No, Cap and Trade Would Not Cost You $1,700 a Year

It doesn't make any difference because A) Ol' Cowardly Worm Chandler would vote against it if he had the chance and B) we won't see another chance at cap and trade in our lifetimes, much less before catastrophic climate change is past reversing.

Neverthless, it's nice to see a coal-state major paper finally printing what the reality-based community has been screaming for years.

John Cheves at the Herald:

... the Waxman bill Chandler voted for would have eventually, by the year 2020, led to an average net cost of about $175 per household annually, according to a June 2009 analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. That's less than one-tenth the sum the Republican Party alleges.

And C: actual, already-accelerating  global warming is going to cost each of us way, WAY more than $1,700 a year.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/10/26/2385916/gop-wrong-about-impact-of-cap.html#storylink=cpy

Bandaid on a Sucking Chest Wound

Trying to "adapt" to the effects of global warming while ignoring the coal-burning plants causing it is like treating cancer with nothing but pain killers.

Actually, it's worse - focusing on adaptation wastes time and takes money and attention away from dealing with the cause. And so the fossil-fuel billionaires laugh all the way to the bank while the world burns.

James Bruggers are the Courier:

Whether it’s an example of climate change or just temperamental Mother Nature, the evidence of more extreme weather is mounting in Louisville and across the nation. And city officials and business leaders are taking their first steps to prepare for what some scientists predict could be even dodgier consequences ahead.


That includes identifying some of the weather threats, ramping up the emergency-response system, buying out some residents of flood-prone areas, introducing green infrastructure such as plant-covered roofs, and launching an effort to cool the city by restoring the vastly depleted tree canopy.


And a new, long-range planning effort called Vision Louisville will attempt to factor in climate change, city officials said.


Much of that work is being done without direct reference to global warming.

That's plain malfeasance. Shame on Louisville Mayor Greg Fisher and every politician who plants a tree instead of demanding massive, immediate cuts in carbon production.

Repugs Dead Wrong on Cap and Trade, Too

News of yet more proof that liberal solutions not only work but refute conservative predictions of catastrophe rises to the level of "Breaking: Water is Wet."

But yawning at the extension of repugs' century-long record of being Wrong About Everything works to their advantage if nobody thinks it's a big deal.

It's a Big Fucking Deal, and we should scream bloody murder every time it happens.

Thus, Stephen Lacy at Think Progress:

Northeastern states participating in America’s first carbon cap and trade program have outperformed the rest of the country in GDP growth and reduction in global warming pollution.

That’s according to a new report from Environment New Jersey, which examined emissions data and economic growth indicators from 2000 to 2009.

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is a nine-state cap-and-trade market designed to reduce emissions in the utility sector 10% by 2018. A recent independent analysis showed that the program has already created $1.6 billion in economic value and set the stage for $1.1 billion in ratepayer savings through investments in efficiency and renewable energy.

This latest report shows that states under the RGGI program saw a 20% greater reduction in per-capita carbon emissions than non-RGGI states — all while growing per-capita GDP at double the rate of the rest of the country.

SNIP

The program has helped stimulate more efficiency and renewable energy, it has helped local businesses grow, it has added enormous economic value to the region, and it has not driven up electric rates.

Let’s compare real-world experience to the outlandish claims made by opponents of the program.

The Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity actually claimed that RGGI would drive rates up in New Jersey by 90%. And New Jersey Governor Chris Christie pulled his state out of the program, calling it a “gimmicky tax.” According to program administrators, proceeds from carbon credit auctions brought $29 million to New Jersey in 2010, leveraging $3 to $4 in benefits for every dollar invested.

Opponents who claim cap and trade is bad for the economy simply don’t have a leg to stand on.

Conservatives and repugs are wrong, wrong, wrongity-wrong-wrong again. Still. Always.

California Takes the Lead Again

The Tenth Amendment fanatics among the repugs should celebrate this initiative by a state exercising its rights. But they won't, because this time a state is not attacking non-white people, non-straight people, non-rich people or non-male people.

This state is showing the nation how to fight global climate change.

From Firedoglake:

California’s Air Resources Board has formally approved a cap and trade system to minimize climate change pollution, becoming the first state in the nation with a cap and trade program. Legislation authorizing a cap and trade system was passed in California back in 2006, but after multiple reviews, the CARB finally approved the program.

