Feb17

Standing Behind Market-Based Reductions

Cap and Trade, Carbon Market, Obama Administration

 

Smokestack image courtesy Squeaky Marmot via Flickr Despite ample conjecture that another approach may be more politically palatable, the president’s top economic advisors are endorsing a market-based approach to emissions reductions as an engine for positive environmental and economic change. As part of the 2010 Economic Report of the President, the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) suggests the president work to implement a cap-and-trade system to control greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as a means to provide a solid economic footing to push toward a low-carbon future.

 

Citing the work of RFF researchers, among others, the CEA report underscored the importance of putting a price on carbon. A price, they write, allows firms to decide the best and most-affordable ways for them to reduce their emissions.

 

Still, given current and projected economic conditions, it will be important to ensure a cap on emissions is put in place with minimal harm to firms’ bottom lines. According to CEA officials, policymakers have a number of tools at their disposal to keep cap and trade costs under control and help firms transition to a low-carbon future:

 

Banking and Borrowing: Policymakers can allow firms to purchase and save emissions permits, as suggested in the House’s Waxman-Markey bill, giving purchasers the flexibility to decide when it’s most prudent to use the allowance and when another path could help them meet their reductions targets.

 

Price Ceilings and Floors: Provisions to keep market fluctuations in check could also help firms keep costs contained. Where banking would allow emitters to even out costs over time, limits on maximum and minimum permit price—ceilings and floors, respectively—could provide some framework for cost projections. Combing price ceilings and floors to create what’s known as a price collar could significantly reduce costs when compared to a cap-and-trade program without such mechanisms, according to recent RFF research cited in the CEA report.

 

Offsets: Allowing reductions from a sector not subject to the U.S. emissions cap is yet another way to help find the lowest-cost approach to reductions. While the authors of the CEA report say offsets can be a useful tool, they are quick to point out the importance of ensuring any offsets are real and can be verified. Absent verification, could emitters simply be paying for reductions that never occur and undermining the integrity of the cap.

 

The CEA report went on to point out that global cooperation will be essential to addressing climate concerns and that while the U.S. can’t act alone to address the problem, it must act.

 

Tiffany Clements is managing editor of Weathervane.

Published: Feb-17-10 | 0 Comments

Feb08

Obama Shifts and Speeds up Clean Coal Strategy

CCS, FutureGen, Obama Administration

 

President Obama set up a federal task force on Feb. 3 to accelerate the development of technologies to capture and store carbon emitted by coal-fired electric utility generators. It looks as though the administration is having second thoughts about a clean-coal strategy that depends crucially on one pilot project, the plant dubbed FutureGen.

 

The president's memo directed the task force to prepare a plan in 180 days "to overcome the barriers to the widespread, cost-effective deployment of CCS (carbon capture and storage) within 10 years, with a goal of bringing 5 to 10 commercial demonstration projects online by 2016."

 

That is an extremely ambitious target. The reason for the urgency is that no one has come up with a plausible way to meet this country's growing demand for electricity without continuing to rely heavily on coal. Any progress in slowing climate change consequently depends on finding ways to burn coal without emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

 

Responding to that logic, in 2003 President George W. Bush launched FutureGen as a public-private partnership to build a plant that would demonstrate CCS. His administration canceled it in early 2008, on grounds that it would be too expensive. Obama's energy department restarted the planning process last year, promising a final decision early this year on whether to proceed with construction. But there was no mention of FutureGen in the president's recent memo.

 

The president may be heeding advice from technical experts—offered repeatedly over the past several years— that focusing the whole policy on one experimental plant would be a serious mistake.

