What do turmoil in the Middle East, a Japanese earthquake and the approaching summer all have in common? The answer is that they all raise both the cost of and the public's anxiety about energy. Right on the cue, on March 30, the White House offered its new plan to protect "America's Energy Security." Unfortunately, the plan is incredibly timid. Despite President Barack Obama's attempts to turn his last State of the Union address into a "winning the future" parade, this energy proposal is stuck in the past, coming nowhere close enough to accommodate the pressing demands of a looming energy crisis.
"Energy Security" is DC-talk for oil drilled in the United States, as opposed to imported oil. Accordingly, the first part of the White House's release concerns the expansion of domestic production: "Our dependence on foreign oil threatens our national security, our environment and our economy. We must make the investments in clean energy sources that will put Americans back in control of our energy future, create millions of new jobs and lay the foundation for long-term economic security." The hope is that, by 2025, America will have slashed its 11 million barrels-a-day intake by one-third by increasing its domestic output. However, the plan offers nothing in terms of imposing limits on carbon emissions. Of course, a cap-and-trade strategy—a system advocated by both Obama and his adversary John McCain during the 2008 election campaign—would significantly help to control pollution by capping carbon emissions, and it would make our oil industry more competitive by providing economic incentives for reducing pollutants. But at some point between the 2008 campaign and now, cap-and-trade, or any kind of carbon-pricing agenda, became severely stigmatized, and is no longer politically feasible. Another one of Sarah Palin's hyperbolized misnomers—she wrote an Op-Ed in the Washington Post in 2009 decrying "cap-and-tax" as an "enormous threat to our economy"—has been the centerpiece for a strong wave of aversion to any kind of progressive energy reform amid an unstable economy, despite the fact that both a cap-and-trade and carbon tax would reduce the deficit, and, in some versions, provide a rebate to taxpayers. Additionally, a Gallup poll conducted in early March found that somehow 48 percent of Americans worry about global warming "not much [or] not at all," so it's clear that any kind of "radical" forward-thinking energy legislation would evaporate in Congress.
Instead, Washington has suggested a "clean-energy standard," or CES, with this new proposal. Perhaps the most significant portion of the plan is "an ambitious but achievable goal of generating 80 percent of the Nation's electricity from clean energy sources by 2035" through increased use of wind, solar, nuclear, and clean coal. But don't let the White House's rhetoric fool you; there is nothing innovative or "ambitious" about this plan. To start, this clean-energy standard would only apply to electricity, which means it will only catch about a third of all emissions. In addition, a CES will do nothing to reduce the deficit, as it panders to conservative anti-carbon tax philosophy and gives utilities free licenses to emit a certain amount of carbon. Robert Stavins, an environmental economist at Harvard University, has addressed the idea of a clean-energy standard before and said it "would accomplish considerably less and would impose much higher costs per ton of emissions reduction than cap-and-trade would". This standard is merely a pale imitation of everything that preceded it: it's less market-based, and worse for emissions, for the deficit, and for our international strategy.
But for all the flaws of this administration's new policy, they certainly got the politics right. The combination of the right-wing hullabaloo over a carbon-tax in Washington, American indifference to global warming, and rising gas prices left the president with very few politically-acceptable options to choose from. The case for a CES is clearly a political one, based not on what the administration thinks we should do, but on the constraints of what we can do. So it's a start. And, in fact, a number of prominent Republicans—Richard Lugar, Haley Barbour, and Lindsey Graham—have come out in favor of a CES, so if they remain true to their word—a tall task for some of today's GOPers—it is possible that we'll see this legislation passed. Still, it remains a massive concession and will only generate incremental gains. If it is able to survive Congress with most of its provisions intact, it is incumbent upon President Obama and his party to use the legislation as a platform for more progressive action in the future. Over the last couple of decades, it has almost seemed as if the rate at which our dependence on foreign oil has been commensurate with the number of empty promises made by our presidents concerning any change—both trapped in an inexorable incline, without anything actually being done. If the president wishes to take global warming seriously and "win the future," he and his Democratic cohort will have to quit playing politics and stand up and fight for the policy they believe in.
