Congressional Insiders Forsee Incremental Change
April 3rd, 2009Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
Another indicator suggests that the Congressional debate over energy and climate won’t result is sweeping change, the National Journal reports in its “Congressional Insider Poll” this week answers to the following question (asked of members of Congress and influential insiders, see the link for names):
Q: What is the likeliest outcome in this Congress of the debate on energy and climate change?
An overwhelming majority of both Democrats and Republicans both see “incremental change” rather than “sweeping change” or “no change”:
Democrats (27 votes)
Sweeping change 33%
Incremental change 67%
No change 0%Republicans (34 votes)
Sweeping change 15%
Incremental change 53%
No change 29%
Don’t know 3%
These terms are imprecise enough to allow for many interpretations, but seeing two-thirds of Democrats polled foreseeing “incremental change” cannot be a good sign for those hoping for something more. The lesson of course is that climate policies must be aligned with what is politically possible. The risk is well captured by one of the Democratic Insiders who commented that s/he foresees Incremental change “”Cloaked as ’sweeping change.’ “
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:24 am
Since the question included the limitation of “in this Congress “the poll does not cover the possibility of action through the regulatory process. The EPA has decided that CO2 is a pollutant subject to regulation.
Would that qualify as “sweeping change” cloaked as “incremental regulation”?
April 4th, 2009 at 5:44 am
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE52M4JB20090324 is an article claiming the EPA has found “harm” by manmade greenhouse gases. I would agree that the proposed mandatory emission submittals would fit the bill. http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/ghgrulemaking.html