 

"America's Energy Future," a report published last summer by the The National Research Council, warned:

 

Too little is known at present to determine which power-generation technologies and which storage options could best produce electricity after 2020 if carbon emissions were constrained. Reliable cost and performance data are needed, both for capture and storage, and they can be obtained only by construction and operation of full-scale demonstration facilities... Because of the variety of coal types and the myriad of technology-conversion options for coal, natural gas and biomass fuels, a diverse portfolio of demonstrations of CO2 capture technology will actually be required. Similarly, to sort out storage options and gain experience with their costs, risks, environmental impacts, legal liabilities, and regulatory and management issues, it will be necessary to operate a number of large-scale storage projects in a variety of subsurface settings.

 

The NRC committee that wrote this report also said that if the country makes an immediate start it should be possible to gain the necessary information and get 10 gigawatts of CCS generation in place by 2020.

 

The Obama administration is also well aware that CCS projects are already under way in many other countries, notably in Europe and China, and further indecision here risks putting the U.S. at a technological disadvantage.

 

The president's memo contained a reminder that passage of cap-and-trade legislation, which would put a price on carbon emissions, will be necessary to induce utilities to use CCS technology. "Ultimately," the memo said, "comprehensive energy and climate legislation that puts a cap on carbon pollution will provide the largest incentive for CCS because it will create stable, long-term, market-based incentives to channel private investment in low carbon technologies."

 

J. W. Anderson is Resources for the Future’s journalist in residence. He previously explored FutureGen in this Weathervane post and this 2008 Weekly Policy Commentary.

Published: Feb-08-10 | 0 Comments

Feb04

Administration Doubles Down on Biofuels, CCS

Biofuels, CCS, EPA, FutureGen, Obama Administration

 

Striking while the post-State-of-the-Union/budge release iron is hot, President Obama Wednesday unveiled details of his administration’s plans for the next generation of energy technology. With the FY 2011 budget backing loans for the development of nuclear power plants eating up several days of the news cycle, yesterday’s announcement shifted energy and environment watchers’ gaze toward biofuels and carbon capture. From the Environmental Protection Agency’s release:

 

The EPA has finalized a rule to implement the long-term renewable fuels standard of 36 billion gallons by 2022 established by Congress. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has proposed a rule on the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) that would provide financing to increase the conversion of biomass to bioenergy. The President’s Biofuels Interagency Working Group released its first report – Growing America’s Fuel. The report, authored by group co-chairs, Secretaries Vilsack and Chu, and Administrator Jackson, lays out a strategy to advance the development and commercialization of a sustainable biofuels industry to meet or exceed the nation’s biofuels targets.


In addition, President Obama announced a Presidential Memorandum creating an Interagency Task Force on Carbon Capture and Storage to develop a comprehensive and coordinated federal strategy to speed the development and deployment of clean coal technologies. Our nation’s economy will continue to rely on the availability and affordability of domestic coal for decades to meet its energy needs, and these advances are necessary to reduce pollution in the meantime. The President calls for five to ten commercial demonstration projects to be up and running by 2016.

 

The EPA’s move on biofuels puts the Obama administration in compliance with the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) but finding the right alchemy of fuels to meet the standard is likely to be a subject of political and logistical debate, not to mention the difficulties in calculating the GHG implications.

 

As for CCS, yesterday’s announcement regarding the proverbial “clean coal” marks some of the first official murmurs from the White House on the technology since it announced its plans to kick FutureGen back in gear last summer. I’ll be interested to see what the president’s task force can pull together in a 180 days that will put CCS within reach in the next five years.

 

Tiffany Clements is managing editor of Weathervane.

Published: Feb-04-10 | 0 Comments

Feb02

2011 Energy Funding Forecast: Sunny, Breezy with a Chance of Nuclear

Obama Administration, Congress, Subsidies, Oil, Renewables

 

Given the scope of problems associated with climate change—economic, environmental, foreign and domestic concerns, to name a few—it seems virtually every federal department plays some part in President Barack Obama’s policy response. Here’s a look at where climate and energy issues have cropped up in the president’s FY 2011 budget proposal.

