Climate Politics

As EPA moves on greenhouse gases, pressure builds on Congress to pass a climate bill

The Environmental Protection Agency is rapidly laying the groundwork for regulation of greenhouse-gas emissions, upping the pressure on Congress to pass a climate bill and beat the Obama administration to the punch. On Tuesday, the agency unveiled a plan that would require some 13,000 major polluters to report their emissions, creating the first comprehensive national […]

An argument for separating climate action and economic stimulus — sometimes

The January 12, 2009 issue of The New Yorker includes a well-written and in some ways inspiring article by Elizabeth Kolbert, profiling Van Jones, founder and president of Green for All. In the article, "Greening the Ghetto: Can a Remedy Serve for Both Global Warming and Poverty," Kolbert includes the following passage:

When I presented Jones's arguments to Robert Stavins, a professor of business and government at Harvard who studies the economics of environmental regulation, he offered the following analogy: "Let's say I want to have a dinner party. It's important that I cook dinner, and I'd also like to take a shower before the guests arrive. You might think, Well, it would be really efficient for me to cook dinner in the shower. But it turns out that if I try that I'm not going to get very clean and it's not going to be a very good dinner. And that is an illustration of the fact that it is not always best to try to address two challenges with what in the policy world we call a single policy instrument."

That brief quote generated a considerable amount of commentary in the blogosphere, much of it negative, and some of it downright hostile. This surprised me, because I didn't consider the proposition to be controversial, and I had chosen my words carefully, simply stating that "it is not always best to try to address two challenges with ... a single policy instrument." Two activities -- each with a sensible purpose -- can be very effective if done separately, but sometimes combining them means that one does a poor job with one, the other, or even both.

In the policy world, such dual-purpose policy instruments are sometimes a good, even great idea (gas taxes are an example), but other times, they are not. Whether trying to kill two birds with one stone makes sense depends upon the proximity of the birds, the weapon being used, and the accuracy of the stone-thrower. In the real world of important policy challenges -- such as environmental degradation and economic recession -- these are empirical questions and need to be examined case by case, which was my point in the brief quote. Since my further explanation of this point in the green jobs context (in an interview that lasted 30 to 60 minutes -- I don't recall) did not find its way into Ms. Kolbert's article (no fault of hers -- she had plenty of sources, plenty of material, and limited space), let me provide that explanation here.

Van Jones talks to Grist about his new job as Obama’s green jobs guru

It’s official: Van Jones is joining the Obama administration to be the voice of green jobs in the White House. “I’m honored and proud and humbled,” Jones told Grist on Tuesday, after the appointment became official. “Some of these ideas, we were kicking around in Oakland and the Bay Area for a long time; to […]

On energy, LCV tags Republicans as Limbaugh accolytes

LCV has their claws out! I love it.

Sustainable funding for sustainable infrastructure

This past Friday, Princeton University's PRIOR Center and New York University's Rudin Center convened a conference on what's next in transportation. The speakers, who included Mort Downey, former Deputy Secretary of Transportation and leader of the Obama transition team for transportation; Tony Shorris, former head of the New York and New Jersey Port Authority; current PA chairman Anthony Coscia; and others, agreed that we are at a crossroads in transportation policy.

On the one hand, there has never been more enthusiasm for new modes of transportation such as high-speed rail and new approaches such as vehicle mileage tolling and congestion pricing. Billions in the stimulus bill and the Obama budget for rail have set off a frenzy of excitement about building high-speed rail in the United States. At the same time, however, the old system of funding infrastructure, the Highway Trust Fund, fed by gas taxes, has never been under greater stress. With a new transportation authorization bill likely to move this year, we stand at a key juncture in U.S. transportation policy.

Transportation reform is vital to building a clean economy. Not surprisingly, therefore, much of the discussion at Princeton focused on the irony of trying to fund the reinvention of transportation out of a five-cents-per gallon gas tax -- at a time when reducing gas consumption has emerged as a national security, economic and environmental priority.

Currently, the Highway Trust Fund, built on nickel-a-gallon gas tax, accounts for the lion's share of infrastructure funding in the United States -- not only for roads, but for mass transit as well. But the fund is essentially depleted (having required a bailout last fall to stay solvent). Additionally, with construction prices higher but gas usage falling, the gas tax now provides only about half the purchasing power needed to sustain our current system, let alone make improvements.

