By Bart King
The game is over for federal climate change legislation in the United States, and we lost. A majority of lawmakers in both houses of Congress, a motivated administration, a devastating oil spill and a willing public were not enough to establish a new energy policy that would reward renewable resources and phase out the use of fossil fuels.
Hopes were high when our basketball-loving president came in with a numerical advantage in the Senate and the House of Representatives. The financial crisis ate a lot of time off the clock, as did the struggle to win on health care and pass Wall Street reforms. Along the way, Democrats lost the supermajority when one of their key players went down, and team unity dissolved as moderates, with eyes on midterm elections, became more interested in scoring points for corporate farms and coal companies. In the end, team climate change never even got a good shot off.
I was one of those overly optimistic fans who thought we could win it all—a strong cap-and-trade program combined with an ambitious renewable energy standard requiring the production of 25 percent renewable energy by the year 2020.
But as the season progressed, I lowered my expectations. The cap-and-trade program passed by the House of Representatives in the summer of 2009 included huge corporate giveaways that had already proven to be a mistake in the Europeans’ game plan five years earlier. Likewise, the renewable energy target set by the House was only marginally better than business-as-usual projections.
Nonetheless, it was a start. And even a weak climate change law would have been enough for the U.S. to lead a global effort. Without a U.S. law, international negotiations fail, the United Nations loses relevance and limiting the effects of climate change becomes impossible. (See “Copenhagen is About More than Climate Change.”)
But the U.S. Senate is where things really fell apart. Thanks to the filibuster—a procedural rule allowing a minority of 41 votes to block any bill supported by up to 59 votes—Senate Democrats have been unable to reproduce even the limited success achieved in the House. With Democrats expected to lose seats in November’s elections, everyone knew time was running out to make a move on any serious legislation.
Tragic as it is, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill presented an opportunity for some last-minute magic (and heartbreak, as it turned out). As Americans watched crude oil spew from a pipe at the bottom of the ocean, public support grew for safer, cleaner energy policy. Democratic leadership rallied in the Senate, making the case that protecting against future environmental disasters goes hand-in-hand with cutting greenhouse gas emissions and shifting preference to renewables like solar and wind power.
But try as they might, the Democrats couldn’t get enough votes. First they suggested a scaled down cap-and-trade program, just for fossil-fueled electricity generation. No luck. Then they suggested a token renewable energy standard. No go. With the summer recess just days away, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid introduced a limited energy bill in late July. It tightens oversight on offshore drilling and removes the liability cap that would keep BP from having to pay billions in economic damages to communities along the Gulf Coast. It also includes incentives for switching to electric vehicles and retrofitting houses for better energy efficiency.
These are good ideas, but they are pitifully inadequate to deal with the voracity of our fossil fuel addiction. The BP spill continued unabated for just under three months, releasing anywhere from 2.2 million to 4.3 million barrels of oil (a barrel is 42 gallons). The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that daily oil consumption in the U.S. in 2010 will be 19.5 million barrels—a slow year due to the economic downturn. And that doesn’t even take into consideration coal, which is the biggest and dirtiest problem.
So, where does that leave us? The Obama administration will likely
follow through on its promise to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under
the Clean Air Act. But they will be sued every step of the way, as
we’re already beginning to see. Last December at the Copenhagen Climate
Summit, Obama promised the rest of the world the U.S. would reduce its
greenhouse gas emissions roughly 14 percent below 1990 levels by the
year 2020. (Never mind that the reduction recommended by climate
scientists is 25 to 40 percent.) If the Environmental Protection Agency
succeeds in implementing all of its regulatory tools, it will put the
country on track for the 14 percent pledge through the year 2016,
according to a recent analysis by the World Resources Institute. But
beyond 2016, only comprehensive legislation will carry us through to the
goal.
In the absence of federal leadership, we can expect to see a greater
divergence in the climate and energy policies of red and blue states.
Currently, there are 28 states that have some level of renewable energy
standard in place. California and Colorado lead the pack, requiring 33
percent and 30 percent renewable energy, respectively. Progressive
states like these will push farther and faster now that the feds have
dropped the ball. But laggards like Georgia will continue to let
corporations call the shots. Ultimately, this divergence will make it
harder for companies to do business nationwide, under a patchwork of
varying regulations. The only moderating factor will be the rising
influence of regional collaborations. Organizations like the Regional
Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the Western Climate Initiative and the
Midwestern Accord are creating regional regulations for cap-and-trade
and other clean energy incentives.
Eventually, the U.S. will have federal climate change legislation (and
maybe procedural reform in the Senate—though that’s another can of
worms). The increasing toll of environmental disasters and the mounting
evidence of global warming will be too much to ignore. But it could take
another decade for public and political consensus to grow from a thin
majority to an undeniable force. If the pundits are right about November
elections, we may have to wait out one more swing of the political
pendulum. It could be a short swing that briefly nudges Congress to the
right, or a deeper one that pushes Obama out of office in 2012.
Unfortunately, time is not on our side. Best-case climate science tells
us we have about 10 years to stop and reverse the growth of global
carbon dioxide emissions. Meanwhile, Asian and European nations are
expanding their leads in the energy technology race, the winners of
which will secure jobs and wealth in the century ahead.
It should be noted that true-blue climate fans are whispering that
Democrats might go all-out for a climate bill during a lame-duck session
after the November elections and before the swearing in of new
lawmakers in January. Others hold out hope that some climate measures
will be introduced to the current energy bill during conference
negotiations between the House and the Senate. This ignores the fact
that Republicans will continue to use the filibuster to obstruct the
passage of any significant legislation and have already threatened to
block the energy bill because they say it will unduly harm oil and gas
companies and cause the loss of jobs in that industry.
As for me, I know when I’ve been beaten. Nothing short of sweeping
progressive victory in the midterms will lead to climate legislation
during Obama’s first term. I just wish that it really were a game.
Bart King is News Editor of SustainableBusiness.com. This column first appeared in Flagpole on Wednesday, August 11, 2010. Contact bart@sustainablebusiness.com.
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