 

Environmental Protection Agency

 

Even in the absence of accounting for a federal cap and trade program—a move some see as an acknowledgement of cap and trade’s demise—the budget throws some $44 million toward the EPA’s efforts to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Moreover, it seeks to help states do the same.

 

The Office of Management and Budget sums up the EPA’s climate change mitigation requests:

 

$21 million—an increase of $4 million from 2010—to implement the Mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reporting Rule and ensure the availability of high-quality emissions data.

 

$56 million—including $43 million in new funding—for the EPA and states to address climate change effectively through regulatory initiatives to control greenhouse gas emissions

 

$25 million to aid states in permitting activities for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under the New Source Review and Title V operating permits programs

 

$7 million to develop New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) to control GHG emissions from major stationary sources

 

$6 million in new funding to implement the 2010 light duty vehicle rule and to develop regulations for large mobile sources

 

$5 million to develop guidance regarding the best available practices and technologies to control GHG emissions under permitting programs

 

Department of Energy

 

The DOE’s budget requests underscore a strong political will to wean the U.S. economy off fossil sources (and make good on G20 commitments) by cutting $36 billion worth of fuel subsidies and shift renewable energy sources with requests for investment in wind and solar energy research.

 

But, perhaps most notably, the proposal makes a strong statement about U.S. nuclear power, guaranteeing $55 billion in loan funding to build new nuclear power plants and recording a departmental goal to “Commit (conditionally) to loan guarantees for two nuclear power facilities to add new low-carbon emission capacity of at least 3,800 megawatts during 2010.” Reaction to the news has been predictably mixed. (And—I assume since he didn’t address the budget directly—predictably satirical from Stephen Colbert.)

 

OMB breaks down DOE requests further:

 

$36 billion in new loan authority – for a total of $54.5 billion – to expand support for DOE loan guarantees for nuclear power facilities.

 

$500 million in credit subsidy to support $3 billion to $5 billion in loan guarantees for innovative energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.

 

$144 million for research, development, and demonstration activities to modernize the grid including smart-grid technologies that will spur the transition to a smarter, more efficient, secure and reliable electric system, resulting in energy- and cost-saving choices for consumers, reduced emissions, and growth of renewable energy sources.

 

$4.7 billion in clean energy technology investments at DOE, including:

 

Nearly $2.4 billion, an increase of $113 million, for energy efficiency and renewable energy programs including $302 million for solar energy, $220 million for biofuels and biomass R&D, $325 million for advanced vehicle technologies, and $231 million for energy efficient building technologies.

 

$545 million for advanced coal climate change technologies to focus resources to develop carbon capture technologies with broad applications to advanced coal power systems, existing power plants, and industrial sources.

 

$300 million for the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy to accelerate game-changing energy technologies in need of rapid and flexible experimentation or engineering.

 

$793 million for clean energy activities and civilian nuclear energy programs, including research and development and infrastructure programs. The budget includes a new cross-cutting research program to address technology needs for all aspects of nuclear energy production.

 

Department of State

 

In conjunction with U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Treasury Department, the State Department put forth a budget that will provide developing nations $1.4 billion in FY 2011 to address climate change.

 

A drop in the bucket toward $100 billion a year by 2020, the proposal would concentrate international efforts on adaptation, energy development, and ecosystem management programs to improve agricultural practices and support carbon sequestration and storage. Combined with last year’s final tally of about $1.0 billion, even meeting the U.S.’ share of the $30 billion by 2012 pledge in the Copenhagen Accord (likely to be about 25 percent) will require a substantial increase in FY 2012 or some creative accounting.

 

Other notable requests, via OMB:

 

The Department of Transportation: $530 million as part of the President’s Partnership for Sustainable Communities to help State and local governments invest in sustainable transportation infrastructure that integrates with housing development and other critical investments.

 

The Department of the Interior: $73 million—a $14 million increase—to build agency capacity to review and permit renewable energy projects on federal lands.  DOI has set a goal to permit at least 9,000 megawatts of new solar, wind, and geothermal electricity generation capacity on DOI-managed lands by the end of 2011.

