Climate Politics

Schwarzenegger set to steamroll environmental regs with budget plan

California is in a heap of trouble. A $42 billion heap, to be exact. I've never had to figure out how to fix a $42 billion deficit, and I don't envy Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger or his legislative sparring partners. But it's worth noting some environmental skullduggery that seems to be creeping into the negotiations. (OK, it's more straightforward than skullduggerous, but that's just too fun to say.)

First, there's a push in Schwarzenegger's proposed budget to exempt several transportation projects from environmental review. Or, to put it more plainly, "Just let us build our highways, you girly men." Supporters of the California Environmental Quality Act (traditionally known as "Democrats") are not happy.

Democratic aides leak list of Reid's top priorities for 2009

TAPPED's Tim Fernholz posts a list of the first 10 bills that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is planning to move on in the 111th Congress, according to Democratic aides. Energy and environmental issues will be addressed by some of the legislation, including the stimulus bill, which may have notable green elements. Here's the summary of the stimulus plan:

S.1 -- American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. "To create jobs, restore economic growth, and strengthen America's middle class through measures that modernize the nation's infrastructure, enhance America's energy independence, expand educational opportunities, preserve and improve affordable health care, provide tax relief, and protect those in greatest need, and for other purposes."

Also on tap:

S.5 -- Cleaner, Greener, and Smarter Act of 2009. This is a bill that focuses mainly on green investment and updating infrastructure to be more efficient and less polluting. But since a lot of those priorities are expected to be rolled into the stimulus package, one wonders if this is a vehicle for cap-and-trade and the Kyoto Protocols, given this provision: "requiring reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases in the United States and achieving reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases abroad."

Fernholz also lists the "Returning Government to the American People Act," a bill intended to "return the Government to the people by reviewing controversial 'midnight regulations' issued in the waning days of the Bush Administration." This too could have green implications.

Former N.Y. guv says stimulus funding should go to smart meters and plug-in charging stations

Newly minted Slate columnist Eliot Spitzer (yep, that one) has some deep thoughts about, ahem, stimulus. He says the big bucks should be spent on transforming the economy rather than on repairing the bridges, buildings, and other infrastructure of yesteryear, and he names two energy initiatives as top priorities:

In the energy arena, two investments are critical. The first is smart meters. These would permit, with a smart grid, time-of-day pricing for all consumers, with potentially double-digit reductions in peak demand, significant cost savings, and consequential remarkable energy and environmental impacts. These declines in peak demand would translate into dramatic reduction in the number of new power plants. The problem with installation of smart meters has been both the cost and, often, state-by-state regulatory hurdles. Now is the moment to sweep both aside and transform our entire electricity market into a smart market.

Second, the most significant hurdle to beginning the shift to nongasoline-based cars is the lack of an infrastructure to distribute the alternative energy, whether it is electricity -- plug-in hybrids -- or natural gas or even hydrogen. Once that infrastructure is there, it is said, consumers will be able to opt for the new technology. If that is so, let us build that infrastructure now: Transform existing gas stations so they can serve as distribution points for natural gas or hydrogen, build plug-in charging centers at parking lots, and design units for at-home garages. These would, indeed, be transformative investments.

Mississippi governor illustrates how the resource curse works in America

If you think of U.S. energy policy in Freudian terms, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour represents the pure, unbridled id. His energy strategy for the state? "More energy."

If you're wondering what that means, he spells it out:

Mississippi has large deposits of lignite coal, and the Mississippi Power Co. has announced that it will build a coal-fired electrical generation facility that will have carbon capture and sequestration. As I understand it, this coal-fired plant will have the emissions of a power plant powered by natural gas because the captured carbon will be compressed and then injected into older oil wells to boost production.

Rentech has announced that it's building a coal-to-liquids fuels plant near Natchez. In Greenville we've got a biodiesel plant going in. And Entergy has already applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build a second nuclear reactor near St. Francisville.

The response of his interlocutor T. Boone Pickens? "The rest of the country might want to take a look at your state."

Yeah, take a look at what the resource curse looks like in America: Among U.S. states Mississippi ranks 50th in infant mortality, first in children living in poverty, second in teen pregnancies, 48th in bachelor degrees, 50th in per-capita income, first in obesity, 49th in overall health, second in unemployment, and first in poverty.

Despite the grinding poverty, Mississippi ranks 14th in per-capita energy consumption, perhaps because it ranks 47th in energy efficiency.

Yes, the rest of the country might want to take a look at what a supply-obsessed "more energy" strategy yields.

House Speaker says she has the votes for a cap-and-trade bill, but …

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday said she has enough votes in the House to pass cap-and-trade legislation aimed at curbing greenhouse-gas emissions, but she's not certain Democrats will be able to do that in 2009.

"I'm not sure this year, because I don't know if we'll be ready," Pelosi said in a press conference yesterday. "We won't go before we're ready."

E&E reports ($ub req'd):

Pelosi acknowledged the December deadline looming over U.N. negotiations toward a new international climate change agreement. "We're sensitive to Copenhagen and the rest of that," she said, referring to the Denmark capital that will host the next annual U.N. conference. "And it's a very high priority for me."

But Pelosi said she could not guarantee that President-elect Barack Obama would be able to sign a cap-and-trade law before Copenhagen.

"I would certainly hope so, but I can't tell you that that is the case right now," she said. "Of all the bills that we have done, you know I sort of know the policies, I know what the possibilities are, this is the most, should we say, controversial, not controversial, mysterious."

Pelosi added that any legislation on cap-and-trade needs to be crafted carefully. "We have to do it right. I don't think we can take any chances. So this is going to take some very thorough scrutiny as to how we go forward."

