Rep. Waxman, Sen. Pavley, and Mary Nichols talk climate change
For those of you interested in the relationship between federal climate legislation and California’s landmark global warming laws, tune in tomorrow 10am-noon PDT for a public forum at UCLA. It will be live webcast here, and yes, we are apparently even twittering it. Rep. Henry Waxman will talk about his work in passing the American Clean Energy and Security Act through the House earlier this year; Sen. Pavley and Mary Nichols, Chair of the Air Resources Board, will discuss California’s AB 32 and the state’s work to implement it; and a panel of experts will testify about the science, economics, and policy choices underlying these state and federal climate efforts. Sen. Pavley will then moderate audience questions.
I’ll be watching for a few things. What hints does Waxman give about his view of Senate climate negotiations this fall, especially on trade questions, offsets (foreign and agricultural), and Clean Air Act preemption? Will Nichols or Pavley talk about how good any federal law must be in order to justify usurping California cap-and-trade authority? And — related to Ann’s and Dan’s posts last week on healthcare-style protesters — will this event foreshadow the protests to come on the climate bill? Anti-healthcare-reform activists, pro-healthcare-reform supporters, and general tea party types have all sought and received permits to gather outside the UCLA forum hall tomorrow. We’ll see what talking points they bring on climate change.
I’d like to ask Waxman why a climate bill that favors the most polluting fuel, coal–by putting a price on carbon and then keeping the price of carbon from coal artificially low–makes any sense at all.
2) What’s he gonna do about all those old coal plants? The bill right now will actually advantage these dinosaurs. Seems like an obvious flaw.
‘The Clunkers of the Power-Plant World’
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/16/AR2009081601806.html
Red Desert asked:
“….I’d like to ask Waxman why a climate bill that favors the most polluting fuel, coal–by putting a price on carbon and then keeping the price of carbon from coal artificially low–makes any sense at all…”
Dear Red Desert,
The cap & trade scheme in Waxman-Markey imposes enormous costs on a poor economy, establishes huge buracracies with thousands of government regulators, and raises the price of most goods and services, without doing anything to ever reduce the average global atmospheric temperature.
Mr. Waxman (and his supporters) understand that cap & trade is a scam. They call their opponents “deniers” and refuse to answer valid scientific inquiries, and this is the fundamental underlying reason why Waxman-Markey will fail (and the climate will not suffer).