 

So where does it go from here?

 

The road from proposed budget to actual budget runs directly through Congress; more specifically it runs through a process outlined in this interactive graphic. (And, while we’re on the subject, NYT has this really cool graphic illustrating funding request sizes. I love alternative ways to illustrate governmental functions. I was a huge fan of School House Rock as a kid.)

 

The process of hearings and congressional consideration got underway in earnest today with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner testifying before the Senate Budget Committee and OMB Director Peter Orszag testifying before the House Budget Committee.

 

Tiffany Clements is managing editor of Weathervane.

Published: Feb-02-10 | 0 Comments

Jan27

What I’m Watching for in the State of the Union

Obama Administration, Cap and Trade, COP-15, Congress, Green Jobs

 

Everybody with a keyboard and opinion seems to know exactly what President Obama needs to say tonight for his State of the Union address to be successful. With more than enough pontification and prognostication to go around, I humbly offer a simple snapshot of some climate and energy talking points I’ll be watching for tonight:

 

J-O-B-S: Taking a cue from recent polling data that suggests climate can go farther when paired with employment it’s safe to say the president will connect clean energy development and jobs creation. The likely depth and tone of the president's jobs and energy messages are tougher to pin down, leaving some to hope for the best-case scenario, while others consider the worst.

 

A nod to the global climate community: While President Obama probably won’t bring up this new study ranking the U.S. 61st in the world in terms of environmental performance, a mention of ongoing work on international climate mitigation plans may be in the cards. With the—apparently soft—deadline for countries to submit their emissions mitigation plans coming Sunday, the State of the Union is a good opportunity for the president to reassert his commitment to U.S. leadership on climate change and creating an international deal.

 

A presidential assessment of cap and trade’s prospects: If comments in today’s New York Times from the lone Republican sticking his neck out on climate legislation are any indicator, the Senate may be throwing in the towel—and is at least dialing back expectations—on cap and trade.

 

“Realistically, the cap-and-trade bills in the House and the Senate are going nowhere,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who is trying to fashion a bipartisan package of climate and energy measures. “They’re not business-friendly enough, and they don’t lead to meaningful energy independence.”

 

Mr. Graham said the public was demanding that any energy legislation from Washington focus on creating jobs, whether by drilling for offshore oil or building wind turbines.

 

“What is dead is some massive cap-and-trade system that regulates carbon in a fashion that drives up energy costs,” he said.

 

But Sen. John Kerry says he’s not ready to scale back the Senate’s climate bill and a top White House aide is backing his statements, despite numerous suggestions a “plan B” energy-only bill is more politically feasible and likely to garner more support.

 

Given his deference to Congress thus far and the ebb and flow of public attention to the legislation, it seems unlikely that the president would wade too far into this hubbub. Still, in the wake of a move by Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski to cut off the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions if Congress fails to come up with its own plan, the president may have to say something about the state of play for one of his key issues.

 

What else should we be watching for tonight? What do you expect to hear the president say about climate and energy?

 

Tiffany Clements is managing editor of Weathervane.

Published: Jan-27-10 | 1 Comment

Jan08

Will Senator Murkowski Block EPA Action on Climate?

Congress, EPA, Obama Administration, United States

 

Capitol image courtesy Cliff1066 via Flickr An amendment Senator Murkowski (R-AK) is likely to introduce is getting some attention in climate policy circles. The measure—expected to be added to important legislation needed to raise the debt ceiling, due to be considered by the Senate this month—would strip the Environmental Protection Agency of much of its authority to regulate greenhouse gases (GHGs) during 2010. Despite the attention, I don’t think the amendment is at all likely to become law. Even if it did, it probably wouldn’t have much effect on what the EPA will do over the short term. I’m not even sure that the impetus behind it is a desire by Sen. Murkowski to block EPA regulation.