The California Air Resources Board voted unanimously today to adopt rules for a program that will use the trading of pollution permits on the open market to control carbon emissions from a wide cross section of industries, including oil and gas companies, electric utilities, transportation companies, farmers and cement makers.

“We’ve done something important,” said Mary Nichols, the ARB’s chairman. “We will look back at this as an important date in California’s transition to a clean energy economy.”

The cap-and-trade system, which will begin operating in January 2013, is a key component of the state’s landmark climate change law, which aims to reduce carbon emissions to 1990′s level by 2020.

The plan places a hard cap on the amount of carbon dioxide produced by 350 of the state’s largest industrial polluters. The state then provides a limited amount of carbon pollution allowances that can be bought and sold on an open market.
Under the plan, companies that pollute less then their limit can sell their unused allowances to companies that pollute heavily, creating market incentives for everyone to reduce emissions voluntarily.

This was a program passed by a Democratic legislature and signed by a Republican governor. Cap and trade generally was seen as a counterpoint to a command and control program, allowing market forces to spur innovation and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and allowing companies to purchase emission credits, the funds of which go toward additional climate change programs. There should be nothing terribly controversial about cap and trade except perhaps that it doesn’t go far enough, because it allows polluters to purchase the right to fill the air with a certain level of pollution. In fact, one of the major detractors of cap and trade in California were environmental justice advocates who worry about what it will mean for their communities.

Instead, you have the right opposing cap and trade, invoking the giant boogeymen of higher energy prices and relocation away from California and the government as a boot stomping on a human face forever.

The truth is that climate change mitigation programs are working in California to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. San Francisco’s carbon levels are 12% under 1990 output, for example. And that’s before cap and trade. Has the economy suffered as a result? The economy has dipped in California generally from the recession. But this law makes California poised to become a market leader in clean technology and innovation, mostly out of necessity. It offers the potential for new industries to flourish. And it will reduce public health problems from pollution.

There is a danger in the lack of a comprehensive system. California is the world’s 8th-largest economy, but cap and trade here and a carbon tax in Australia isn’t enough to stop the planet from boiling. There’s no hope of leadership at the federal level on this anymore, at least not in the near future. The only thing that has reduced carbon emissions lately has been the recession, and its attendant lowered economic – and energy – output.

But climate change is happening. Even Koch-funded climate skeptic studies admit that now. And California doing something about it may be inadequate, but it’s better than the alternative.

Not so long ago, state initiatives like this paved the way for federal legislation. But that was back in the days when repugs still acknowledged reality.

Liberals go with what works, not with what belongs in Bizarro World.

Repugs Handing American Economy to China

Republican claims to be the "party of business" have always been bullshit; republicans are and always have been the party of obscene wealth, feudalism, slave/child labor and corporate control of the economy.

But on energy repugs have jumped the shark, lapped the circus, gone crazier than a shithouse rat; they're handing hundreds of billions in U.S. economic growth to the Chinese. The communist Chinese.

Steve Benen:

'THE CONSEQUENCES OF OUR INACTION'.... In his Oval Office address in June, President Obama tried, once again, to remind Americans that our approach to energy policy, and our failure to position ourselves for international competition, is costing us dearly. "The consequences of our inaction are now in plain sight. Countries like China are investing in clean energy jobs and industries that should be right here in America," he said.

It's hard to overstate how true this is. In June, a New Jersey company held the license to technology that "makes solar panels cheaper, more efficient and less toxic to the environment." The company's chief executive, an American and retired Marine, decided he had no choice but to move his operation to China, which reached out to the company. "The Chinese have a major, aggressive movement to increase the technology in the photovoltaic area," Chuck Provini said. "They picked up the phone and called us and said, 'What do you do?'"

The result: an American company's technology will be commercialized overseas. The economic boost and the hundreds of new jobs will be in China, not here. As ABC News reported, we're not only lagging behind China, but Brazil, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Spain all have a national clean energy policy, and are all taking clean-energy investments more seriously than the United States.

SNIP

Every policy challenge need not be seen through a partisan lens, but this one should -- America is faltering on energy because the Republican Party demands it. The U.S. is falling behind international competitors because the GOP thinks "drill, baby, drill" is a substantive idea, climate science is a Marxist plot, cap-and-trade (an idea Republicans came up with) is radical and dangerous, and a national clean energy policy is wholly unnecessary.

