Whipping the Climate Change Bill

"Hopefully final passage will look better than the rule which passed 217-205 with 217 Democrats voting for it, 30 Dems voting against it and all 175 Republicans present voting against it."
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JNS, are you cheerleading or reporting?
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Also, did the CBO take into consideration the fact that this cap and trade bill will necessarily harm the economy by making things more expensive to make here in America?

That reason is not exactly evident from the post. Moreover, the language implies that you want the vote totals to look better (i.e., more GOP Congressmen to vote for it). Finally, perhaps, just perhaps, in some of the Swampland coverage, the effects of "cap and trade" can find some daylight. You know, on the campaign trail, Barack Obama specifically stated that "energy prices would skyrocket". What that would do, Ms. Newton-Small, is obvious to anyone with half a brain. When you increase the price of an input (and energy is an input to manufacturing things), you increase the price of the output (and this is to say nothing of the regressive effect of cap and trade on ordinary consumers of energy). This will hurt our manufacturing sector and the economy. What it will also do is simply incentivize further outsourcing of manufacturing to countries that don't tax carbon output.
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So perhaps, just perhaps, Barack's quote should be mentioned in a post, or is that too impolite. After all, we don't want to offend him.

Interesting coverage. So far, here's what we can infer about the bill:
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Section I: Cap something at some level.
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Section 2: Trade something related in some manner to the thing(s) capped pursuant to Section 1.
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Section 3: There are billions of dollars involved, both incoming and outgoing, for years to come.

We can also enjoy a civics lesson about House procedure, and be reassured that our national reporters can count.

Thanks.

JNS - The first link (ACES Clean Energy Plan) was definitely a Fun Thing for Me to Explore. I don't know how honest all of the info is, but . . . it did have cute little diagrams and cartoons.
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On the other hand, there were some reasonable arguments, and it's nice to finally see some movement on climate change . . . other than Glenn Beck explaining how CO2 is good for us because we breath it. Maybe Glenn will try ONLY breathing CO2 . . . fingers crossed!

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OT, from Climate Change (But NOT OT from Congress):
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Thanks, SZ.
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These are the members of the HELP Committee to CALL today since they're having their markup.
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Tom Harkin (IA): (202) 224-3254
Barbara A. Mikulski (MD): (202) 224-4654
Jeff Bingaman (NM): (202) 224-5521
Patty Murray (WA: (202) 224-2621
Jack Reed (RI): (202) 224-4642
Bernard Sanders (I) (VT): (202) 224-5141
Sherrod Brown (OH): (202) 224-2315
Robert P. Casey, Jr. (PA): (202) 224-6324
Kay Hagan (NC): (202) 224-6342
Jeff Merkley (OR): (202) 224-3753
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My Senator, Sherrod Brown, was experiencing a high volume of calls and I was referred to the state offices at (888) 896-6446, (option 2), Columbus.
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ITTDGY: Public Health Care Option! Don't let the DINOs get you down! (I already knew Sherrod Brown was a strong proponent of the public option.) Oh by the way, I supported Senator Brown in the 2006 election, and I even donated to him, and you have me on your snail mail list, too.
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Staffer: Thank you for calling, Senator Brown is a strong proponent of the public option.
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ITTDGY: I know, but I can't call DiFi (for instance), I don't live in her state, and I've never supported her for anything.
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Staffer: (laughing) We'll pass your message onto the Senator. Thanks again for calling, and what's your zip code?
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ITTDGY: zipcode.
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I wouldn't use this bill for toilet paper. If you are holding out hope that this crappy bill will save us...let's just say that you might want to unload any beach-front property in Florida while it still has value.

J N-S:

Apologies. I had given up scrolling through your first attachment after the first dozen pages (the sales brochure), before I got to the substance of the bill description (the owner's manual.) Also, you may have intended to link to your webstory, but I don't find the link – hence, I don't find the story or your summary of "what the basics are in the bill."
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Finally, Is covering Congress not first and foremost about the output? It's the job of Congress to make actual laws, and I'd think that the laws themselves would have greater news value than the personalities or the process arcana. The egos and the parliamentary shenanigans affect my life only indirectly, as they affect what does and doesn't become law. It's tough for an informed citizenry to express its collective opinion if we get reports of what a bill does only after it's been adopted by one of the bodies.

Th' process, this time, be about ball-less Democrats an' bought an' paid-fer Democrats not 'avin' th' fortitude t' be doin' th' ri' thing even though they be havin' th' majority an' th' procedural mechanisms t' be passin' pret' much whatever they be wantin' to.
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Why I still be holdin' out hope regardin' health care reform be beyond logic - I be drinkin' Stuart's kool aid, I be supposin', an' hopin' th' sugar be real.
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Arrgh.

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JNS, doesn't the kabuki theater affect what eventually gets voted on? It's too late to change the climate change bill now.
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That's why it's important to let the public know about the real action: when a bill is being marked up, and what happens to it during conference committee.
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The health care bill is in a critical phase now...if it gets negotiated down before it goes to conference committee, then there's that much smaller a chance that something worthwhile comes out. Again.
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First of all, JNS, what do you mean by "look better".