 

Before explaining why I think those things are true, let’s take a quick look at what the amendment would actually do. Sen. Murkowski hasn’t introduced it yet, but she introduced a similar measure to an environmental bill last fall. It was defeated. The new amendment will probably be very similar or identical. It will likely be very short, and do only one thing: remove the EPA’s authority to regulate GHGs from stationary sources under the Clean Air Act (CAA). It will only block this authority for one year, and it will not touch authority to regulate mobile sources.*

 

Practically, this wouldn’t have a big effect on EPA regulations. The EPA is only moving forward with mobile source regulations right now (at least publicly), having made its mobile source endangerment finding last month and plans to introduce fleet emissions standards in March. Nobody outside the agency knows for sure what the EPA will do with stationary source GHGs, assuming Congress does not do something first. In any case, a program is not likely to be in place before the end of 2010. One exception to this is the CAA permitting process (NSR and Title V)—but the EPA is also trying to restrict that process to big GHG emitters that already have to go through it for other pollutants. Even if this “tailoring” runs into trouble in the courts, it too would probably be able to survive 2010.

 

Sen. Murkowski has also made some noise about the recent GHG endangerment finding. She doesn’t like it and is apparently trying to get some legislation to block it. I don’t really understand this move, though—the debt ceiling amendment would leave mobile source authority to the EPA. That authority is meaningless without the endangerment finding (remember that it applies on its face only to mobile source GHG emissions, and is required for the EPA to regulate those sources).Congress has generally been OK with the EPA regulating mobile-source GHGs. None of the climate bills (as far as I know) supplant EPA regulation of mobile sources. Murkowski therefore seems to be making two separate moves, one aimed at EPA authority to regulate stationary-source GHGs, and the other aimed at authority to regulate mobile-source GHGs. It’s not clear whether this is a broadside attack on EPA authority cleverly broken in to two parts, each of which might be more likely to pass, or an alternative approach—maybe she would only push one option if the other failed.

 

Moreover, I don’t think the debt-ceiling amendment will become law. There are four reasons for this: first, it requires 60 votes to pass, like most other Senate measures. Sen. Murkowski would have to get every Republican and 10 Democrats to vote for the amendment. This isn’t totally implausible, but it won’t be easy. Moderate Democrats or supporters of one or the other climate proposals in the Senate might be convinced that giving Congress more time is a good idea. Most Democrats will oppose the amendment, though.

 

Second, even if Sen. Murkowski gets the amendment into the debt ceiling bill, that bill itself will have to pass the Senate. The last increase in the debt ceiling passed just before Christmas by a single vote, almost exactly along party lines. The Murkowski amendment would throw a giant spanner into that balance, with the possible result that the measure wouldn’t pass at all. Republicans would be torn between opposition to increasing the ceiling and support for the amendment, and Democrats the reverse. If the bill were to pass, the coalition voting for it would have to be very odd. I have a suspicion that this is the intended result of the amendment—it might be a poison pill for the debt ceiling increase, as much or more than a move aimed at the EPA. That’s reasonably clever, but it’s also dangerous. Republicans might get into trouble at the polls either for voting to increase the deficit or failing to block EPA regulations—when if they had kept the bills separate they could have had both votes on their record.

 

Third, any bill that did pass the Senate would have to go through consolidation with the corresponding House measure. I’m not an expert on legislative process, but I do know the House is less likely to include a Murkowski-style amendment.

 

Finally, even if all these other hurdles are passed, the president would have to sign the bill including the amendment. I don’t think he would do this—it would take away significant authority from the executive branch on an issue he has publicly claimed is important. It would also undermine U.S. international credibility on climate, which is currently based on the promise of EPA action in lieu of congressional moves. Congress surely does not have the 2/3 supermajority to overcome a veto.

