After Sen. John Warner's announcement he won't seek another term, National Wildlife Federation President Larry Schweiger released this statement:Senator Warner is poised to end his nearly 30-year Senate career tackling the biggest challenge of our time: global warming. This year, Senator Warner has taken a leadership role to advance legislation to address global warming as a national security priority. He has recently outlined a bi-partisan proposal with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) that would reduce the pollution causing global warming and provide resources to help protect the Chesapeake Bay and other fish and wildlife habitat from climate change. The two senators lead a Senate subcommittee that can advance action on this critical issue this Congress.No topic splits environmentalists right now like the Warner-Lieberman bill being drafted in the Senate. Some groups are hopeful Warner-Lieberman will be tough enough that it's worth supporting, while others think Warner-Lieberman will be so soft it deserves to die in committee. They want Boxer-Sanders -- the toughest bill in the Senate -- or nothing.
We'll get into the details (and examine some possible devils) after the jump.
Marc Guenther at Huffington Post recently called Warner a lynchpin on climate change legislation:
Warner could be the key to getting a bill out of the Senate Environment Committee, where Democrats hold only a one-vote edge. He comes from state where, it's safe assume, there are strong, conflicting opinions about climate change; the commonwealth includes both coal mines and the coastline along the Chesapeake Bay. But he's also a national security geek, and he has said that he's worried that global warming could lead to environmental refugees and political instability.It's that so-called safety valve that has many environmentalists lining up against the bill.Meanwhile, to deal with fears that carbon caps will damage the economy, four Senators -- Republicans Warner and Lindsey Graham of South Caroline and Democrats Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana (the land of oil & gas & Katrina) -- introduced legislation that would aim to protect consumers and business from the potential costs of carbon regulation.
The four senators want to create something called a Carbon Market Efficiency Board, modeled on the Fed, to build some flexibility into the regulatory scheme. This board could ease up on an emissions cap if the economy is suffering, but only by lowering the cap in the future. In effect, it would give industry the freedom to pollute more now so long as it pollutes less later, once economy rebounds. (emphasis added)
Open Left's Matt Stoller has offered the most stinging criticism of Warner-Lieberman (thanks to Lowell for the tip). However, I'm not sure how Matt can say "it's a terrible legislative package coming to the floor in the fall" when we don't know all the details yet.
Some environmentalists counter that it doesn't matter which bill comes up for a vote -- President Bush will surely veto any serious global warming legislation and the Senate doesn't have enough votes to override -- it's the roll call itself that matters. Force all one hundred senators to go on the record on a serious bill. No more equivocating. Do you recognize the settled science or are you an unrepentant denier? Then the voters can be clear about their choices in 2008.
But Matt is right when he says, "We get one bite at this apple." Whatever climate change legislation becomes law needs to be damn near perfect, because if soft legislation passes and we try to firm it up later, Republican climate change deniers will say, "See? We told you so. They won't be satisfied until the economy is crippled."
It is good to be cautious and better to lay out the problems with such mechanisms as "safety valves." However, the fact that some people are declaring war against the not-yet-produced bill and damning Environmental Defense, Pew, etc. as Quislings reminds me of the same brainless approach to strategy that has made the environmental movement ever more politically irrelevant over the last 20 years. When was the last big battle (not counting defensive battles like ANWR) that the enviros actually won?
This bill is important because Warner may be able to bring along enough other Republicans to create a good bill that can actually pass. Environmentalists need to be at the table fighting to make sure that this bill does establish a workable cap and trade system without giving away the store. Those who do the hard work of negotiation to create an effective bill that can pass (as no climate change bill has ever has passed before) get my respect more than those who are busy planning show trials for alleged traitors.
There's serious danger to a middle ground/safety valve approach on climate change. Why? Compromise comes with consequences. There are many scientists who say we need immediate, deep cuts to avoid risking the collapse of the Greenland ice shelf, release of greenhouse gases from the melting of Arctic tundra, etc. To them, the two percent annual cuts in Boxer/Sanders to get to an 80% cut by 2050 is itself a political compromise.
Even if we stopped emitting carbon entirely today, CO2 lingers in our atmosphere for 100 years, and the IPCC says we'd still get an additional 4 degrees F of warming by 2100. What additional warming would we be risking to let the economy grow?
And dismissing environmentalists as "politically irrelevant" because they haven't won anything besides "defensive battles" in 20 years is a silly game to play. What about Congressional Democrats as a whole? I don't seem to remember them imposing their will on anyone for a blowout victory since 1994 or so. In our system, when you're in the minority, life sucks. Which is why the "get 'em on record, then get 'em out in '08" argument works for me!
Compromise vs. non-compromise is a meaningless way to frame the debate -- everyone who's not either a martyr or a sociopath has to compromise with reality at some point. The question is how to get to a solution that a majority can sign on to without giving in on essential principles.
The Lieberman-Warner principle does not -- at least not yet -- include safety valves of the egregious variety of the Bingaman-Specter bill. It discusses allowing industries to borrow against future credits in harsh economic circumstances. This must be written carefully to ensure it doesn't become a gaping loophole; however, the reality is that getting to a carbon-neutral society is going to require massive investments and retooling and that ain't going to happen overnight. (Paul Roberts' book The End of Oil has some persuasive arguments on this point.)
Therefore, we need to set mandatory goals in place and then allow sufficient flexibility for industry to achieve them.
We have to get to something a (hopefully large) majority can support or we will continue to have ZERO goals, deadlines and action. If the goal is to put off the passage of actual legislation until after the next president is elected, then I would consider that an unacceptable delay.
Also, it's just not true that you only get one chance to get legislation right. If you look back at the history of Civil Rights Acts, for example, there was a steady progression from weaker to stronger bills from the late 50s on. It is crucial to start applying a cost to GHG emissions and to get industry investing in new infrastructure and new technologies ASAP.
I linked to the actual Lieberman-Warner proposal so that people could see what it says and make their own judgement. I don't think that the proposal as currently written fulfills the dire warnings of those presently raising the alarm bells. In the meantime, it's time better spent for enviros to influence the final shape of the bill than to somewhat blindly declare war on it.
The "strange bedfellows" nature of politics means that we need these guys to succeed in fighting this critical problem, which arguably poses greater long term threats to humanity than even the disastrous quagmire of Iraq.