Will Congress Pass a Much-Needed Environmental Bill? The Future Is Looking Dicey

By Tara Lohan, AlterNet. Posted May 19, 2009.

For the coal and electric utility industries, for example, the compromise bill requires that U.S. emissions be reduced 17 percent by 2020, down from the 20 percent reduction promoted in the initial draft. The new bill also tamps down an earlier provision that states get at least 25 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025, instead dropping that floor to 15 percent.

Additionally, although President Barack Obama had campaigned on a platform of selling 100 percent of so-called pollution permits to industry -- a strategy he said would generate $646 billion to fight global warming over the next decade -- the House compromise gives all but 15 percent of those permits away for free.

Writing for AlterNet, Daphne Wysham further explains some of the most serious grievances with the bill:

I'll spare you the many odiferous details and just highlight three particularly bad aspects: 1) It won't protect the poor from price-hikes as the price of carbon is slowly internalized into our energy bills, but will protect polluting industries by allowing them free pollution permits; 2) It opens the door to fraud and shell games instead of real climate action by setting up a huge carbon derivatives market; 3) It makes a mockery of our common understanding of "renewable energy," favoring dirty smokestacks over truly clean, renewable energy.

The bad news is that the bill is likely to get weaker instead of stronger as it is hashed out. As Kate Sheppard wrote for Grist: "Estimates of just how many changes to the climate bill the GOP members plan to offer run as high as 449, according to a list that has been passed around Capitol Hill. The list includes amendments that would allow individual states to opt out of the cap-and-trade program altogether, and another that would call the whole thing off should certain states lose 1,000 jobs due to restrictions on carbon emissions. Another proposed amendment would lower the 2020 emission-reduction targets."

Is the prognosis all bad? Definitely not and Sheppard points out that most Dems are squarely on board. "It appears at this point that the Dems are united in a desire to pass the bill out of committee, and aren't going to take Republican bait," she wrote.

And Krugman provides some larger perspective, "After all the years of denial, after all the years of inaction, we finally have a chance to do something major about climate change. Waxman-Markey is imperfect, it's disappointing in some respects, but it's action we can take now. And the planet won't wait."

See more stories tagged with: energy, global warming, climate change, waxman-markey, climate bill, climate legislation, aces, american clean energy and

Tara Lohan is a managing editor at AlterNet.

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