Hill Heat

Visit Hill Heat’s continuing coverage of. S 2191.

The initial draft.

Witnesses

• Kevin Anton – president, Alcoa Materials Management
• Frances Beinecke – president, Natural Resources Defense Council
• William R. Moomaw – director, Institute for the Environment, Tufts University
• Will Roehm – vice president, Montana Grain Growers Association
• Paul Cicio – executive director, Industrial Energy Consumers of America

More on the Lieberman-Warner legislation….

PG&E

We believe America’s Climate Security Act provides a solid starting point for constructively advancing a comprehensive, national response to and policy on climate change. Senators Lieberman and Warner have developed a thoughtful proposal that recognizes the urgent need for action by designing a program to achieve significant emission reductions from all sectors of the economy.

From Nature, Sen. Barbara Boxer:

Today will be remembered as a turning point in the fight against global warming. We have the framework here. Every single issue that any one could raise about global warming has been raised in this bill, giving us the perfect place to start.

Sen. Bernie Sanders is more critical:

“The problem is even worse than many have previously suggested,” Sanders said. “If anything, the legislation Senator Boxer and I introduced in January, the strongest legislation introduced in Congress to address global warming, is probably too conservative to address the problem. It is likely that we should be even more aggressive in our targets and timetables for mandatory reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.”

In a Senate floor statement, Sanders cited the views of major environmental groups on the Lieberman-Warner legislation.

Environmental organizations have begun responding to the release of the Lieberman-Warner legislation.

Friends of the Earth

Global warming legislation expected to be introduced tomorrow could provide giveaways worth hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars to polluting industries, according to an analysis of a draft of the legislation conducted by Friends of the Earth. . . . The Friends of the Earth analysis found that the coal industry in particular stands to benefit from this legislation, precisely because it is currently the industry most responsible for global warming pollution. Depending on market conditions, the coal industry could receive permits worth up to $231 billion in the first year alone, 48 percent of the total permit allocation.

Environmental Defense

Lieberman and Warner have paved the way for a historic committee vote on a bill that promises to make great strides toward climate security and economic growth. Thanks to their thoughtful approach we’re moving beyond talk and quickly toward action. . . . The emissions goal is aggressive in the short-term and that will have a real impact on investment decisions made now. Most scientists say we need to cut U.S. emissions by about 80 percent, and we continue to believe that deeper reductions are needed long-term. This bill is a good start in that direction, and we will continue to work toward those longer term reductions.

Sierra Club

The bill is a significant political step forward for the U.S. Congress, but unfortunately the legislation as introduced still falls short what is demanded by the science and the public to meet the challenge of global warming. . . .The Lieberman-Warner bill, as introduced, leaves us in serious danger of reaching the tipping points that scientists tell us could lead to catastrophic changes to the climate. Polluters should pay for what they do and any bill must allocate allowances for the public benefit, not private windfalls.

The Sierra Club finds that the bill falls short of the standards of scientific integrity and economic fairness, calling for an economy-wide cap of 20% by 2020 and 80% by 2050, and full auction of emissions allowances.

NRDC

Although this bill is a strong start, NRDC supports changes that would improve the bill by ensuring that emission reductions keep pace with the science, and by reducing free allocations and directing additional resources to provide more support for critical program features, including consumer and low-income protections, safeguards for affected workers, and faster deployment of energy efficiency and renewable energy solutions.

Clean Air Watch

From our standpoint, it’s a good-faith political compromise, but it seems very unlikely to go very far unless President Bush does an unexpected 180 degree reversal. And it’s got some very significant warts.

Clean Air Watch criticizes the giveaway of emissions credits and notes that the actual reductions in the bill come out to about 51% of overall US emissions by 2050 because the cap is not economy-wide.

Earthjustice

We applaud Senators Joe Lieberman and John Warner for their leadership on global warming. . . . While we commend several of the improvements Senators Lieberman and Warner made to their bill, such as increasing the 2020 target to a 15% reduction in covered sectors and recognizing the vital check-and-balance role that enforcement must play in any climate bill, their bill must be strengthened in some vital areas.

Earthjustice calls for economy-wide coverage, an 80% reduction (not 51-63% reduction) by 2050, increased auction, and the restoration of funding for international relief.

