures, climate and weather systems that have been turbulent, unpredictable and anything but stable throughout Earth’s history?
7) Is there ANY direct physical observation or evidence that would falsify your climate crisis thesis, and cause you to say human greenhouse gas emissions are not causing a planetary climate disaster? Or do you think everything that happens confirms your climate disaster hypothesis: warmer or colder, wetter or drier, more snow and ice or less, more hurricanes and tornadoes or cyclical periods with few such storms?
Do you support delaying wind, solar and transmission projects for years, to protect the rights of local communities and private landowners? Or do you favor regulatory edicts and eminent domain actions, so that government can seize people’s property and expedite construction of these projects?
Do you support opening US lands for renewed exploration and development, so that we can produce these raw materials and create American jobs? Or do you intend to keep US lands off limits, and force us to depend on imports for renewable energy, too?
Do you support relaxing environmental study, endangered species and other laws, to fast-track approval of these projects, despite their obvious impacts on wildlife and habitats? Or do you want them subjected to the same rules that have stymied thousands of other energy projects, so that renewable energy projects cannot be built, either – and we have massive blackouts?
9) Over 1.5 billion people in Africa, Asia and Latin America still do not have electricity, for even a light bulb or tiny refrigerator. Millions die every year from diseases that would be largely eradicated with electricity for refrigeration, sanitation, modern hospitals, and industries that generate greater health and prosperity. How can you justify using taxpayer money to finance UN and environmental activist programs that claim global warming is the biggest threat they face, and they need to get by on wind and solar power, and give up their dreams of better lives, because YOU are worried about global warming? Doesn’t that violate their most basic human rights to improved living standards, and even life itself?
10) If you’re so sure about your data and conclusions – and want to use climate disaster claims to justify sending our energy costs skyrocketing, killing millions of factory jobs, controlling our lives, and totally overhauling our energy, economic and social structure – why do you refuse to allow fair, open and balanced congressional hearings and debates on climate science and economics? Why do you refuse to debate skeptical experts in a public forum, or even answer questions that challenge your alarmist thinking? Why do you refuse to require that scientists who get taxpayer money for their research must share and discuss climate data, computer codes, methodologies and analyses?
11) How much money and campaign help have you gotten from companies and activist groups that would benefit from renewable energy mandates and subsidies, carbon offset and trading schemes, coal mining and oil leasing bans, and other provisions of climate and energy legislation?
12) What if you vote for these job-killing, anti-growth, anti-poor, anti-human-rights “climate disaster prevention” laws – and it turns our you are WRONG on the science or economics? What will you do? Give up your congressional seat, home, pension and worldly wealth – and pledge yourself and your children to an austere life of service to the people you have harmed? Or just say, “Oh I’m so sorry,” and then pass more intrusive, oppressive laws, and then collect a nice government pension – while millions freeze jobless in the dark?
13) If you can’t or won’t answer these questions, then why do you think you have a right to tell anyone on this planet that we have a “climate crisis,” and dictate how they must live their lives – especially when you haven’t done a thing to slash your own air travel, staff, and home and office energy use?
(Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power – Black Death. He has studied climate change for over 15 years.)
Do you think your electricity bill is high enough? You won’t have to wait 5-10 years to see the pass through increases.
Yes, let the debate begin!
Geesh!…….
Uh, what Mike said – Ditto!
(just a little comic relief, Ken….Hope ur in a joking mood….:))
Vnxq809
I disagree with both Mike’s volume above and the notion that we should settle for this weak bill with its billions in giveaways to the coal industry to keep them propped up. False solutions are worse than no solutions.
For a real, tangible, and really affordable solution see the Synapse report at http://theclean.org/.
Vernon — have you looked at Joe Romm’s discussion of what it will take to get a bill through the Senate?
See: http://climateprogress.org/2010/05/12/senator-kerry-explains-american-power-act-epa-authority-clean-air-act/#more-24918
Romm makes a pretty convincing case that “settling” is exactly what we will have to do to get a bill — unless someone develops a magic potion that will change the hearts and minds of our elected representatives.
What do you think?
Mike’s post says there’s no problem, and climate change is some kind of conspiracy. Liberal fanatics like Senators Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman are leading this plot, no doubt.
Tom ,you left out the truly liberal fanatic Sen.Kerry.
Even though this bill is seriously flawed in so many ways, I’ll take it. Why? Because it is a recognition that climate change requires serious action by our government. This will simply be the first attempt to deal with it, and more effort will surly follow. No one knows where this will all lead because we are in uncharted territory. The skeptics are right about one thing, though; this bill will not lower carbon emissions enough to address the problem in time to prevent more warming and irreversible damage to our global ecosystem. Yet passing this bill will be an historic event, and a point of no return. While it won’t silence those that refuse to read the writing on the wall, Obama’s signature on a climate bill will signal that the great debate is coming to an end and a real plan of action is emerging.
As Mike Roselle and Joe Romm suggest, the necessary substantive steps to adequately reduce emissions will likely come in the upcoming years, 2020, when the melting/sea level rise data and catastrophic storm events get hairier and hairier – in other words, when folks in larger numbers start to feel desperate.
The job now is to get a global emissions reduction architecture in place now — that will enable humanity to make the next moves with dispatch and effectiveness.
Under changing circumstances, persistent and engrained erroneous beliefs, like racism and homphobia, and climate change denial, can crumble rather quickly, and a new paradigm emerges. So history gives reason to believe that we can rise to this critical occasion and do what is needed today — to empower those who come after us.
I doubt that passing this bill will lead the way for stronger legislation. It will get passed (maybe) and the politicians will do a lot of back-patting, agree that they’ve saved the world, and turn to something else. Then whatever’s good in the bill will be scrapped, loopholes found and enlarged, etc. A couple of snowstorms and the climate deniers will set things back another decade because the gutless wonders in Congress will cave as soon as the right-wing says “boo!” Remember SMCRA–Carter signed it hoping it would be strengthened, but it was instead weakened.
[...] at home, the big story this week was the introduction of the Kerry-Lieberman climate and energy bill. I tried to get reactions from West Virginia Sens. Byrd and Rockefeller, but neither would [...]
“The vast majority of new power stations in China and India will be coal-fired; not “may be coal-fired”; will be. So developing carbon capture and storage technology is not optional, it is literally of the essence.” –”Breaking the Climate Deadlock,” Tony Blair, June 26, 2008
But, Vaclav Smil, an energy expert at the University of Manitoba, has estimated that capturing and burying just 10 percent of the carbon dioxide emitted over a year from coal-fire plants at current rates would require moving volumes of compressed carbon dioxide greater than the total annual flow of oil worldwide — a massive undertaking requiring decades and trillions of dollars. “Beware of the scale,” he stressed.”
Instead, I suggest using Dr Craig Venter’s GMO to convert the condensed CO2 from the coal plant into fuel. Coal plants could also produce natural gas (75% methane) profitably…just a thought.