Warming Up for Cap-n-Trade

RLMiller at FireDogLake sees signs that a cap-n-trade climate bill is next on the Senate list after Wall Street reform, and hints that the health care reform victory will strengthen the climate bill.

BREAKING out! Small spines on Democratic Senators! Having said "yes" to virtually every demand to water down the climate bill, the Democrats most in favor of the climate bill are finally beginning to say "no." And not a moment too soon, as Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) prepare to release their bill within the next two weeks.

Rumor has a climate bill being written during spring recess and introduced in mid-April. Lots of meetings have taken place over the last few weeks. Senate leaders huddled on Tuesday and Senate leaders huddled more on Wednesday, with bland official statements of "progress being made." Although rounding up all the leaks, spins, and flat-out falsehoods on the climate bill is a daunting job, some truths have begun to emerge.

Let's hope the new spines are strong enough to stand up to the it-snowed-in-January arguments from the usual repugs.

From Steven Benen:

HEATING UP.... As ridiculous as it sounds, cold weather and snowfall during the winter has apparently made it less likely the Senate will vote on a new energy/climate bill. Mind-numbing though it may be, Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) recently said snowfall in D.C. has had an effect on policymakers' attitudes: "It makes it more challenging for folks not taking time to review the scientific arguments."

But in Grown-Up Land, the data is worth acknowledging.

It will probably come as a surprise to most Americans, but the winter just finished was the fifth-warmest on record, worldwide.

Sure, nearly two-thirds of the country can dispute that from personal experience of a colder-than-normal season.

But while much of the United States was colder than usual, December-February -- climatological winter -- continued the long string of unusual warmth on a global basis.

And parts of the United States did join in, with warmer-than-normal readings for the season in New England and the Pacific Northwest. Indeed, Maine had its third-warmest winter on record, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports.

But the snow-is-falling cry is just cover for the rubes, Down with Tyranny tells us:

(A) colleague on the energy-and-environment beat calls attention to a neat piece of work by Brad Johnson in ThinkProgress's Wonk Room. He was ticked off by this ad the American Petroleum Institute (API) placed in Politico and Roll Call, denouncing "unprecedented" "new taxes" on the energy industry supposedly being considered by Congress, which is an absolute, 100-percent, through-and-through lie.

The reference, Brad points out, is to "the Obama administration's effort to remove $36 billion in loopholes and subsidies for the oil industry." All the tearjerking bullshit about how these "new taxes" will destroy the economy and make life even more hellish for average Joes is just that: bullshit, lies, posturing propaganda.

And of course we're likely to hear again that old chestnut about how cap-n-trade will cost each and every American family thousands of dollars per year. Here is the Congressional Budget Office official analysis of Waxman/Markey:

CBO estimates that the net annual economywide cost of the cap-and-trade program in 2020 would be $22 billion—or about $175 per household .... households in the lowest income quintile would see an average net benefit of about $40 in 2020, while households in the highest income quintile would see a net cost of $245. Added costs for households in the second lowest quintile would be about $40 that year; in the middle quintile, about $235; and in the fourth quintile, about $340. Overall net costs would average 0.2 percent of households’ after-tax income.

Yes, the climate of the planet really is moving rapidly toward permanent changes that will prove catastrophic for human civilization.

Yes, fossil fuel industries are going to have to bear the brunt of the cost of slowing that change, which is only fair since they caused it.

And yes, cap-n-trade really is the best solution for yet another unbeatable reason: it will quickly create millions of desperately needed jobs.

Ed Markey and Reed Hundt at TPM Cafe explain:

Jobs are the chief concerns of most Americans right now. Those with them are scared they might lose them. Those without them want to find one. What we need to do is clear: pass laws that open new industries to job opportunities for millions of Americans - and in a hurry. Predictions that we will not return to full employment for five or more years should drive us to act as we did in the early 1990s, when we faced a similar, although far less, serious economic slump.

SNIP

This investment (resulting from the Telecommunications Act) drove job creation beyond any economist's prediction. Unemployment fell to 4 percent by the end of 1990s, and nearly 65 percent of the population was employed. That's a remarkable contrast to the numbers today: 9.7 percent of Americans are unemployed and only 58 percent of people are employed. The job growth led to national income growth and increased tax revenue, so that the federal budget, contrary to every estimate at the beginning of the 90s, was balanced by 1998.

We can get the same upside surprises if we pass a law that retools the carbon-based energy sector of the last century and encourages private investment in a 21st century energy economy built on alternatives such as wind, sun, biomass and geothermal. That's the purpose of the Waxman-Markey bill, which passed the House of Representatives last June.

SNIP

In the energy sector we not only will need millions of employees, but we also know that those millions will help us achieve independence from foreign oil and an end to the pollution of the environment from carbon emissions. The trifecta of huge employment, national security, and protection of the environment is a winning ticket for America. We have found that winning formula before in hard times that proved to be the dawn of economic growth; we can turn the dark days of the present into sunny optimism about our future once again.

Read the whole thing.

Waxman-Markey is far from perfect, but it's utopian compared to the piece of shit Kerry, Graham and Lieberman are getting ready to drop. If that sounds familiar, it should. Same antediluvian Senate, same negotiating everything away to attract repug votes that don't exist and never will.

Tell your congress critters it's a new day, and that shit won't fly anymore.