Cap-and-trade. Sounds a little bit like this-and-that. In the 1980’s, when sulfur dioxide was the hot topic, it was instrumental in effectively scrubbing SO2 from emissions; and acid rain, though not completely eradicated, is no longer the dire threat it was once becoming.
So what the heck is this cap-and-trade? Essentially, it puts a ceiling (cap) on the emissions any one company can emit; and when that company wants to increase their emissions, they must buy an allowance from someone who pollutes less (trade) thereby rewarding those who reduce their pollution. This sounds all well and good until it goes into practice, where the buying and selling of emissions becomes a moot exercise. Anyone who does not pollute can sell their conservation up the scale, effectively giving their pollution to someone else. Cap-and-trade doesn’t eliminate pollution so much as shift it around.
Here’s where a new idea comes into play. It’s called cap-and-refund (or cap-and-dividend by some). Under the Cantwell-Collins bill dubbed CLEAR (Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal Act) the cap-and-trade system would itself become obsolete. According to one of its main sponsors, Senator Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington D.C., she tells Yale’s Envrionment 360 that this system would not only reduce CO2 emissions on the whole, as it sets an overall cap on emissions, but funnel money back to the consumer, allowing citizens to directly benefit from the impenetrable mish-mash of politics, energy, and the markets.
Senator Cantwell is all about maintaining the wholeness of the consumer, which by default means she’s looking to maintain a stable economy, even amidst the tremulous upswing from the Great Recession. It goes like this. After a gradual cap increase (say, .5% annually) has been set by Presidential mandate, through a series of monthly auctions permits for emission allowances would have to be purchased by what are called, “upstream emitters”, otherwise known as coal, oil, and natural gas companies. The money from these purchases would be split between the development of new renewable technologies (25%), with the bulk of it (75%) to be dispersed among the populous (on average, about $1,000 at the end of the year for each family). Sounds fair.
But some critics see it as limp lettuce. Joe Romm, a physicist and former official of the Department of Energy, and ferocious blogger of Climate Progress, is adamant about the Cantwell-Collins bill’s inability to be either politically or environmentally credible; especially in contention with the more globally minded Waxman-Markey bill. He claims that in order for CLEAR “to be a ‘solution,’ such a bill would need to achieve the emissions reductions in 2020 required for a global deal — in the range of 17% – and, of course, it has to be politically viable…” and it “doesn’t even pass the environmental viability test, as the first-rate researchers at World Resources Institute have shown.” [WRI data shown here]
At 39 pages long, versus the Waxman-Markey bill at over a thousand, CLEAR is a waferweight among the mammoth contenders. It appears more like a summary than a full-fledged bill. But Senator Cantwell and Susan Collins are confident in their condensed proposal, where simplicity rules. Simplicity may not be enough to be politically feasible; in other words, have enough sweets tucked in between the lines. Although Senator Cantwell disagrees that special interests have to get their cut for the bill to go through, it is no mystery that the bill that will be passed is going to have to be the bare minimum of what vested interests are willing to tolerate in regards to their profits. CLEAR aims for a 20% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020 (seemingly out of the ballpark for interested parties) but the bill itself is not enough to achieve this goal. Additional action by Congress would need to be taken, leading to further delays, and possibly that one thing Cantwell wishes to be avoid: lobbying.
Cantwell’s argument is that oil will eventually soar above $150 a barrel, so it’s only the smart thing to do to get behind this bill now and avoid humiliation later; and second, that her colleagues would rather see something outlined by the states than have the EPA dictate the bottom line. We would want to see something with a bit more bite, despite CLEAR’s brief, distinct sensibility. The reality is that many politicians are the beneficiaries of corporate generosity and are unwilling to make concessions for their constituents, in favor of further bolstering companies who try to skirt around every possible alteration of the status quo. Under the weight of history, lobbying seems like a necessary evil, but Cantwell refuses to concede to that insidious maxim.
Simplicity. Predictability. Slow and steady. The integrity of consumers. Sounds all well and good, and with time it may prove to be the appropriate mantra. But what about the imminence of climate change disaster? How long do we allow ourselves to absorb this transition? Peak or near-peak oil. Is it coming? Has it passed? With oil rig sites being drawn up as we speak for along the Atlantic seaboard, some don’t see it that way. Consumers may welcome a bonus check at the end of the year, but unless time tells us differently, the buck, unfortunately, still stops with oil.
