Earth Equity News

Wax-Markey Bill Undermines State Emission Regs; Senate Must Correct. Commentary by Dan Galpern, Grist, September 23, 2009. "During the long years of federal inaction, California and several other states forged ahead by enacting a range of policies aimed at restricting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Now, in fits and starts, Congress is moving to create a meaningful federal program. To do that, the government should build upon and encourage state innovation. And yet, absent amendment, central features of the Waxman-Markey clean energy measure -- which passed the House on June 26 -- would undermine the climate benefits of state climate action. Now it is up to the Senate to avert that absurd result. The problem is this: When no meaningful cap on emissions exists, initiatives that replace fossil fuel consumption with renewable energy generation or conservation work to reduce GHG emissions. But under the House's cap-and-trade scheme, where polluters must surrender limited allowances to cover their emissions, reduced demand for fossil fuel frees up allowances that polluters can purchase and use. Consequently, additional pollution from expanded use of coal in Ohio, for example, could nullify the climate benefits of California's GHG regulations... Legal and political hurdles functionally will preclude states from using this mechanism to ensure that their programs yield truly additional emissions reductions. For one thing, surplus allowances resulting from reduced demand in one state may be realized or purchased by emitters in another, and so be out of reach. Accordingly, under the proposed trading system, efforts such as tighter state renewable energy requirements or more-stringent state vehicle emissions standards may just make it cheaper for other emitters to spew additional GHG pollution. There is a straightforward solution. Congress could direct EPA to set aside and retire surplus allowances resulting from state initiatives. That way, state climate action will continue to produce truly additional climate benefits -- as contrasted with providing windfall subsidies to fossil fuel interests."