 

Would such a veto trigger a Clinton-Gingrich-style standoff and potentially shut down the government? Maybe, but I don’t think so. The debt ceiling is important in the long term, but the government can operate without it. In 1995, Congress did not pass a budget, so the government could not spend money to operate. Here, it can operate, just not borrow. This could cause all kinds of problems, but it wouldn’t necessarily cause a shutdown. It would also be politically dangerous to risk any kind of shutdown during a war, and the 1995 experience is evidence that Congress would get the blame.

 

The difficulty of getting the Murkowski amendment through illustrates the problems faced by climate legislation generally. Since the CAA already gives the EPA authority and she is trying to take it away, all of the institutional and political forces that have made it tough to get a climate bill would work in the opposite direction.

 

---

 

*Specifically, the September amendment would have denied funding to the EPA for any regulation of GHGs under the CAA except under §202(a) – mobile sources. It would also have overturned the Mass v. EPA finding that GHGs are CAA pollutants, again except under §202(a). This is weird, since there is no separate definition of pollutants in different sections of the CAA, but it’s not unprecedented for a term to mean two different things in the same statute. Congress has the power to define it differently. Both of these changes would expire after one year. The result would be that the EPA can’t use any part of the CAA except §202 to regulate GHGs for one year – in other words, no NAAQS, no NSPS, no permitting (and therefore no tailoring), no stationary-source regulation at all.

 

Nathan Richardson is a Visiting Scholar at RFF.

Published: Jan-08-10 | 1 Comment

Dec15

U.S. Dependence on Foreign Oil to Decline Despite Increased Consumption

Obama Administration, Renewables, Oil

 

Richard Newell, Administrator of the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), and former Senior Fellow at RFF, released EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook 2010 Monday at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, Global Energy and Environment Initiative in Washington.

 

The study projects that U.S. primary energy consumption will grow a moderate 14 percent by 2035, but fossil fuel use will decline from 84 percent to 78 percent. Currently, the United States consumes 19 million barrels per day of fossil and biofuels. EIA anticipates an increase to 22 million barrels per day in 2035 with all additional growth from biofuels like ethanol and not petroleum-based liquids. This bodes well for the domestic renewable energy sector. Reliance on imported foreign liquids is expected to decline from 57 percent of total U.S. consumption today to 45 percent in 2035.

 

The annual report builds on EIA’s statistical, economic, and analytical knowledge to create independent projections of U.S. energy consumption and production over the next 25 years. The 2010 Outlook evaluates current laws and regulations within the energy sector, technologies that are commercial or expected to become commercial in the next decade, and global supply and demand prices to support their study.

 

Newell says energy efficiency, alternative fuels, and higher prices, “curb energy consumption growth and shift the energy mix toward renewable fuels.” However, without new government policies which encourage a move toward alternative energy, “fossil fuels would still provide about 78 percent of all energy used in 2035.” Environmentally speaking, the report states that without new emissions reduction policies carbon dioxide from the energy sector will grow at 0.3 percent per year, mostly due to electric power and transportation.

 

The 2010 Outlook is released at an important moment for international energy policy negotiations. The EIA provides a view of the future where government regulations, markets, and environmental considerations can reduce the overall dependence on oil without a decrease in domestic consumption.

 

Aysha Ghadiali is a Research Associate at Resources for the Future.
Published: Dec-15-09 | 0 Comments

Dec11

The Endangerment Finding Part 2: What’s the Motivation?

EPA, COP-15, Obama Administration

 

Smokestack image courtesy LOC via Flickr In yesterday’s post I talked about the practical implications of the final endangerment finding released Monday by the EPA. But what’s the real story—why issue the endangerment finding at all, and why issue it now? Most everyone thinks that an international agreement and new federal legislation are the best(most effective and most efficient)way to deal with GHG emissions. Does the endangerment finding help us get there?

 

There are three possible rationales for issuing the endangerment finding. I think they are all at least partly right, but at least two of them have probably been overstated in most accounts. It’s worth looking at each of them in a little detail.