Second of all, I still think BO's "skyrocket" assessment should be part of the coverage. Third of all, if you're going to make CO2 emissions a commodity with a goal of meaningfully reducing CO2 emissions, it's the reduction of emissions that is going to cost business money. How anyone thinks that this will not exert (a) upward pressure on the prices of things made by intensive users of energy and (b) lead to more outsourcing of energy-intensive operations is smoking crack.

Let's see:
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Sea level rise, 140 meters (440 ft).
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Higher prices.
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Sea level rise, 140 meters (440 ft).
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Higher prices.
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...

53_3, and you "know" this will happen how?

Fifty,
Seeing as how I live in the Midwest, I'm not so concerned about sea level . . . I'm more concerned that in a few years Illinois's climate is going to be like Mississippis. If I wanted to sweat 11 months of the year, I'd move south. Plus there's the whole "farm land disappearing" thing . . . I like food, too.
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So yeah, I'll pay more for energy, if it means we're getting on top of our environmental policy.

Well, "look better" still reads as if you're cheerleading for a particular result, i.e., passage.
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With respect to Obama's statement, if the whole idea it to reduce CO2/GHG emissions, then the issue is the cost required to get from X level of emissions to X minus Y levels of emissions. What a cap and trade does is allow for flexibility of methods for achieving the desired level of reduction. Thus, if one industry can reduce emissions more than the targeted amount, another emitter can buy that credit if it's cheaper for that emitter to purchase the credit than reduce its own emissions. But if hypothetical least cost for reducing GHG emissions is X, cap and trade is NOT going to reduce costs below X. As for the $600BB in credits, that will simply make the carbon credits more expensive. And if we're going to have "meaningful" (and I put meaningful in quotes because it is far from clear that reducing GHGs in the US will have any effect on the climate) reductions, there are going to be significant costs, both actual and hidden. How this is not obvious to even the most casual observer is beyond me. And if there are not going to be costs, then the reductions simply aren't meaningful, and in that case, what are they doing?
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Additionally, Obama's statement is germane. The issue is not whether it can be explained away, but whether the explaining away can be taken at face value. One can easily look at Obama's statement as a truthful moment--shouldn't your readers be allowed to make that choice. I am a pretty bright guy, and I cannot see how we can reduce GHGs meaningfully without serious costs to the American economy--in my view, Obama just slipped and told the truth. Perhaps he didn't, and perhaps cap and trade will not impose significant costs, but it seems to me that you are making that judgment. Shouldn't readers be making it instead.
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"As for outsourcing, is it just me or doesn't the rest of the world already regulate carbon under the Kyoto Protocol?"
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I won't pick on that too much, other than to say that you're misinformed. China and India, to name two, have no significant limitations on their carbon emissions.

So, JNS, is outsourcing an issue? And if it is, shouldn't you be pointing it out?

53_3, and you "know" this will happen how?
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If climate change didn't piss me off so much, I would be fascinated by the deniers.
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Spob, humor me. The theory is pretty straight forward. Please explain which step you have a problem with:
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1. If you continually burn fossil fuels to generate power, you WILL increase the percentage of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
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2. If you significantly raise the percentage of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere you WILL raise average global temperatures, starting at the poles.
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3. If you do raise average global temperatures, particularly at the poles, you WILL melt glaciers and polar ice caps.
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4. If you do melt polar ice caps and glaciers, the sea levels WILL rise.
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Again, which of the above steps do you have problems with scientists knowing?

first of all, square1, i totally agree (and have said so before) that all things being equal, CO2, CH4 exert upward pressure on global temps. But that's not what I was getting at. 53_3 made some specific claims about sea-level rise that presumably this bill if passed will reduce or eliminate. How did he get there? Moreover, what if the Earth were otherwise going to cool absent GHGs? Finally, how do we know that anything we do here in the US is going to make a bit of difference? Other nations may soak up our reductions.
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And fine, why aren't we building nuke plants?

As for costs, here's what the Heritage Foundation has to say:
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http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/tst062609a.cfm
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Does anyone think that cap and trade won't impose substantial costs?

JNS, here's what Barack had to say the other day:
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"At a time of great fiscal challenges, this legislation is paid for by the polluters who currently emit the dangerous carbon emissions that contaminate the water we drink and pollute the air we breathe."

Who are the "polluters"? Manufacturers, oil companies etc. Ya think that they;re not gonna pass along costs or outsource where possible? Ya think that's not gonna impact the economy?

For example, in the year 2030, the "reasonable" costs of the carbon program calculated by the Heritage Foundation would be $338bln. While their high cost projection of $88/ton for the cost of carbon doesn't include offsets or other provisions that would lower the carbon price, the real trick here is estimating that our GDP growth would actually decline by $436bln for that year. This truly remarkable bit of hocus pocus implies that not only do the revenues evaporate into thin air with respect to our energy productivity, but that they are able to convince an additional hundred billion dollars to disappear from the economy with them

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http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/astevenson/the_heritage_foundations_clima.html