Nature Conservancy

The Lieberman-Warner bill offers a strong starting point for action. . . . We are especially pleased by the commitment to conservation and protecting wildlife and habitat reflected in the bill. Senators Warner and Lieberman have been leaders in recognizing the magnitude of the challenge climate change poses for the natural world and for all of us.

League of Conservation Voters

Today’s introduction of America’s Climate Security Act marks an important step by this Congress to address the urgent problem of global warming. We applaud Senators Joe Lieberman and John Warner for their leadership and for their bipartisan commitment to moving America closer to real solutions to this very urgent problem. . . . We will continue to work to increase the reduction targets and the sectors covered in both the near and long term. We will also work to significantly increase the amount of allowances toward our goal of 100 percent auction, while ensuring that the auction revenues go to directly helping consumers, to increasing renewable energy and energy efficiency, and to helping impacted populations adapt to global warming both at home and abroad.

National Wildlife Federation

This is a bipartisan breakthrough on global warming that takes us a giant step closer to a historic vote in the United States Senate. I commend Senator Lieberman and Senator Warner for drafting a strong bill to protect people and wildlife from global warming.

As reported at Gristmill, Sens. Lieberman and Warner intend to submit the draft of their cap-and-trade legislation, America’s Climate Security Act (S. 2191), today. The legislation incorporated suggestions from stakeholders to adjust some figures from the draft outline released at the beginning of August. Notably, the 2020 reduction from 2005 emissions levels is increased from 10% to 15% (the Sanders-Boxer target), and the peak auction percentage (reached in 2036) is increased from 52% to 73%. There are numerous other components, adjustments, and details.

How does Lieberman-Warner stack up to the Sanders-Lautenberg principles or the Step It Up 2 provisions?

Sanders-Lautenberg

• CAP: The 2020 target is as strong as Sanders-Boxer, but the 2050 target is much weaker (67% by 2050 instead of 80%) and only 75% of emissions are regulated; there are numerous explicit provisions to loosen controls to protect the economy but none to change them to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of GHG; however, it calls for a report every three years looks at both economic and environmental impacts
• POLLUTER PAYS: The bill does not transition quickly to a full auction. Spending of auction revenues is generally in line with Sanders-Lautenberg, though large amounts go to CCS development
• ENCOURAGE STATE LEADERSHIP: The bill explicitly rewards states with stricter standards than the federal cap
• ADDITIONAL PROVISIONS: The bill includes green building standards and low-carbon fuel provisions, among others, but does not require new coal plants to have CCS
• NO LOOPHOLES AND LIMITED OFFSETS: The annual caps may be temporarily increased by as much as 20% if later caps are tightened and companies pay interest on “borrowed” allowances; offsets are limited to 15% of allowances and are held to the Sanders-Lautenberg standard

Step It Up 2

• GREEN JOBS: There is some funding for green jobs, but not 5 million by 2015
• EFFICIENCY: There is not a federal efficiency standard of 20% greater efficiency by 2015
• CAP: As decribed above, the cap is not economy-wide, and is 15% by 2020 and 67% by 2050, not 30% by 2020 and 80% by 2050
• NO NEW COAL: There is not a moratorium on new coal plants without CCS

Full comparison of October release with the original August draft below the jump.

Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) yesterday released a statement of principles for judging climate change legislation. Both are members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s Subcommittee on Private Sector and Consumer Solutions to Global Warming and Wildlife Protection, representing the majority with Sen. Lieberman and Sen. Baucus; Lieberman and Warner plan to submit cap-and-trade legislation to the subcommittee today.

Earlier in the month, a group of liberal Democratic senators outlined their goals for climate change legislation, praising the Lieberman-Warner effort.

Here are the Sanders-Lautenberg principles in short:

• Targets must be set to cap atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases at a max of 450 PPM CO2 equivalent, latest science continually taken into acount
• Quick transition to polluter-pays auction, with monies providing economic relief and significant investment in renewables and energy efficiency
• No federal pre-emption of state efforts
• Additional policies such as building and fuel standards and CCS requirements that ensure rapid deployment of clean energy technology
• Offsets should be limited, real, verifiable, additional, permanent and enforceable

Democratic Senators Bob Menendez (NJ), Jack Reed (RI), John Kerry (MA), Russ Feingold (WI), Chris Dodd (CT) and Dick Durbin (IL) wrote last week to Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and John Warner (R-VA), the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Subcommittee, to weigh in on the draft plan of the legislation the two are developing.

