legislation

Boucher bill would put billions into carbon-capture-and-sequestration technologies

Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), one of the House’s biggest coal supporters, on Tuesday reintroduced a bill that would invest billions of dollars in the development of carbon-capture-and-sequestration (CCS) technology for fossil-fuel power plants. Like a similar measure Boucher introduced last year, the “Carbon Capture and Storage Early Deployment Act” would create a $1 billion annual […]

EPA tells White House that greenhouse gases are threat to public welfare

The Environmental Protection Agency told the White House on Friday that climate change is a danger to public welfare — a move that takes the administration a step closer to regulating planet-warming greenhouse gases. The agency’s finding — which the White House will now review — comes in response to an April 2007 Supreme Court […]

Obama hypes the green aspects of his budget plan

President Obama is giving top billing to clean energy and green jobs as he promotes his $3.6 trillion budget plan. Addressing a group of clean-tech entrepreneurs and researchers on Monday, the president noted that his proposed budget includes $150 billion over 10 years for direct investments in clean energy and efficiency, as well as $75 […]

Rep. John Larson pushes a carbon tax bill in the House

Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) knows “tax” is a dirty word in Washington. He’ll tell you as much. But that doesn’t mean he’s backing down from his assertion that a tax on carbon would be the most effective way to curb planet-warming emissions. One could say he’s reclaiming the word tax and owning it. “The worst […]

Why it makes sense to use carbon revenue to fund efficiency programs

I wrote earlier about some Congressional Budget Office testimony before Congress on the “distributional effects of cap-and-trade.” There are a few more things in there I want to discuss. The CBO looked at three options for what to do with carbon revenue: rebate it to taxpayers, use it to lower corporate income taxes, or give […]

Will combining climate and energy into one big bill help or hurt the climate cause?

Congressional leaders want to combine energy and climate provisions into one big bill this year, rather than moving a few smaller bills on the issues. But while some on Capitol Hill are cheering this as a way to expedite the process, others are skeptical about the chances of passing one giant bill in 2009, and […]

Will a comprehensive climate and energy bill help or hinder global warming action?

It’s looking increasingly likely that Congress is going to move one unified climate and energy bill through both chambers this year, rather than breaking it out into several pieces. But while some are cheering this as a way to expedite the process, others on the Hill are skeptical of the chances of passing one giant […]

U.K. Independent and Debategraph collaborate on visual climate policy … doohickey

This is a pretty cool widget:

It's a collaboration between the U.K. Independent and the folks at Debategraph.

It's all open, like a wiki, so if you feel so moved you can add to it or link elements or whatnot. (There's a lot of BS in it at the moment.) Play around!

Marshall Institute misrepresents costs of climate action

With Congress moving forward aggressively to cap global warming pollution, opponents of strong climate legislation are muddying the economics to derail action.

First the good news: Congressional leaders have announced they will move forward with broad energy and climate legislation that will include a cap on global warming pollution -- the single most important step we can take to fight climate change.

The bad news: with Congress on the cusp of action, opponents are once again circulating analyses suggesting that a cap on carbon will hurt the economy and overburden consumers with higher energy costs. The latest making the media rounds comes from the George Marshall Institute.

Like several similar studies we saw during last year's debate over the Climate Security Act, the Marshall Institute analysis consistently misrepresents economic modeling results, painting an inaccurate picture of the estimated costs of climate policy. Here's why:

Cherry picking numbers is a sour approach. The Marshall Institute's study claims to be a meta-analysis, looking at economic studies of the Lieberman Warner bill (S.2191) by MIT, ACCF/NAM, CRA, CDA, EPA, EIA and CATF.¹ However, when the Institute makes conclusions about the impact of climate policy on employment and household consumption, it omits the most credible studies from its analysis, namely those by EPA, MIT and EIA.