Articles by David Roberts

WaPo confirms influence of Obama's top economic advisers; climate policy suffers

There was a time (er, last week) when I was mocked for lamenting the influence of Obama's top economic advisers on climate policy. I still think I'll have the last laugh. Or cry, as the case may be.

This is from a story by David Cho, just out in the Washington Post, about the extraordinary influence of Summers and Geithner in the administration:

The influence of their partnership was also evident during the battle over the budget, which began weeks before Obama was sworn into office.

Meeting in January on the eighth floor of the transition team's office in downtown Washington, Geithner pressed the incoming president to commit to cutting the deficit to 3 percent of the economy over the next five years, which would keep the nation's debt roughly in line with normal economic growth. Summers quickly backed him.

Some, including economist Jared Bernstein, resisted, saying that such a strict limit would make it more difficult to confront the many challenges ahead and that the size of the government's emergency response to the economy and financial markets would make the cap tough to maintain.

In February, the entire economic team convened in the windowless Roosevelt Room in the White House. Obama abruptly ended the debate. Geithner and Summers would have their way.

"The two of them being together ended up being pretty decisive for President Obama," an administration official said.

Rubinite deficit hawkery is back! Super. Atrios dryly notes:

Jared Bernstein's the crazy liberal who might want to spend a few bucks on social programs. Meanwhile Larry and Tim are shoveling cash into the Banksters' pockets as fast as they can. But, you know, they're the ones who are "serious" about the deficit.

Summers, you'll recall, was credited with reducing the amount of infrastructure spending in the stimulus bill. Here's what Bernstein had to say [PDF] before Congress last year, arguing for substantially higher infrastructure spending:

Obama's team shows it's unprepared to defend his cap-and-trade proposal

The president's surrogates are fanning out in the press to defend his budget proposals. To my eye, they're not doing a very good job defending the cap-and-trade system that was laid out in the budget.

Right now, the intellectual leader of the Republican Party, Newt Gingrich, is out bashing the cap-and-trade system as an "energy tax" on everyone who uses electricity or gasoline. This is entirely predictable -- it has been and will be the central attack on carbon pricing.

On The Week, Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag was pressed relentlessly by host George Stephanopoulos (the very essence of a Conservative Conventional Wisdom Delivery System [CCWDS]) to admit that the cap-and-trade system is a tax. Orszag kind of rambles around and concludes by saying yeah, it will raise energy costs, but overall, American families will come out ahead under Obama's budget. Which is fine, as far as it goes, though it ends up sound somewhat evasive and doesn't constitute a defense of the program at all.

For one thing, Orszag might try using the words "climate change." More specifically, in the budget Obama specifically tied carbon revenues to a payroll tax that would offset the rise in energy costs for the bottom 60 percent of American income earners. What was the point of doing that if not to have a specific and pointed rejoinder to douchebags like Gingrich? It's not just the overall budget that would benefit most American families, it's the carbon cap-and-trade system itself. (See also Jefferson Morley.)

Similarly, here's chief of staff Rahm Emanuel on Face the Nation (the energy bit comes about seven minutes in):

Obama budget proposal would cut off funding for Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump

Here's one bit of news I missed in all the hubbub about Obama's proposed budget: apparently it kills Yucca Mountain dead, once and for all.

Here's what Harry Reid says on the Senate website:

Dear Fellow Nevadan-

Today was an extremely important day in our fight against the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. In his budget request for 2010, President Obama will announce plans to devise a new strategy to find another solution to deal with the nation's nuclear waste that does not include storing it in Nevada.

As Nevadans know, I have been successfully fighting the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump since I began my career in the Senate. I have had tremendous help from our state's leaders and thousands of Nevadans along the way. President Obama joined the fight against the nuclear waste dump in his Presidential campaign, and I am proud that now he will deliver on his promise.

President Obama has made a critical first step towards fulfilling his promise to end the Yucca Mountain project, and I could not be happier for the people of Nevada. Make no mistake: this represents a significant and lasting victory in our battle to protect Nevada from becoming the country's toxic wasteland. I have worked for over two decades with help from our state's leaders and thousands of Nevadans to stop Yucca Mountain. President Obama recognizes that the proposed dump threatens the health and safety of Nevadans and millions of Americans, and his commitment to stop this terrible project could not be more clear.

Why cap-and-trade requires that Bangladesh evict radical Islamists

David Frum is known as one of the more sensible, policy-oriented conservative writers -- he parted ways with the hyper-ideological National Review over non-lockstep comments about the woeful state of the Republican Party. So I came to his posts on cap-and-trade hoping to find some glimmer of ... something. Maybe hope that there is a way to connect with reasonable conservatives, common ground from which to begin a dialog.

First Frum wrote a post that got virtually everything about the policy wrong. Ezra Klein tried to set him straight. Frum responded with ... more misunderstandings. (Ezra tried again.) In particular I want to focus on two bits:

Yes people can escape the tax by using less electricity. But the tax is still falling on them - they are just feeling its effects in a different form, by reducing their consumption. They are still worse off, just worse off in a different way.

Uh ... there's literally no way to use less electricity without being "worse off"? There's no such thing as energy efficiency?

And then:

(Sorry - I know Ezra will say that the point is to persuade the utilities to rely on windmills instead. But that's energy fantasy, not energy policy!)

There's no such thing as renewable energy either!

I was in the midst of grappling with some reasonable way of responding to someone who doesn't believe in energy efficiency or renewable energy when I came across this comment on the post, from reader sinz54:

There is a big difference here: If an American company dumps waste into the Hudson River, they are hurting mostly AMERICANS. So that's a national problem for our fellow citizens. Whereas if an American company dumps carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, it is primarily the undeveloped world that will be hurt by it. Unlike America, nearly all of Bangladesh (population 200 million) will be flooded out when the north polar ice cap melts. So we Americans are essentially restricting our economy, and impoverishing our own people, to keep the undeveloped world safe from global warming. Why are we doing them this multi-trillion-dollar favor without them paying us for it? The world cannot control global warming without U.S. cooperation. We should strike a very hard bargain for that cooperation. For example, I would insist that Bangladesh clean up its act and kick *ALL* radical Islamists out of their country before we do anything to keep their country from being flooded. We've got the political leverage. Let's use it!

I am rarely speechless, but ... I really don't know what to say about this stuff. I don't see how a group of people in this universe are going to make it back to the real world in time to create bipartisan climate policy.