They mirror the previous praise by Democrats on the subcommittee in their letter:

We write today to congratulate you on your leadership in addressing global warming. The outline of proposed legislation that you distributed last month is an important start and your efforts to forge a bipartisan bill and attempt to pass a meaningful climate change bill this Congress deserve praise and recognition.

They go on to express some concerns, though without the vehemence of the Kit Bond’s conservative criticism:

• Calling for a 80% reduction by 2050 with specific and aggressive interim targets, as opposed to the 70% target in the draft
• Reiterating opposition to “safety valve” legislation like that in Bingaman-Specter
• Criticizing the degree to which free allocations of emissions credits are given to the fossil fuel sector
• Calling for more emphasis on energy efficiency and renewable energy: “take some of the considerable resources generated by the auction process and devote them to further research and incentives for renewable energy . . . make the bill more balanced by devoting a larger share of the allowance value to public purposes, including support for energy efficiency and renewables”

From the Politico, at today’s PPI forum Joe Lieberman said he and John Warner are open to changing their bill from a proposed 76% give-away of pollution credits to 100% auction, following the polluter pays principle:

We’ve heard [calls for a 100 percent auction] from some stakeholders and heard that from some of our members. We’re thinking about it. Warner and I haven’t closed our minds to that. It’s on the table.

Senate

According to CQ.com, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee chair Barbara Boxer asked Joseph I. Lieberman, I-Conn., and John W. Warner, R-Va., “to write a bill that would cap nationwide greenhouse gas emissions.” They released the skeleton of the legislation in August and plan to introduce a final draft by the end of September. However, “Because the climate-change issue is so complex, marking up the bill will be no small task.” There are several other climate bills, including S. 309 (Sanders-Boxer) and S.1766 (Bingaman-Specter).

CQ.com reports that Harry Reid “plans to allow floor time for the Lieberman-Warner bill this fall if it wins approval in Boxer’s committee. No matter what the bill looks like, it will face procedural objections that can be overcome only with a 60-vote majority. It is unclear whether Reid would have enough votes to move beyond that obstacle.”

House

According to CQ, Energy and Commerce Committee chair John D. Dingell, D-Mich., also intends to introduce climate legislation to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 60 percent to 80 percent by 2050, although he has not announced any specific plans for the bill.

A first hurdle is the reconciliation process for the energy legislation that passed each chamber (HR 3221, and the Senate version of HR 6), which Dingell will be heavily involved in.

Dingell also announced his intentions to introduce global warming legislation for a carbon tax, a hike in the gas tax, and ending the McMansion mortgage deduction (homes larger than 3,000 square feet) while increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

The draft Lieberman-Warner plan has been praised and critiqued by environmental organizations. What are the fellow senators on the Environment and Public Works Committee saying?

Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) eviscerates the plan:

Your proposal would impose hardship on U.S. citizens and threaten robust growth in the U.S. economy because it does not preempt similar conflicting, overlapping or duplicative state and regional carbon control programs… because it does not provide legal certainty for carbon sequestration… because it requires significant harm to the economy before triggering cost containment and management measures… because it fails to protect low-income families and consumers sufficiently [because it] first requires setting aside allowances to meet 100% of the needs of rural electric cooperatives [and] by allowing cost relief to also go instead to middle-income consumers and energy efficiency programs [and] because the proposal also allows allowances to go to [various worthy policy goals]… because it uses a Carbon Market Efficiency Board to employ cost containment measures [instead of] a defined price point of carbon allowances… because it allocates allowances arbitrarily across economy sectors and at variance with their emissions and impact on workers, consumers and families [because they] do not reflect those sectors’ contributions to carbon equivalent emissions… because it would raise costs above those needed for emissions reduction to pay for environmental, energy and social programs [instead of] funding them through the General Fund of the U.S. Treasury… because it delays technology development financing [instead of] immediate, significant flows of funding to carbon emissions capture and storage technology development and deployment.