Source: http://www.miscellanynews.com
"Energy Security" is DC-talk for oil drilled in the United States, as opposed to imported oil. Accordingly, the first part of the White House's release concerns the expansion of domestic production: "Our dependence on foreign oil threatens our national security, our environment and our economy. We must make the investments in clean energy sources that will put Americans back in control of our energy future, create millions of new jobs and lay the foundation for long-term economic security." The hope is that, by 2025, America will have slashed its 11 million barrels-a-day intake by one-third by increasing its domestic output. However, the plan offers nothing in terms of imposing limits on carbon emissions. Of course, a cap-and-trade strategy—a system advocated by both Obama and his adversary John McCain during the 2008 election campaign—would significantly help to control pollution by capping carbon emissions, and it would make our oil industry more competitive by providing economic incentives for reducing pollutants. But at some point between the 2008 campaign and now, cap-and-trade, or any kind of carbon-pricing agenda, became severely stigmatized, and is no longer politically feasible. Another one of Sarah Palin's hyperbolized misnomers—she wrote an Op-Ed in the Washington Post in 2009 decrying "cap-and-tax" as an "enormous threat to our economy"—has been the centerpiece for a strong wave of aversion to any kind of progressive energy reform amid an unstable economy, despite the fact that both a cap-and-trade and carbon tax would reduce the deficit, and, in some versions, provide a rebate to taxpayers. Additionally, a Gallup poll conducted in early March found that somehow 48 percent of Americans worry about global warming "not much [or] not at all," so it's clear that any kind of "radical" forward-thinking energy legislation would evaporate in Congress.
Instead, Washington has suggested a "clean-energy standard," or CES, with this new proposal. Perhaps the most significant portion of the plan is "an ambitious but achievable goal of generating 80 percent of the Nation's electricity from clean energy sources by 2035" through increased use of wind, solar, nuclear, and clean coal. But don't let the White House's rhetoric fool you; there is nothing innovative or "ambitious" about this plan. To start, this clean-energy standard would only apply to electricity, which means it will only catch about a third of all emissions. In addition, a CES will do nothing to reduce the deficit, as it panders to conservative anti-carbon tax philosophy and gives utilities free licenses to emit a certain amount of carbon. Robert Stavins, an environmental economist at Harvard University, has addressed the idea of a clean-energy standard before and said it "would accomplish considerably less and would impose much higher costs per ton of emissions reduction than cap-and-trade would". This standard is merely a pale imitation of everything that preceded it: it's less market-based, and worse for emissions, for the deficit, and for our international strategy.
But for all the flaws of this administration's new policy, they certainly got the politics right. The combination of the right-wing hullabaloo over a carbon-tax in Washington, American indifference to global warming, and rising gas prices left the president with very few politically-acceptable options to choose from. The case for a CES is clearly a political one, based not on what the administration thinks we should do, but on the constraints of what we can do. So it's a start. And, in fact, a number of prominent Republicans—Richard Lugar, Haley Barbour, and Lindsey Graham—have come out in favor of a CES, so if they remain true to their word—a tall task for some of today's GOPers—it is possible that we'll see this legislation passed. Still, it remains a massive concession and will only generate incremental gains. If it is able to survive Congress with most of its provisions intact, it is incumbent upon President Obama and his party to use the legislation as a platform for more progressive action in the future. Over the last couple of decades, it has almost seemed as if the rate at which our dependence on foreign oil has been commensurate with the number of empty promises made by our presidents concerning any change—both trapped in an inexorable incline, without anything actually being done. If the president wishes to take global warming seriously and "win the future," he and his Democratic cohort will have to quit playing politics and stand up and fight for the policy they believe in.
Source: http://www.miscellanynews.com
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