Of course, this wouldn't necessarily matter -- the GOP is in the minority -- but our political system, for the first time in American history, requires super-majorities just to have a vote. The result is legislative paralysis, and a clean-energy revolution that is leaving the United States behind.

Misguided Republican nonsense is costing the nation dearly, and after the midterm, and expected GOP gains, this is only going to get worse.

From now on, the only response to repug bleating about American innovation, investment, small business or economic leadership must be: "Then why are you handing the 21st-century's biggest industry to the Chinese and the French?"

Climate Bill is Dead: Good

So repugs and Blue Dogs are determined to take the nation and planet down in flames. Fine.

Because now the EPA gets to regulate carbon as it sees fit.

Yes, every time we depend on the Obama maladministration to do the right thing we end up drunk in a dive bar, crying our disappointment on a stranger's shoulder, but there is cause for hope.

ENDA never got a hearing in Congress, but President Obama extended full family benefits to federal employees who are gay. Barely registers on the scale of needed change, but it indicates that the president may understand the power of the executive order and bureaucratic regulation.

So fuck the Senate: Obama can slash carbon emissions without Congress. Christian Parenti at The Nation explains:

A redirection of government purchasing would create massive markets for clean power, electric vehicles and efficient buildings, as well as for more sustainably produced furniture, paper, cleaning supplies, uniforms, food and services. If government bought green, it would drive down marketplace prices sufficiently that the momentum toward green tech would become self-reinforcing and spread to the private sector.

SNIP

Government has tremendous latitude to leverage green procurement because it requires no new taxes, programs or spending, nor is it hostage to the holy grail of sixty votes in the Senate. It is simply a matter of changing how the government buys its energy, vehicles and services. Yes, in many cases clean tech costs more up front, but in most cases savings arrive soon afterward. And government—because of its size—is a market mover that has already shown it can leverage money-saving deals.

SNIP

So let's get real. The fourth path is the best: a robust program of green procurement is the most immediate and politically feasible thing government can do to boost the clean-tech sector. And the only number that approaches the scale of the energy economy is government spending on energy. We need to be talking not about millions or billions but trillions of dollars going in a new direction. If the government is serious about electric vehicles—then just buy them already!

At one level, the mad Tea Partyers are correct: government is leviathan—a monster. But it is our monster, and with proper leadership even this government in the current climate could jump-start a clean-energy revolution.

Read the whole thing.

CLEAR Path to Carbon Cuts

On Sunday, people from all over the country will rally on the Mall in Washington for substantial carbon reductions to prevent catastrophic climate change.

But the cap-and-trade bills being considered in Congress are not just far too weak to accomplish what's needed, the primary Senate bill will actually make the situation worse.

Your first clue that the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman Senate bill is a make-it-worse mess - besides the names of two of the Senate's biggest douchebag liars in Graham and Lieberman - is that the corporate criminals most responsible for climate changes are racing to endorse the bill.

Kevin Drum applauds the development that should instead trigger widespread opposition:

The KGL team — that's senators Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman for those of you not up to speed with current Beltway lingo — anounced yesterday that they've gotten key business support for their climate bill:

The Edison Electric Institute — whose members generate the bulk of the nation's electricity — and two of its influential CEOs, Exelon's John Rowe and Duke Energy's Jim Rogers, will declare their support Monday, sources said. While Kerry did not name the three oil companies, a source familiar with the negotiations said Shell, BP and ConocoPhillips would back the climate measure.

And why did these folks decide to support the bill? Here's the big payoff:

The bill will preempt both the states' and EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, as long as emitters comply with the standards outlined in the measure. The EPA will monitor and enforce compliance with the law.

That's pretty much been the plan all along: use the threat of EPA action to gain support from Republicans and the business community.

AH-OOOOOOOGA! AH-OOOOOOGA! AH-OOOOOOGA!

There it is. If a massive forest fire is bearing down on your community, the last thing you want to do is take away the fire department's ability to fight fires.

Eliminating the EPA's power to regulate greenhouse gases now, when the time we have left to stave off catastrophe can be measured in months, not decades, is suicidal, as The Nation explains:

Congress urgently needs to pass a comprehensive climate bill, but the current Senate proposal, spearheaded by senators Kerry, Lieberman and Graham, threatens to do more harm than good. It is not only inadequate to the task of curbing climate change; it could curtail the power of the EPA and state governments to regulate greenhouse gases--the best avenues for action in the face of Congress's failures.