Colorado's new senator married to environmental lawyer

While we don't know much about the environmental stances of newly appointed Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet (D), we do know that the man who will fill Ken Salazar's seat has at least one interesting tie to the green community.

His wife, Susan Daggett, is an environmental lawyer who formerly worked for the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, where she represented environmental groups in litigation related to the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, and other environmental laws.

Daggett has also worked for the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, and is now an independent consultant who works with conservation groups on oil and gas development issues in the Rocky Mountain region. She is currently a member of the Denver Board of Water Commissioners, a member of the board of trustees for The Nature Conservancy's Colorado chapter, and a member of Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's Greenprint Council, which helps direct the Greenprint Denver sustainable-development initiative.

Bennet is the son of Douglas Bennet, who has served as the CEO of NPR, the president of Wesleyan University, and assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs in the Clinton administration. Michael Bennet's brother, James Bennet, is the editor of The Atlantic Monthly and a former New York Times correspondent.

Browner included on Obama economic team discussions

Last week John Broder wrote in The New York Times about contrasting views on climate policy among two top Obama administration officials: economic team leader Larry Summers, who favors "safety valves," slow phase-ins, and caution, and climate/energy czar empress Carol Browner, who favors strict carbon restrictions, quickly implemented.

(Broder's article was irksome, by the way. At no point did he see fit to mention that the reason Browner and "environmentalists" favor stiffer carbon restrictions is not that they don't care about costs but that they disagree about costs. The casual reader is left with the impression that economists and other Very Serious people have to do a "reality check" for la-la-land greens who don't care about money or working people. Have we learned nothing from our experience with previous environmental regs? Why is historically ungrounded pessimism the same as "realism"? Grr. Wait, where was I?)

Anyway, one wouldn't want to make too much of this, but it seems like a good sign that earlier today when Obama met with his economic team, Browner was in the room.

Perhaps this is a signal that environmental policy gets a seat at the big kid's table and doesn't get filed under do-gooderism. Maybe we can't persuade the economists to take efficiency or innovation seriously, but at least someone representing an optimistic assessment of costs will be around to temper all the pessimism. Let's hope Summers takes her seriously despite her gender.

Obama taps oceans advocate Leon Panetta to head CIA

Obama is poised to nominate Leon Panetta to head the CIA, according to news reports today. Panetta is a long-time advocate for ocean protection, though he's not likely to get much sway in this area as CIA chief.

Panetta has been the chair and commissioner of the Pew Oceans Commission since 2003. In 2005, Pew joined with the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy to create the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative, which Panetta now co-chairs. He is also a board member of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. While in Congress, Panetta was active on efforts to protect the California coast, and sponsored legislation to create the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. He continues to be active with the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation.

Panetta represented California's 16th district in the House from 1977 to 1993, and was Bill Clinton's chief of staff from 1994 to 1997. Since then, he and his wife have founded the Leon & Sylvia Panetta Institute for Public Policy at California State University at Monterey Bay. He is also the Distinguished Scholar to the Chancellor of the California State University system, and teaches political science at Santa Clara University.

How green will the economic stimulus package be?

Attention in Washington is focused on an economic stimulus plan, which will be the first major agenda item for the new Congress that convenes tomorrow, and for the new president when he's sworn in on Jan. 20. But how green will the stimulus package be?

In his radio/YouTube address on Saturday, Obama said his proposal -- dubbed the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan" -- would create 3 million new jobs, 80 percent of them in the private sector, including jobs in the renewable-energy and efficiency industries. "To put people back to work today and reduce our dependence on foreign oil tomorrow, we will double renewable-energy production and renovate public buildings to make them more energy efficient," he said.

While Obama mentioned that a portion of the stimulus funding would go to repairing roads and bridges, he did not mention funding for public transportation, which many environmental groups and transit advocates are hoping will receive a substantial investment.

On Sunday, Obama's advisers said his plan will include $300 billion in tax cuts for workers and businesses, a move to appease conservatives who are concerned about government spending. The tax cuts would account for approximately 40 percent of the total package, which is likely to total between $675 billion and $775 billion over two years.

On Monday, President-elect Barack Obama met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other leaders from both parties on the Hill about his plan. "The reason we are here today is because the people can't wait. We have an extraordinary economic challenge ahead of us," he said.

Conservative icons take to The NYT to tout the magic of a revenue-neutral carbon tax

In last weekend's New York Times, conservatives Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) and Arthur Laffer had an op-ed claiming that a revenue-neutral "tax shift" would make conservatives "the new administration's best allies on climate change."

Color me skeptical. Laffer, of course, is a conservative legend, an economist whose curve has given a great many mendacious right-wing legislators intellectual cover in the war on taxes. Inglis is best known for telling Mitt Romney that Mormons aren't Christians.

It's notable when prominent conservatives don't try to deny or downplay climate change. But that's a mighty low bar to clear these days.

There is a crucial bit of weasel wording here: "If the bill's authors had instead proposed a simple carbon tax coupled with an equal, offsetting reduction in income taxes or payroll taxes, a dynamic new energy security policy could have taken root."

It matters a great deal whether a carbon tax reduces "income taxes or payroll taxes." Energy taxes are generally regressive unless offset. Reducing payroll taxes would provide some progressivity; reducing income taxes would provide additional regressivity. (Many workers pay no income tax at all.) You can bet conservatives would love that. "The good news is that both Democrats and Republicans could support a carbon tax offset by a payroll or income tax cut," they say. Everything's in that "or."

As with many carbon tax fans these days, Inglis wildly overstates the effects of a modest price on carbon: