The conservative lobby struggling to derail the American Clean Energy and Security Act has recently been accumulating roadblocks to their progress. The bill, which now remains on the floor of the Senate, passed in the House by a slim margin and stands as the most aggressive piece of climate legislation in the country’s history. Opponents to the bill have argued that the goal of regulating carbon–either through a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system–would place an undo stress on the economy, adding thousands of dollars to utility bills. Naysayers also claim that there is a large portion of dissenting public vote for the bill. As it seems now, those two lines of critique are waning.
A new report by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) has determined that the bill would indeed raise costs of electricity and gasoline in the country, but the change would be minimal. The estimated increase for the cost of power over the next 11 years was between 3 to 4 percent, far below the claims of middle class power bills being thrust into the stratosphere. Gas prices are estimates to rise 23 cents (only due to the bill, not fluctuations in oil prices) and given that we pay less for gas than most of the world, the addition is negligible. The EIA becomes the third administration after the Environmental Protection Agency and the Congressional Budget Office to affirm the low public cost of this bill which seeks to lower emissions 17% by 2020 and nearly 80% by 2050 from 2005 levels.
The other gut shot that sank into opponents of Waxman-Markey was the uncovering of forged letters written to congressmen to urge them not to vote for the bill in the House. With the guise of minority, public interest groups, the letters took on the form of copied letterheads and phantom signatures to stir opposition for the bill. Kate Galbraith notes that apparently the letters originated from D.C. lobby consulting firm Bonner and Associates who was in turn working for another firm called the Hawthorn Group. The kicker comes from the final client, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, and suddenly the whole thing makes all too much sense. Of course, blame is claimed by no one, but placed on the lone acts of a purported temporary employee at Bonner who has since been released from duty. Regardless of whose fault it actually is, at worst the event was blatantly dishonest and crippling to the credibility of the lobby. At best, it is an embarrassing scar on the face of the camp.
In this case, I think the damage actually goes beyond the factual events. If the contra-lobby to environmental legislation finds itself in need of lying and fabricating faulty evidence then it must mean that they are short on real reasons for why climate legislation is not a good idea (not that this is altogether surprising.) For those trying to find their way to an opinion about the Climate Bill, think about the danger of a position that needs to use more than the truth to win your vote, and is willing to do it.
Photo Credit: Flickr Truly_U
August 5, 2009 at 3:00 pm
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August 6, 2009 at 2:47 pm
While I mostly support the ACES bill, it is worth noting that many fo teh studies done by governemnt agencies have serious flaws in their analysis. Neither the CBO, the EIA, or the EPA analysis takes into account the potential affect ACES might have on the economy, GDP, industrial work, etc. The affects to the conomy on the whole could be massive when all is added up. None of them also take into acount potential unemployment from the resulting dying industries (IE coal). Additionaly the EPA anaylsis included massive increase in nuclear power generation in the next 15years, which is both unreasonable and impossible. Probably most importantly, all three of these reports fail to analyze the fact that, according to the EIA, the US will only see a 1% annual increase in demand for electricity (about 109 Gigawatts of capacity by 2030) Which renewables are projected to take 36% of. In order to even meet the 2014 energy portfolio standards in the ACES bill, renewables would ahve to take 100% of the 1.1% annual growth. The moral is that the energy portfolio standards are jsut no possible in such a short time frame.
August 13, 2009 at 11:14 am
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