 

Story #1: The Endangerment Finding Signals Intent in Copenhagen

 

Under this view, President Obama has gone out on a limb a little with his 17 percent GHG cuts by 2020 pledge, and the endangerment finding is intended to provide some support. It signals to the other delegates at Copenhagen that the administration is serious about GHG cuts, even if the Senate is not. The best evidence is the timing—surely it’s not a coincidence that the finding was released just as the Copenhagen talks began. The White House claims that it is a coincidence, and that the finding has been in the works for some time. Even if the timing is intentional, however, I’m skeptical about how much signaling value the finding has. The president has already made his intentions clear—does the finding add anything? Most other delegates probably aren’t familiar with Clean Air Act technicalities. Those that are familiar with them would know that, as I discussed yesterday, the finding doesn’t actually do very much. It only allows the EPA to regulate new cars, which will never get the U.S. to the president’s goal. As Michael Levi at the Council on Foreign Relations points out, the endangerment finding might even provide a negative signal to Copenhagen delegates—as Levi puts it, “You only need to pursue EPA regulation if you can’t get 60 votes for a climate bill. But if you can’t get 60 votes for a climate bill, then you certainly can’t get 67 votes for a global climate treaty.”

 

Story #2: The Endangerment Finding Forces Congress To Act

 

The target audience for the finding might be domestic, not international. With the Senate stalled on climate legislation, the administration could be showing senators what will happen if they fail to act. The alternative to climate legislation, the endangerment finding shows, is not no regulation but (relatively) bad regulation. “Stop me before I regulate again” seems to be the message. Senator Kerry certainly gets this message from the finding: “The message to Congress is crystal clear: get moving.” It’s possible that the finding could have the opposite effect, however. A WSJ editorial today claims that the finding will reduce pressure on Congress to act, since the executive branch has now taken ownership of the problem. Some senators probably feel this way now, but I’m skeptical in general about whether the finding will have this effect. If the easiest and/or preferred solution for Congress is to pass the buck to the EPA, they could have done that at any point with short, simple legislation giving the agency powers to do the things they can’t under the Clean Air Act. Few in Congress actually want this, and I doubt voters would suddenly forget that it is Congress, not the president, who has ultimate control over what the EPA can do. Maybe there is some short-term easing of the pressure on Congress (which is probably a good thing if you want quality legislation), but I can’t see anything other than problems for Congress if they do nothing over the long run.

 

Story #3: The Endangerment Finding is Legally Required

 

The simplest reason to issue the finding is that the EPA was compelled to do so by the Supreme Court. Massachusetts v. EPA requires that the agency either make an endangerment finding for GHGs, make a finding of no endangerment, or at least explain why such a finding is impossible. The Obama EPA simply was not going to make a no endangerment finding—and neither was the Bush EPA, for that matter. It’s just not credible. The same goes for the other option, a claim that no finding can be made. It’s hard to see how that position can be supported. Therefore the EPA simply had to issue this finding. More than 2 years after Mass. v. EPA, further delay would be increasingly hard to justify. This is the White House’s public position on the finding—essentially “we did it because we had to”—but it has, I think, been relatively neglected in most accounts in favor of discussion of the political machinations implicit in the other two stories.

 

In truth, I think all three stories are partly true. The finding was issued because it was legally required. But I think the timing of the release of the final finding has more to do with pressuring a stalled congressional effort and, despite the White House’s protestations, was probably driven by hopes of a positive impact at Copenhagen. While there are some good reasons to suspect that the finding won’t do much to push agreement in Congress or in Copenhagen, it is probably more helpful than harmful. And if you have to release the finding at some point anyway, you should release it when these kinds of secondary benefits are greatest. That’s probably right now.

 

Nathan Richardson is a Visiting Scholar at RFF.

