What's actually in Waxman-Markey?

Grist unpacks it. This is a pretty concise summary of a very complicated piece of legislation, and a great aid to understanding.

"You keep hearing about the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill—aka the American Clean Energy and Security Act, ACES, H.R. 2454—but what’s actually in it? We combed through the 946-page beast so you don’t have to.

Here are the highlights of the bill, which is sponsored by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and was passed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee on May 21......

http://www.grist.org/article/2009-06-03-waxman-markey-bill-breakdown/

http://www.grist.org/article/2009-06-03-waxman-markey-bill-breakdown#c178372

"1. The bill lets CO2 continue to rise until 2026. See, International Rivers report on this, posted on their website.

2. A cap is in no way a "permit" that prevents pollution. In fact, it let's polluters keep polluting, all they have to do is trade away their emissions, or buy offsets, mostly in a third world country, where EPA will never be able to track what they are doing. In fact, the bill ALSO takes away EPA's ability to regulate GHG from smokestacks. While the U.S. Supreme Court ordered EPA to regulate GHG from tailpipes of cars, this bill in an industry give away, takes away EPA's authority to regulate GHG from smokestacks, and lets the industry "cap and trade" and offset its pollution under a scheme that is unenforceable.

3. The derivatives market that this bill sets up for trading of the "carbon credits" is EXACTLY like the sub-prime mortgage derivative market. It was modeled after that, in the days when it sounded like a good idea. The carbon trading derivative market set up under this bill presents a real and serious threat to our economy.



4. You missed a serious problem with this bill: It defines "renewable energy" as burning our forests, trash, and landfill gas as renewable."


Any truth in this?

How much income could the National Forest Service generate? Forest are cabon sinks when the ratio is greater than one.


http://www.bwphdws.com/woodfacts/default.htm
Ratio of Hardwood
Sawtimber
Growth to Removal

takes a look at the House debate and the Bill's prospects in the Senate. This is a well balanced article.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1907528,00.html

" That the bill — also known as Waxman-Markey after its co-sponsors, the Democratic Congressmen Henry Waxman and Edward Markey — is historic is obvious, as it marks the first successful attempt by Congress to address climate change at a national level. But as the bill moves to the Senate, where the virtual requirement for 60 votes means that passage will be even more difficult, it's far less clear that Waxman-Markey is strong enough to meet the long-term threat of global warming. The sheer difficulty of the negotiations that produced this 1,300-page bill — and the fact that despite weeks of compromises, it barely passed — demonstrates that Waxman-Markey might be as good as the greens can get. But it might not be good enough for a warming planet. "This won't get us to where we need to go," says Michael Shellenberger, the president of the Breakthrough Institute, an energy think tank that has been critical of Waxman-Markey.

First of all, it's important to understand what the climate-change bill does and doesn't do. The bill includes a raft of energy-efficiency provisions and a renewable-energy standard that will require 20% of all U.S. electricity to come from alternative sources by 2020. Chiefly, though, Waxman-Markey puts a cap on almost all of the greenhouse-gas emissions produced by the U.S. economy — everything from utilities to industry to transportation — setting a limit on how much carbon the country can produce. Industries are issued allowances each year that give them the right to emit a certain amount of carbon; they have to reduce their emissions to meet the cap, or buy allowances from other companies if they exceed the cap. (Companies will also have the option to buy carbon offsets, which involve investing in projects that reduce carbon, like tree-planting.) The idea is that cap and trade gives you more bang for your climate buck. "This bill produces carbon reductions in an affordable way," says Steve Cochran, who directs the EDF's national climate campaign."(more)

I'm giving my own thread one last kick