US Congress and climate: sausage-making begins
The fact that a full-fledged climate regulation bill has passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee is nothing less than monumental. It also means that we now have a baseline document to analyze - or criticize, as the case may be.
The agreement that was struck represents a veritable compromise cobbled together to meet any number of scientific issues, philosophical viewpoints and political realities (for more on all of this, see David Goldston's column). This kind of horse-trading is what makes it real, but the process always leaves a sour taste in the mouths of many observers. And as is often the case with a bill this big and this complex, experts are still sorting through things and trying to figure out what it all means.
Much of the discussion has focused on the impact of the committee's predictable concessions to give away most of the permits in the early years (Harvard economist Robert Stavins delved into these questions in a recent Huffington Post column). Others have focused on everything from emissions offsets in the forestry sector to the definition of renewable energy.
But it's the sheer complexity of the legislation that has many worried. The Washington Post's Steven Pearlstein summed up some of the basic fears when the bill came out. Such criticisms have spurred many, including Pearlstein himself, to revive talk of a carbon tax. The top House Democrat on tax issues, Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel of New York, has fueled the fire by saying he wants a crack at the bill and would be open to such an idea (see ClimateWire).
The jurisdictional issues are real and could slow things down, but short of another revolution in political thought on Capitol Hill, the carbon tax proposal isn't going to get much traction. Proponents of cap-and-trade like the cap on emissions, which theoretically guarantees results; a tax only delivers in proportion to the pain it causes those who pay it. Politically, they ask, would it be possible to establish a tax that is free of loopholes and high enough to, say, force an end to conventional coal?
The counterargument is that we are simply deluding ourselves with cap-and-trade, which basically hides a variable tax behind the smoke and mirrors of "market-based regulation." Perhaps, they argue, the appeal of an honest tax will grow as people see what the legislative process produces as an alternative.
Indeed, it's hard to say what kind of deal might ultimately garner the requisite votes, precisely because the dynamic shifts once you move from a theoretical discussion to a process that ends in a law.