SNIP

The outlook in the Senate is, if anything, worse. At this writing, its final details have not been released, but from early reports it appears that the Kerry-Lieberman-Graham bill would keep and extend the worst aspects of Waxman-Markey: inadequate emissions-reduction targets (only 3 percent below 1990 levels by 2020), too many free permits and too many allowances for carbon offsets, which are of dubious value in fighting climate change (see Heather Rogers, "Offset Buyers Beware," in this issue).

Kerry-Lieberman-Graham would by-pass an economywide cap-and-trade system, opting instead for a bundle of separate energy bills that would slowly phase in emissions reductions sector by sector. Some of these pieces of legislation may pass; others may fail; all are ripe for gaming by corporate lobbies. Kerry-Lieberman-Graham would also skew subsidies in the wrong direction, throwing billions at "clean coal" technologies, nuclear power plants and offshore drilling, a questionable gambit favored by the Obama administration to garner support from Republicans and representatives from oil-, gas- and coal-producing states.

Perhaps most troubling, Kerry-Lieberman-Graham would not only gut the EPA of its regulatory power but could also pre-empt regulations on greenhouse gases from states and municipalities. This would undo the considerable progress made by states like California--which have pioneered emissions reductions for automobiles, and regional cap-and-trade systems--and thwart the efforts of cities and towns to require developers and businesses to adopt clean energy technologies.

In the face of such maneuvers, some green groups, like Bill McKibben's 350.org, are pushing instead for the CLEAR Act, written by senators Maria Cantwell and Susan Collins. The CLEAR Act's cap-and-dividend system, which works by capping CO2-producing fossil fuels at the source or point of import, is an elegant idea; but its mandatory emissions targets are weaker than what's needed. It covers only CO2 (not all greenhouse gases), and one of its prime virtues--that it's just forty pages long!--means that it leaves a lot of vital details out of the picture. Still, it doesn't pre-empt the EPA or state regulations, and its leanness means that it's not laden with pork and industrial giveaways.

Read the whole thing.

Then call or email your members of Congress to demand they support real climate change, starting with the CLEAR Act.

Fucking Brilliant

From VoteVets, of course:

The Nature of the Challenge

In the wake of the failure at Cophenhagen to agree on measures to slow global climate change, it was comforting to read this:

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva Tuesday signed a law requiring that Brazil cut greenhouse gas emissions by 39 percent by 2020, meeting a commitment made at the Copenhagen climate change summit.

Brazil announced at the summit a "voluntary commitment" to reduce CO2 emissions by between 36.1 and 38.9 percent in the next ten years.

The new law, however, is subject to several decrees setting out responsibilities and regulations for the farming, industrial, energy and environmental sectors.
Lula is expected to sign the decrees in January after consulting scientists and other experts, officials said.

Despite its ambitious targets, Greenpeace's top representative in Brazil, Sergio Leitao, called it merely a list of good intentions and accused Lula of using double standards in environmental issues.

Double standards or no, it's still double the goal of any other nation, and quite a giant step for a country whose bulk of emissions come from the burning of the Amazon rain forest.

Here at home, cap-and-trade legislation remains endangered. When the lies and idiocy that pass for debate these days devolve, as they will, into promises about "clean coal" technology, you can find ammunition against it in this superb piece from Holly Wren Spaulding in The Nation.

But of all the ideas that are being considered, carbon capture and sequestration stands out because it might, just might, not be totally nuts. CCS involves a complicated process through which carbon dioxide is removed from fuels like coal and oil--or even from the air--and is then forced into spent oil wells, porous rock formations or under the ocean floor for long-term storage. Already there are a smattering of small CCS projects around the world. Most of them involve oil companies that pump CO2 into active oil wells to help force up more petroleum in a practice known as enhanced oil recovery. A few companies use the CO2 for industrial purposes, like carbonation of drinks.

SNIP

But the real question for any of these methods--beyond who would organize and pay for them--is what to do with the CO2 after it is captured. For one thing, leaks could be lethal--concentrated CO2 asphyxiates. A natural version of this happened in Cameroon in 1986 after a volcanic eruption caused the bottom of Lake Nyos to belch out a cloud of CO2, killing 1,700 people and hundreds of cattle over a range of twenty-five kilometers.

