carbon regulation

Energy portions of Waxman/Markey compensate (in part) for carbon weaknesses

There are some gloomy reactions to the Waxman/Markey bill around the interwebs — see, for instance, Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, Kevin Drum, and Brad Plumer. I’m not going to claim the bill is perfect, but I think the pessimism is excessive. It comes down to this: these guys are focusing too much on the carbon […]

Regional climate policy is still moving forward in the Northwest

Over the last couple of weeks, there’s been a lot of hand-wringing about the state of climate policy in the Northwest. Washington’s citizen-backed renewable energy standard is in jeopardy and neither Oregon nor Washington appears close to implementing the Western Climate Initiative. Even British Columbia’s pioneering carbon tax is taking fire. Freak out! Everybody panic! […]

WSJ: hacks and handout-seekers hate O's climate plan

Environmental Capital reports that Obama's approach to climate change legislation is foundering, because it's tied to an ambitious social agenda. Which is weird, because Obama's cap-and-trade proposal isn't tied to an ambitious social agenda.

Many Democrats are upset that President Obama's budget earmarks most of the $646 billion in cap-and-trade revenue for generic tax cuts and to help fund other programs, rather than for specific help to cushion the blow of increased climate regulation.

This is a bit tricky to parse, but it helps if you understand that the word "earmark" here is used to mean "the opposite of an earmark." Congresscritters want the money from cap-and-trade for projects in their own states (green infrastructure, vote-buying, what-have-you), and Obama wants to return most of it to taxpayers.

So where is this "ambitious health and social welfare agenda" stuff coming from? For that, we are referred to Bush-era EPA official and liar G. Tracy Mehan, III. Mehan has penned a fairly boring article in which he runs down the usual pros and cons of various flavors of carbon taxation, and then concludes:

Are emission targets ever really ‘science-based’?

Are emission targets ever really ‘science-based’? Or are we playing a dangerous game of self-deception? Last month, Senator Barbara Boxer proposed six principles for climate legislation, the first of which was: 1. Reduce emissions to levels guided by science to avoid dangerous global warming. The National Call to Action on Global Warming, announced last week […]

New York governor goes in the tank for industry, backs away from climate plan

It's a shocking reversal from one of the states that pioneered efforts to deal with global warming from electric power plants.

The New York Times reveals that New York state's accidental Gov. David A. Paterson has caved in to energy industry demands and now appears ready to run roughshod over his own experts to give industry free carbon emission permits.