Using less fertilizer has no meaningful effect on yield

Speaking of limiting the use of synthetic fertilizer, allow me to throw a little science your way courtesy of Science Daily and the USDA's Argriculural Research Service:

From 1998 to 2008, the researchers evaluated and compared potential management strategies for reducing nitrogen and nitrate nitrogen levels in soil and groundwater.

The first study showed that onions used only about 12 to 15 percent of the fertilizer nitrogen applied to the crop. Much of the remainder stayed in the top six feet of soil. The next year, Halvorson and his colleagues planted corn on the same land and found that it recovered about 24 percent of the fertilizer nitrogen that had been applied to the onion crop.

Following that study, the scientists grew alfalfa on the land for five years, then followed it with a watermelon crop, followed by a corn crop. In the first year that the corn was grown, an unfertilized control plot yielded about 250 bushels of corn.

By comparison, a plot fertilized with 250 pounds of nitrogen per acre yielded about 260 bushels, a small increase that required a significantly higher investment of time and money. Additional corn studies following onion in rotation showed corn was a good residual nitrogen scavenger crop.

Lieberman-Warner supporter Gregg says Obama climate proposal spends too much on 'special interests'

In 2007, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) supported the Lieberman-Warner climate bill. Widely regarded as something of a Frankenstein bill, it directed revenue at every conceivable constituency, based on sometimes tenuous connections to the climate issue. He said his "one reservation" was that more revenue wasn't returned to taxpayers.

Well! Obama just released a budget proposal that would return vastly more of the revenue -- around 82 percent -- to taxpayers. Gregg, who prides himself on being Mr. Moderate Bipartisan, would surely celebrate this development, right?

Nope:

"It's a stalking horse for raising taxes and spending it on special interests." Gregg said of the Obama plan in a telephone interview. "It's a non-starter."

Again, Obama's plan spends far less on "special interests" (Republican code for public investments) than a bill Gregg already supported. The only difference is that Obama's plan is Obama's.

Gregg has talked his way inside the carbon policy tent and now he's trying to burn it down. He's got lots of company.

Sea levels to surge at least a metre by 2100, scientists warn at Copenhagen meeting

COPENHAGEN — Months before make-or-break climate negotiations, a conclave of scientists warned Tuesday that the impact of global warming was accelerating beyond a forecast made by U.N. experts two years ago. Sea levels this century may rise several times higher than predictions made in 2007 that form the scientific foundation for policymakers today, the meeting […]

A mileage tax may be the best idea that everyone loves to hate

This sort of flew under the radar, but a few weeks ago a federal commission floated the idea of eventually replacing the gas tax with a tax based on the number of miles driven each year. What happened next was odd: progressives, conservatives, and wonks banded together to proclaim a mileage tax to be a stupid idea.

A mileage tax is not a stupid idea. It may prove to be unworkable for technical, political, or even cultural reasons, but at root a mileage tax is both a very good idea and also possibly a necessary one as we undertake a shift away from the internal combustion engine. It's no surprise to see politicians (like Obama) run screaming from this proposal, but why are the pundits piling on?

Before delving into the specific arguments for and against a mileage tax, it's worth noting that the entire country of Holland is doing exactly what commentators have deemed stupid or impossible: starting in 2011, the Netherlands will phase in a vehicle-tracking scheme that applies dynamic pricing to every mile driven. Pricing will vary by vehicle type, time of day, and location, in order to curb both congestion and carbon emissions. The program is designed to be revenue-neutral, and because the government is simultaneously phasing out a steep motor vehicle tax, the plan should end up reducing the burden on low-income drivers. I mention this not to suggest that the U.S. can or should do exactly as Holland does, but just to point out that the concept isn't quite as crazily unworkable as some seem to think.

EPA announces plans to regulate coal ash

In response to December’s giant coal ash spill in Kingston, Tenn., the Environmental Protection Agency on Monday announced that it is beginning the process of regulating the waste ponds around the country. The December spill spurred increased attention to coal-waste issues around the country. The 1.1 billion gallons of slurry flooded more than 300 acres […]