If CCS goes commercial, the storage of this dangerous gas would need to be regulated--a prospect that does not exactly excite energy producers. "What I heard industry saying is that they don't want to be compelled to do real-time monitoring...and they don't want a public process," says Lee Sprague, who manages the Clean Energy Campaign for the Michigan chapter of the Sierra Club. He says communities need to become engaged when a CCS project is under consideration and make sure public health and safety officials are prepared for potential emergencies.

Whatever the combination of technologies, CCS on a large scale would be fabulously expensive. And it would have a meaningful impact on the climate only if it were an adjunct to rapid industrial transformation away from fossil fuels toward a clean-energy economy.

The biggest problem with CCS is not so much its expensive, experimental, high-tech aspects but the twisted political discourse surrounding it. These days CCS functions as a canard, a misleading ruse, set afloat by the coal industry to greenwash its image. Billboards around Appalachia read, "Coal: cleaner greener power for the people and protection for the environment." The political class happily falls in line behind the marketing because coal states are swing states. As a result, candidates from both major parties bloviate about their commitment to "clean coal"--a thing that manifestly does not exist. CCS also offers middle-class consumers the salve of hope: it suggests that we can carry on with our profligate ways--that we can have our fossil fuel and burn it too.

SNIP

CCS is not the solution to the climate crisis. As one proponent of geoengineering admitted, it "is simply a temporary 'stay of execution.' We will still have to work for a pardon." And that comes in only one form: radically and rapidly reducing emissions.

Global climate change is complicated. Figuring out the best way to slow that change by reducing emissions is 10 times that complicated. And passing legislation ensuring that reduction is 10 times more complicated than that.

But debunking the "clean coal" peddlers is easy: It's a myth, to a degree that makes magical elves and the Tooth Fairy as factual as gravity.

Broke, Humiliated Mongiardo Keeps Lying About Cap and Trade

From the Paducah Sun, via Penn Energy.

Mongiardo, seeking the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate next year, said at a Paducah news conference (July 15) that the so-called "Cap and Trade Bill" would increase electric rates in Kentucky by at least 70 percent, harm the state's coal industry, and force steel and aluminum plants to close.

As the story was written by Bill Bartleman of the wingnut Paducah Sun, do I need to tell you that Bartleman made no attempt to counter Mongiardo's lies with the facts?

On Sunday, Joe Gerth at the Courier-Journal discussed Mongiardo's and Jack Conway's views on cap-and-trade, and although he let Dan get away with lying for several opening grafs, eventually he pointed out the facts.

There is agreement that the legislation would cost consumers more, but estimates of those costs vary. And the legislation that passed the House attempted to offset some of the costs.

E.On U.S., the parent company of LG&E and Kentucky Utilities, has said that residential customers in Kentucky would see their rates rise about $10.50 a month in three years and about $19 by 2020. Commercial customers could see their rates rise as much as 39 percent by 2020.

Let's review: on the same day that Mongiardo's campaign admitted that in the second quarter it raised less than one-fourth of what Conway raised, Mongiardo goes to DINO-friendly territory to claim cap-and-trade would almost double electric rates, apparently immediately.

This after the biggest electricity supplier in Kentucky explains that cap-and-trade will cause no increase for three years, and then raise rates slowly over the next eight years to a maximum of $19 per month per household. For me, that's a 20 percent increase eleven years from now.

Dan Mongiardo: liar, corporate shill, homophobe, pathetic fundraiser, incompetent campaigner, loser.

Coal Industry Pork Buys Chandler's Vote on Cap-and-Trade

Wonder why DINO extraordinaire and Blue Dog in good standing Ben Chandler voted for the "liberal" (EEEEEK!) Waxman-Markey climate change bill?

Maybe Media Czech's plea for voters to call Ben and demand he vote for the bill did the trick.

Maybe the Ghost of Climate Catastrophe Future visited Ben overnight.

Or maybe he voted yea because the coal-state Blue Dogs got billions in subsidies for mythical "clean coal" technology added to the bill.

Cap-and-trade was supposed to allow Congress to avoid picking winners and losers in the fight against climate change. Advocates claim that approach, which relies on the market to figure out the easiest way to reduce greenhouse emissions, is at the heart of the Waxman-Markey energy bill that the House is preparing to vote on Friday. But, among many, many other things, the 1,200-page bill would also devote $60 billion to making sure clean coal isn't a loser.

Given America's huge reliance on coal to produce electricity — and the breakneck deployment of dirty coal plants in China — proponents make a strong case that coal deserves special attention. The bill's cap-and-trade system won't produce a carbon price high enough to spur deployment of clean-coal technology for a very long time, they say. If clean-coal technology can be made more cost-effective, meanwhile, the know-how could be exported abroad. And, some admit, coal-state lawmakers wouldn't be comfortable with a cap-and-trade bill that didn't include a lot for coal.

Since cost-effective, large-scale clean-coal technology is still untested, the first thing the bill would do is allow a quasi-public corporation to tax electricity distributors $10 billion over 10 years to fund "demonstration projects." We can see the appeal of supporting basic research on how to make the black stuff greener, especially if it includes research on retrofitting plants.

But then comes the big-ticket stuff. The bill essentially guarantees that carbon capture and sequestration will play a large role in America's energy mix, at first by offering coal plants that capture and sequester most of their emissions 10 years of compensation that is many times the market value of the carbon emissions they avoid — on top of the savings they would accrue by not polluting under the cap-and-trade regime. After phase one, the Environmental Protection Agency would take more control. At that point, a complicated regulatory framework would aim to reduce the subsidy for new facilities so that it covered only capital and operating costs of carbon capture and storage for 10 years.

The editorial, published in the pathetic-rag-stupid-enough-to-fire-Dan-Froomkin, bases its criticism on an assumption that clean coal is a difficult and expensive, but nonetheless possible technology.

It's not. Clean coal is a myth. It doesn't exist, never has existed, never will exist. We'll see Mitch McConnell marry Barney Frank first.

These billions in "clean coal" subsidies are nothing but a monster give-away to the filthy, destructive, lethal industry that this blog will henceforth refer to as the magic buggy whip industry.

Cap and Trade Lies Exposed

Here in Kentucky we haven't heard too much of the scare-mongering from the dirty power industry on cap-and-trade legislation. That's probably because the coal industry has this state's politicians so completely bought off and its residents so bamboozled it doesn't have to say anything.

The proposed bill, Waxman-Markey, doesn't come within a light-year of doing what it needs to do to create an energy industry that grows the economy and slows global warming. But it's a huge step forward, as opposed to the accelerating suicidal spiral into destruction the coal industry demands.

Kevin Drum finds the CBO report that explodes just one of the dirty energy industry myths:

Republicans have been screaming blue for months about the cost of the cap-and-trade provision of the Waxman-Markey climate change bill. It's going to cost us $1,600 each! No, that's wrong: it's going to cost us $3,100 each! Head for the hills!

So Rep. Dave Camp, the ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means committee, asked the Congressional Budget Office for a verdict. And guess what? The net cost turned out to be — at most — $175 per household by the year 2020. That's less than $70 per person:

The Congressional Budget Office (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. That figure [...] does not include the economic benefits and other benefits of the reduction in GHG emissions and the associated slowing of climate change....Overall net costs would average 0.2 percent of households’ after-tax income.

Low income households would fare even better.

Coal is the buggy whip of energy. The industry's insistence that until alternative energy is providing 100 percent of our energy we must mine more coal, burn more coal and build more coal-burning plants is like buggy-whip manufacturers in 1895 demanding that the federal government mandate monthly household purchases of buggy whips until "horseless carriages" make horses extinct.

Next time you hear somebody - like, say, a certain lying Lt. Governor - talk about "clean coal," just think "magic buggy whips."

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....

When Your Electricity Bills Skyrocket This Winter, Thank Ben Chandler

Kentucky's Own DINO Extraordinaire Ben Chandler (D, KY-6) is an out-and-proud member of the Congressional Blue Dog Caucus, which just forced the House to gut the cap-and-trade bill to slow global climate change.

Matt Yglesias watches the sausage grinder at work on the Waxman-Markey climate bill and is especially outraged at so-called moderates who insist that a large fraction of carbon emission permits should be given away, rather than auctioned off:

The moderate bloc [...] has portrayed itself as concerned with the climate crisis but worried about the tradeoffs with short-term economic growth. But the concession they’ve forced here doesn’t do anything to boost short-term growth. Instead, whereas auctioning the permits would have made rich people bear most of the cost of reducing emissions, by giving the permits away you make poor people bear most of the cost.

