Bipartisan climate bill presented in Senate

Friday, January 12-

Senators McCain, Lieberman, and Obama have teamed up to present a bill to the Senate. The bill calls for mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, industry, and oil refineries. (see http://environment.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn10952&print=true) It would require that US greenhouse emissions (primarily CO2) be cut by 2% yearly. They hope to read 1990 levels by the year 2020.  It is perhaps unusual for such a bill to be introduced by a team of Senators two of which could conceivably face each other in a future presidential election.

Competing with this bill is one introduced by Jeff Bingaman, the Democrat chariman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Bingaman's bill is much more modest, proposing a cap-and-trade system similar to the European emissions trading scheme. On the plus side, this system would have very little effect on household energy costs and the US economy. On the minus side, it would allow emissions to continue to rise at a reduced rate of increase to the year 2030- and then maybe (?)decline thereafter.

Of these two possible approaches to actually finally doing something about climate change, I of course favor the first.  As Condi Rice recently stated, nothing important can ever be expected to be accomplished without an element of sacrifice. (Yes, she was discussing a different topic.) The more the sacrifice, the more investment will be made into renewable energy and increased efficiency of energy consumption.

But I note that in itself, even the McCain-lLeberman-Obama bill is not sufficient. It omits any mention of the entire transportation sector. Are we to infer from that that our addiction to petroleum based car travel is a thing of the past? It obviously is a thing of the present, and possible solutions are just making their baby steps. I for one do not trust the marketplace alone to end petroleum transportation and move us all into hydrogen, electricity, biofuels, or some combination. Not with gasoline sliding down under $2 a gallon again. Dude, I coulda bought a Hummer!

But please, do not volunteer that you will try anything as long as it is cheaper than what you have now. It will not be cheaper. At first, whatever solution we select will be more expensive than what we have now.  But then none of us, other than the soldiers in Iraq, are paying the full price of the oil we use. Your comments are invited. And please make your thoughts known to your Senator also.  Don't forget the Decider. GWBush is the president, which gives him veto power over whatever version of this eventually gets to him.  He will be strongly tempted to veto whatever version gets to him, as a means of finally paying back the oil companies for backing him. But countering this would be his sampling of public opinion- and future considerations. The oil and coal companies may want him to cut some kind of deal- because after Bush is gone it could go worse for them.