Published: Dec-11-09 | 0 Comments

Nov09

Copenhagen's Call to Leadership

COP-15, Obama Administration, United States


The Obama Administration finds itself in a unique moment leading up to the United Nation’s annual Conference of Parties (COP-15) — a meeting to create a global climate treaty that picks up where the Kyoto Protocol will leave off in 2012 . The president has been explicitly supportive of efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions but he also faces unprecedented economic conditions and slow-moving domestic action on the issue.

 

With only four weeks until the conference, RFF Researchers Nigel Purvis and Andrew Stevenson offer their take on what President Obama could do personally and what tools he could authorize his negotiators to employ as they work to craft a deal that addresses the needs of the United States within the context of the global community.

 

Read Purvis and Stevenson’s “U.S. Leadership in Copenhagen,” for more on balancing the delicate demands of domestic and international communities while making progress in the battle against climate change.

 

Nigel Purvis is president of Climate Advisers and a visiting scholar at Resources for the Future. Andrew Stevenson is a research assistant at Resources for the Future.

Published: Nov-09-09 | 0 Comments

Sep28

Obama Pledges Action on Climate, but Treaty May Not be the Solution

Obama Administration, COP-15, Congress, International

 

President Obama worked hard and fast last week to let the world know that action on climate change is now a major goal of American foreign policy. But his speeches and exhortations were overshadowed by the increasing probability that the U.S. Senate will not reach a vote on a climate bill before the crucial international conference in December in Copenhagen. As a result, the basic strategy toward a worldwide effort to slow climate change may be changing.

 

Over the past two years through an enormously complex negotiating process nearly every country on Earth has been preparing a treaty to be adopted at Copenhagen. It would presumably require countries to impose legal limits on their emissions of greenhouse gases, with rich countries providing financial aid to poor ones for necessary technological changes. But the United States never joined the predecessor treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, and many countries would be unwilling to commit themselves at Copenhagen as long as the American position is up in the air.

 

The alternative that appears to be emerging is a general unwritten agreement that acknowledges the need for rapid action and calls on every country to move as fast as it can by following its own policies to cut carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

 

President Obama left no doubt where his administration’s intentions lie. At the Climate Change Summit organized by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sept. 22 the president reviewed his administration’s measures so far, the investments in renewable energy, the increase in auto fuel efficiency standards and the rest. “Taken together, these steps represent a historic recognition on behalf of the American people and their government,” he said. “We understand the gravity of the climate threat. We are determined to act.” Later that day, at a meeting of former President Bill Clinton’s Global Initiative, President Obama said, “Carbon emissions from cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting ice caps and imperiling the planet.”

 

In his address to the UN General Assembly on the following day, he placed protection of the environment among the primary goals of American foreign policy and pledged “deep cuts” in emissions. Two days later, at the close of the G-20 meeting on the economy, he emphasized the importance an ill-fated agreement to abolish subsidies for fossil fuels.

 

But listeners were aware that the president was unable to provide much reassurance about how deep those cuts would be, or how fast, or how soon the subsidies would be abolished as long as those issues remained under debate in the Senate.

 

Meanwhile, in some parts of the world the concept of a coercive treaty is unwelcome. Jairam Ramesh, India’s minister of the environment, said recently, “… if we want durable political consensus, then it has to be rooted in domestic legislation and not in an international agreement.”

 

In the United States there has developed a substantial body of opinion that the world will make faster progress if governments follow their own initiatives immediately rather waiting until they have drafted a treaty that meets all of their varying circumstances. This position is reflected in an article by Michael A. Levi of the Council on Foreign Relations, in the current issue of Foreign Affairs. He concludes: “Most important, the United States should make sure that aggressive bottom-up efforts to actually start cutting emissions, such as a U.S. cap-and-trade system and a sophisticated Brazilian effort to curb deforestation, do not wait for agreement on a comprehensive global deal. That is where the real action is, and there is no time to waste.”

 

John W. Anderson is Resources for the Future’s journalist in residence.

Published: Sep-28-09 | 0 Comments

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