As does Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK):

The principles of Lieberman-Warner climate bill, as outlined today, fail to meet the two requirements established by the Senate to pass climate legislation. The Lieberman-Warner bill will significantly harm the United States economy and fail to mandate reductions from the developing world. With China now the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gasses, it’s even more important that the developing nations CO2 emissions be taken into consideration. As a result, I have long supported efforts that build off of the President’s Asia-Pacific Partnership that seeks to promote technology sharing among developing nations as the way forward.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) effusively praises the draft bill:

The Lieberman-Warner proposal is a huge breakthrough in the fight against global warming. The Lieberman Warner bill will be the fifth economy-wide Senate proposal, and in addition, there are several sector-by-sector proposals, demonstrating that an increasing number of U.S. Senators want to address this issue now. When I took the gavel of the Environment and Public Works Committee, I pledged to focus on global warming and on bringing bipartisanship back to the committee. With the Lieberman-Warner bipartisan proposal, those goals have been met, and we now plan to pass legislation through the committee before the end of the year. This proposal has taken good ideas from a variety of bills, and will be an excellent starting point for the committee.

As does Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD):

Today Senators Joseph Lieberman, I-CT, and John Warner, R-VA, released the detailed outline of an economy-wide global warming bill that would significantly limit greenhouse gases. I am extremely pleased with the comprehensive nature of their bill and the strong, bipartisan leadership they bring to this critical effort. I also believe this bill has important national security implications because it will lessen our dependence on foreign energy and help achieve energy independence. We have an historic opportunity to address the most compelling environmental, energy independence and national security issue facing our nation. I pledge to work closely with my colleagues to turn this historic opportunity into reality.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is more measured:

“I commend Senator Lieberman and Senator Warner for their hard work in putting together legislation that our subcommittee will consider. There is no doubt that we need bipartisan support in the United States Senate to address the most significant environmental threat our planet has ever seen.

Given the dimensions of the crisis, however, I strongly believe that we must act aggressively to halt and then reverse global warming. I am concerned that the outline my colleagues put out today, which is a good starting point, does not go far enough. As good as it is, I hope we can do better. As a member of the subcommittee, I look forward to working with them.

The people of the United States want strong action, and the Senate must follow. In my view, we can, in fact, break our dependency on fossil fuels, substantially lower greenhouse gas emissions, move to sustainable energy and, in the process, create millions of good paying jobs. Those are the principles that I will fight for.

There do not appear to be statements from Democratic senators Baucus, Carper, Clinton, Lautenberg, Klobuchar, or Whitehouse, or Republican senators Voinovich, Isakson, Vitter, Barrasso, Craig, or Alexander.

Environmental Defense was one of several prominent environmental groups to embrace the Lieberman-Warner proposal:

Joe Lieberman and John Warner are providing remarkable leadership. By developing an approach that has environmental integrity and support from both sides of the aisle they are doing what is necessary to actually make law.

Matt Stoller of Open Left, who has been highly skeptical of all cap-and-trade approaches, let alone the Lieberman-Warner proposal, wrote this analysis yesterday:

Anyway, the bill Bush is going to get behind is the Lieberman-Warner bill, opposed by the Sierra Club but supported by the intensely corporate-friendly and compromised Environmental Defense. There’s a green civil war coming, with ED President Fred Krupp playing the role of the DLC. The other environmental groups are split, with the Pew Center and the Nature Conservancy following Krupp over the cliff. The Union of Concerned Scientists and NRDC are ‘concerned’, and the LCV and the Sierra Club are clear that this is a bad move. If you want to see a dysfunctional, degraded, and compromised movement that have lost touch with their mission statements, look no further than ED, Pew, and the Nature Conservancy.

Today, Tony Kreindler of ED responded on Stoller’s site. Here’s an excerpt:

What Lieberman and Warner have offered is a blueprint for a climate bill with an airtight emissions cap and a market for carbon that will spur investment in cost-effective emissions reductions. They also have a plan for managing economic impacts, and importantly, it doesn’t compromise the integrity of the emissions cap. Does that favor corporations over the environment? We don’t think so, and we won’t support a bill that fails the environmental test.

The discussion is continued at Open Left.