Rep. Markey, House Climate Leader, Introduces New Bill
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There's a (sort of) new climate change player on Capitol Hill.
U.S. Rep. Edward J. Markey (pictured), a leading voice for some time in Washington on the subject of greenhouse gas reductions, announced Wednesday he would introduce a "revolutionary" climate change bill that appears to be the most aggressive measure yet put before Congress. The Investing in Climate Action and Protection Act, which would establish a cap-and-trade program, would produce an 85 percent reduction in global warming pollutants by 2050, according to a summary of the legislation.
In a speech announcing the bill, Markey, who chairs a special House committee on global warming that that has held more than 40 hearings on the issue, said:
"I am here today because the chorus for change is deafening. I’ve heard from many witnesses, and they all have one message. The time for action is now. Ladies and gentlemen, we must cap pollution, we must invest in consumers, jobs and the technology of tomorrow, and America must lead the world in solving our greatest challenges, and we must start now."
The bill, to be introduced next week, anticipates bigger cuts than the latest version of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, which is expected to go before the Senate in a few days. According to a summary of that bill released by sponsors, it would produce about a 66 percent overall reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Although exact comparisons are difficult, another Senate measure, the Bingaman-Specter Low Carbon Economy Act (view a summary), would set somewhat lower targets, according to an analysis from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Both of those bills also would establish emissions trading programs.
The Markey bill's goal is also more robust than that called for recently by environment ministers from the world's industrialized nations.
According to various reports, however, storm clouds have been gathering over the prospect of any greenhouse legislation passing the current session of Congress.
The Wall Street Journal's Environmental Capital blog, for instance, just recently reported on how "hand-wringing over the economy" is making it tougher to craft an effective bill, even before the Markey bill surfaced. Environmental Capital also noted that Markey is not only taking on a "listing" economy but also a powerful fellow Democrat, Rep. John Dingell of Michigan. Separately, Reuters reported that prospects for Lieberman-Warner might be dim this year.
Meanwhile, as Climate Law Update has previously noted, business groups have complained that the costs of legislation to control emissions would be significant, and some have issued calls to oppose the Lieberman-Warner bill. Environmentalists have countered with their own studies suggesting the costs of doing nothing would itself carry an enormous price tag. Both sides have interpreted some government analyses in their own ways.
Even before Markey's bill was formally unveiled, an academic and energy industry analyst cited by the Boston Globe predicted that the legislation's schedule for cutting emissions "would tend to be viewed as overly aggressive." The newspaper reported that the bill has been the subject of more than 40 hearings before Markey's committee.
One key provision in the new bill that appears to distinguish it from its two main Senate measures is how it handles the initial distribution of "allowances" or credits, which permit companies to emit a certain amount of greenhouse gases. Markey's bill would require the government to auction off almost all of the credits -- 94 percent in the beginning and up to 100 percent by 2020. By contrast, the Senate bills would distribute about three-quarters of them for free in the beginning, auctioning only about one-fourth, according to a recent report previously cited in a Climate Law Update story.
That report noted that utilities generally favor the idea of free distribution but the document generally sided with others, including environmentalists, who like the notion of selling the credits.
Markey's office estimated that over the life of the legislation revenues from the credit sales would reach a total of $8 trillion, half of which would go back to low- and middle-income households through rebates and tax credits to compensate them for the higher energy costs the bill would trigger. The rest of the money would go to other programs such as research into clean energy technology, incentives to farmers and forest managers to reduce greenhouse emissions and job training and assistance programs.
The legislation would allow companies, or anyone else, to then buy, sell, transfer or bank the credits for future use. A fundamental tenet of such programs is by creating a market in the credits, it will produce incentives for companies to reduce their emissions, even as overall limits or caps on the pollution kick in.
Like the revised Lieberman-Warner bill, the new House legislation allows industries to meet up to 15 percent of their credit obligations by buying domestic "offset" credits, and another 15 percent by purchasing overseas offsets. In other words, that means companies could reduce their need to cut pollution by, for example, financing re-forestation projects or underwriting pollution control efforts. It also builds in incentives for other countries to reduce global warming pollution by, for instance, allowing them access to the U.S. offset market.
Another provision in the bill targets coal-fired plants, requiring new facilities to capture and sequester 85 percent of their carbon dioxide emissions over a set period of time.
The new bill immediately drew support from a top climate official at the environmental group Environmental Defense Fund and it also received a generally positive reaction from the Natural Resources Defense Council. Both groups had previously said the Lieberman-Warner bill needed strengthening.
(Photo credit: U.S. Rep. Edward Markey's office)
