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Cap Carbon Emissions |
"As president, I will set a hard cap on all carbon emissions at a level that scientists say is necessary to curb global warming -- an 80 percent reduction by 2050."
-- Portsmouth, N.H.
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NOVEMBER 15, 2009
Obama Will Settle For Preliminary Agreement
With climate change legislation in the Senate stalled and the House-passed Waxman-Markey bill not gaining a foothold in the upper chamber, the administration has conceded that a binding global treaty cannot be signed during the December U.N. climate negotiations in Copenhagen. At an Asia Pacific summit, President Obama endorsed the idea of forging a "political agreement" that would lay the groundwork for a legally binding treaty to be negotiated later in 2010. Many experts say that the stalled U.S. climate change legislation has delayed international talks, since some of the world's other biggest polluters, namely the developing countries of China and India, are unwilling to commit to greenhouse gas emissions cuts without a firm reduction target put forth by the United States. For its part though, the U.S. is hesitant to name a specific target without first passing domestic climate change legislation and also without commitments from other countries. |
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OCTOBER 05, 2009
Obama Calls Upon Government To Cut Emissions
Obama signed an executive order that requires federal agencies to set a 2020 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target within the next three months. The order adds on to an order President Bush signed in January 2007 that dealt with energy efficiency more generally; it did not include a specific reduction target. |
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SEPTEMBER 30, 2009
EPA Moves To Regulate Biggest Polluters
The Environmental Protection Agency announced proposed rules aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions of the largest industrial facilities, such as coal-fired plants and oil refineries. The rules would require facilities that emit at least 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year to obtain construction and operating permits covering their emissions. The agency estimates these facilities account for 70 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions coming from domestic stationary sources. |
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SEPTEMBER 30, 2009
Kerry-Boxer Bill Aims To Cut Emissions
The climate change bill proposed by Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., includes a cap-and-trade system that would aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. Their cut is 3 percentage points more than the House's version. Click here for the Environment and Public Works Committee's summary of the cap-and-trade provision. Many key details are not yet included in the bill, since other committees have jurisdiction over certain provisions, such as how emissions permits would be distributed. |
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JUNE 26, 2009
Waxman-Markey Mandates 83 Percent Reduction By 2050
The American Clean Energy and Security Act -- better known by the names of House sponsors Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Edward Markey, D-Mass. -- mandates an 83 percent reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by 2050. It passed 219-212. |
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MARCH 31, 2009
House Democrats Release Energy Proposal
Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Ed Markey, D-Mass., proposed a draft energy bill that would create a cap-and-trade program to curb U.S. heat-trapping gas emissions 20 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050. |
By ALINA SELYUKH
The key to a potential carbon emissions cap will be curbing costs, said members of an energy independence and environmental leadership panel at this year's Georgetown Public Policy Institute Conference. The theme of the conference, held at the Cannon House Office Building, was "Transforming Campaign Promises Into Policy Reality" despite the recession.
Lynn Schloesser, federal affairs director for Eastman Chemical Co., touched on the uncertainty surrounding the costs of reducing carbon emissions and the effect on companies' bottom line.
"There are so many fingers in this pie for so long" that a cost-benefit analysis is likely to be painstaking, Schloesser said. "The complexity of economic consequences is real, and it’s directly related to when actions are taken."
Scientists, however, are "making up lists of effects and low-balling the costs" of capping greenhouse gas emissions, said Myron Ebell, director of energy and global warming policy at the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute, who argued that the emissions debate "has been skewed" by "alarmist views" that exaggerate the extent of global warming. Referring to Europe’s cap-and-trade endeavor, he cited the large costs suffered by European economies while emissions, he said, are still going up.
Ebell cited analyses that predicted the most economic benefit from emissions legislation would come between 2100 and 2200, while the current generation -- already in debt and pressured by the economic crisis -- will have to spend potentially 1 percent of the country’s GDP on implementing those cuts.
Erich Pica, domestic program director of Friends of the Earth, cautioned that too strict a carbon emissions policy could have businesses looking to other countries for their manufacturing needs. Julie Falkner, a senior policy adviser at the Nature Conservancy, suggested that other measures could help achieve the same goal, such as reducing deforestation.
Pica did say the "little pieces are moving" and the crucial obstacle has been overcome: Reducing emissions has caught legislators' attention, and they seem to realize the U.S. needs to do more than "flip a coin into the air and say, 'We've done enough to avoid the worsening of the global warming.'"
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FEBRUARY 27, 2009
Budget Blueprint Projects Revenues From Emissions Credit Auctioning
The budget plan announced by President Obama assumes that a carbon cap-and-trade system would begin in 2012, raising about $80 billion a year by auctioning emissions credits -- $645 billion by 2019. |
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JANUARY 26, 2009
Obama Issues Memo, Calls To Tighten Regulations
President Obama issued a memorandum directing the Transportation Department and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to begin raising fuel-economy standards, with the ultimate goal of reaching 35 miles per gallon. He also instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to move toward waiving California's limitation under the Clean Air Act and allowing state-specific emissions standards to be stricter than national. |
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JANUARY 16, 2009
Jackson Backs Cap-And-Trade
Lisa Jackson, Obama's pick for EPA chief, said at her confirmation hearing that she supports a cap-and-trade system for reducing carbon emissions. |
