US Person asked his readers to support the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) because quite frankly, it was the only game in town. The bill was watered down to attract enough support from 'Blue Dogs' and moderate Repugnants (an oxymoron?). Co-author Henry Waxman (D-CA) said the bill will put on a path to "true energy security". That remains to be seen. What it does put us on is the path to using more coal. Coal is dirty no matter what the commercials say about 'clean coal'[1]. There are no commercially viable technologies for sequestration of carbon from combustion waste products. Research and development on this technological trick is just getting started. The Department of Energy announced that it would spend $1 billion to restart a carbon-capture demonstration plant in Mattoon, Il. Leading government scientist on global warming Dr. James Hansen called the bill "the Temple of Doom". His view, shared by other environmentalists, is that no bill is better than Waxman-Markey because the cap-and-trade system for pollution offsets it creates is an inefficient way of establishing a carbon price, and a method particularly vulnerable to gaming by polluters. Experts who agree with Dr. Hansen[2] view a carbon tax as the best way to make dirty energy too expensive to use. But the efficient solution ignores political reality in Washington. Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA), represents a coal state, but supported the cap and trade system because it "create[s] the opportunity for increasing coal production." The legislation will have little actual effect on pollution levels in the US and if fact allows regulated industries to emit a third more carbon in 2012 than they did in 2005 and close to 10% more in 2020.[3]It will also allow Obama to go to the Copenhagen climate conference in December and tout a mandatory reduction system thereby taking the US off the climate pariah list, if it survives the Senate. ACES does do some positive things, such as establishing the long overdue national energy efficiency and renewable energy standards for utilities. It also provides funding for worker training in green technologies, and community development programs--mere bones for the dog. King Coal, your train has arrived.
[1] The coal industry spent $38 million in the 2008 presidential campaign to push its message that coal burning has a future in a greener America. Coal is America's most abundant fossil fuel and is the source of half of its electric power.
[2] Hansen was recently arrested for protesting a mountain top coal removal operation in West Virginia. His inconvenient truth is based on his latest modeling and the work of other climate scientists: the threat of global warming is far greater than expected. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are generally assumed not to pose "dangerous anthropomorphic interference" until 450ppm are reached. CO2 has already reached 385ppm. If current trends continue the number of doom will be reached by 2035. Hansen believes the danger level is really at 350ppm, and we are beginning to see the climatic results: ice caps and glaciers melting and arid zones expanding. Dr. Hansen was not permitted to talk to the media without White House clearance during the Bush Regime. The New Yorker Magazine, 6.29.09
[3]thebreakthrough.org/blog/2009/05/the_flawed_logic_of_the_capand.shtml