The environmental impact of the two methods is similar, and the overall costs are similar. But the moderates acted swiftly and decisively to reallocate a portion of the costs onto the backs of the poor. And they’ve done so specifically under guise of looking out for the interests of the working class. They ought to be ashamed of themselves.

In a way, this is even worse than Matt makes it out to be.

SNIP

If moderates were demanding free permits because they wanted to keep electric prices in their states low for a few years while they work on converting to new power sources, that would be one thing. We could argue about whether it's a good idea, but at least it's normal, understandable stuff. But that's not what they're doing.

Prices are going to go up regardless, and the free permits do nothing except provide windfall profits to operators of coal plants. The moderates pushing this "compromise" either don't understand basic economics, in which they case they need to learn some, or else they understand it perfectly well and like the idea of screwing their constituents in order to provide a bonanza for coal plant operators. In either case, yes, they ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Read the whole thing.

But earning millions in campaign cash from the coal industry while fucking over his constituents is standard operating procedure for Benny Boy. And until he's held accountable for how he has damaged Kentucky he'll keep on doing it.

Where is the Sixth District Real Democrat willing to stand up to this pathetic excuse for a representative? Only a strong primary opponent will make that weasel sit up and take notice.

Blue Dogs Set on More Sabotage

It's spring in D.C., and you can't walk across the street without stepping in Blue Dog Shit.

These DINO obstructionists aren't legislating, they're not moderating, they're not doing anything centrist. They're posturing. Because 30 years after their caucus was created, they can't admit the problem they set out to solve doesn't exist any more.

Back in the '70s, there actually was a liberal Democratic majority in Congress that stymied a lot of Jimmy Carter's projects because he wouldn't go along with their demands for full employment, massive urban renewal and curbs on corporate excess.

But even if you think that barely-leftist agenda needed a moderate counterweight, today's Congressional Democrats are well to the right of the Carter-era republicans. What Congressional dems need today is something that pulls them far left - almost back to where the center was 30 years ago.

But the Blue Dogs just can't let go. They've got an overwhelmingly popular Democratic president who is a genuine moderate whose proposals form the most realistic, pragmatic, uselful and necessary program of any president since FDR, and they can't stand it.

They got elected and built their careers on the myth that they were the only thing standing between their constituents and democratic anarchy, so they've lost their whole excuse for existence. If they don't knee-jerk reject everything President Obama proposes, they can't do anything at all.

So they prance around bleating "moderate!" and sulking until they get changes that gut good bills and can crow to the TV cameras that they saved the republic.

Their latest sabotage is aimed at the cap-and-trade plan to slow global warming.

It's always been an intractable political issue, but the number of reports indicating that new cap-and-trade legislation is hitting a lot of snags is remarkable for a couple reasons. The first is that the bill in question--the American Clean Energy and Security Act--has been introduced in the House, where legislation can be fast tracked much more easily than it can in the Senate. The second is that it's lead sponsor, Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-CA), is an extremely talented legislator, who has put a tremendous number of professional resources into making sure the government addresses climate change.

Almost two weeks ago, worried that the bill would stall, Waxman had to delay its first markup hearing. Then, last week, a rift emerged between Waxman and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, over the viability of passing major energy legislation this year. Now, House Blue Dogs are trying to torpedo the bill, and Waxman has been put in the position of promising to provide manufacturers and energy producers with billions of dollars worth of free pollution permits under its terms.

And that's all before there's been a single vote on it. We'll keep tracking the bill's progress. Climate change legislation reportedly remains President Obama's and Speaker Pelosi's chief legislative priority. But these developments must come as unwelcome news both to them and to the environmentalists who came out quickly in praise of the bill when it was released earlier this spring.

A prominent member of the Blue Dogs, of course, is Kentucky's own DINO Extraordinaire Ben Chandler. Benny Boy hasn't exactly made his position on cap-and-trade public, but given that stopping cap-and-trade would make Kentucky's coal industry grateful to the tune of millions in campaign cash, I can't imagine he's a vote Waxman's counting on.

Clean Up D.C. - Cage the Blue Dogs!

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ...