Waxman wins fight for House E&C Chair
November 20th, 2008Posted by: admin
In a secret ballot in the Dem House caucus, Waxman beat Dingell out of the Energy & Commerce Committee chair 137-122. The implications for U.S. climate and energy policy of this move cannot be overstated. The past three days have seen President-Elect Obama strongly affirm his commitment to moving on a cap-and-trade bill, Senator Boxer do the same, and now the House install Henry Waxman to the key House position on climate change. So Roger can keep digging his obscure news dispatches out on Polish and German reluctance to strengthening the ETS in Phase III, but the policy pressure is clearly moving toward a cap-and-trade bill in the U.S.
Now the questions are (or will be, as the bills move along):
1- what caps?
2- how broad and sector-specific?
3- where are the safety valves and loopholes?
4- is the US going to make the same overallocation and windfall-profit-generation mistakes as the EU in ETS Phase I?
5- will the protectionists win on imports from unregulated nations?
6- offset standards and restrictions?
7- international trading or only North American trading?
November 21st, 2008 at 10:32 am
The questions also are, as Roger pointed out, how much this costs. That’s the point of the news from Poland and Europe. We’ve been told for years how the ETS is the model. So far, the model we are supposed to follow has failed and there are big problems going forward. That should be a part of the discussion, but Waxman et. al. will not want to discuss how the European model has failed.
November 21st, 2008 at 11:54 am
The questions are also
Will this be worse than the ethanol debacle.
How will the poor, who spend a larger proportion of their income for carbon-based life necessities, get by.
If regulated electric utilities are forbade passing increased taxes on to customers, from where will they get the money.
And so it goes.
November 21st, 2008 at 1:58 pm
I expect it to be every bit as successful as health care in the Soviet Union. Or public education in DC.
November 21st, 2008 at 9:06 pm
The Waxman/Obama impact on global climate: unmeasurably small
The Waxman/Obama impact on the US economy: significantly negative
November 22nd, 2008 at 3:19 pm
When Obama finally arrives at the King Canute climate control party, he will find some of the guests have already left, others are ready to leave – the drinks were too expensive and didn’t have the desired effect.