{"id":273525,"date":"2010-02-03T10:30:27","date_gmt":"2010-02-03T15:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"tag:business.theatlantic.com,2010:\/\/3.35250"},"modified":"2010-02-03T10:28:38","modified_gmt":"2010-02-03T15:28:38","slug":"what-will-obamas-energy-bill-look-like-without-cap-and-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/273525","title":{"rendered":"What Will Obama’s Energy Bill Look Like Without Cap-and-Trade?"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Obama acknowledged in a meeting with lawmakers that an energy bill this year will probably not<\/i> include cap-and-trade. Instead the president hopes to pass a bill that provides subsidies and tax credits to companies who explore green technology, eliminates subsidies for oil companies, expands loans for nuclear power, and supports training for “green jobs.”<\/p>\n

That’s a fine energy bill. But it’s worse than a carbon price.<\/p>\n

The tragedy is that Obama clearly grasps the necessity of a carbon
\nprice. Assigning a cost to the negative externality of
\npollution would encourage the private sector to seek new energy
\nefficient technologies without government subsidies providing the backseat driving. Obama told lawmakers yesterday (via NYT<\/a>):<\/p>\n

“And so the question then is: Does it make sense for us to start
\npricing in the fact that this thing is really bad for the environment?”
\nObama added. “And if we do, then can we do it in a way that doesn’t
\ninvolve some big bureaucracy in a control-and-command system, but just
\nsays, look, we’re just going to — there’s going to be a price to
\npollution. And then everybody can adapt and decide which are the —
\nwhich are the best energies.”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Unfortunately Obama’s energy policy is at the mercy of a Senate that
\nmoves through complicated legislation like fly stuck in amber.
\nCap-and-trade legislation has passed the House, but in the Senate its
\ncaught in the same legislative pipes that have been gummed up by health
\ncare reform.<\/p>\n

The fact is that a carbon price is far superior to an ad hoc system of
\nsubsidies and tax credits sprinkled into the chomping mouths of
\nenergy’s special interests — even if those interests are wind and
\nsolar energy, rather than oil companies. But what economists call a
\ncarbon price, opponents call a carbon tax. And it is an immutable law
\nof politics that policies including the word “tax” are DOA.<\/p>\n

Cap and trade was always a hard sell. It would almost certainly “cost”
\nthe United States a small percentage of GDP as the economy transitioned
\nto different sources of energy. The way to sell the program, I always
\nthought, was to frame climate change reform as a social insurance
\npolicy. Essentially, it’s like asking Americans: “Would you rather risk
\nbeing 1-2 percent poorer while investing in insurance against the
\nlikelihood of global climate catastrophic change, or would you prefer
\nto be 1-2 percent richer while risking the melting the ice caps,
\ndevastating some food growing regions, and strengthening climate
\ndisasters?”<\/p>\n

But instead of something transformative, the Obama administration is looking to settle for something nudging. Supported by tax credits and subsidies, our new energy policy is a lot like our old energy policy, with a different host of recipients.


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President Obama acknowledged in a meeting with lawmakers that an energy bill this year will probably not include cap-and-trade. Instead the president hopes to pass a bill that provides subsidies and tax credits to companies who explore green technology, eliminates subsidies for oil companies, expands loans for nuclear power, and supports training for “green jobs.” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-273525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273525\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}