Draft climate legislation debated this week

For anyone interested in climate change, energy and/or the American economy, this is shaping up to be quite a week. Above all else, keep an eye on Washington, DC, where a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee begins hearings on a draft bill that addresses climate-change legislation. Here’s a prelude, courtesy of House Minority Leader John Boehner, talking Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” with George Stephanopoulos :

BOEHNER: …the idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do, you’ve got more carbon dioxide. And so i think it’s clear…

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you don’t believe that greenhouse gases are a problem in creating climate change?

BOEHNER: We’ve had climate change over the last 100 years — listen, it’s clear we’ve had change in our climate. The question is how much does man have to do with it, and what is the proper way to deal with this? We can’t do it alone as one nation. If we got India, China and other industrialized countries not working with us, all we’re going to do is ship millions of American jobs overseas.”

At the start of this sound byte, Boehner is referring to an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finding, anounced last Friday, that may clear the way for the Agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. In brief, it works like this: the EPA can’t just regulate anything it wants — there has to be a connection between the paritcular issue and the damages it causes. Specifically, the particular activity — be it emitting sulfur dioxide and causing acid rain, or selling leaded gasoline — has to shown to endanger public health and welfare. This is, in effect, what the EPA announced on Friday — evidence supporting the so-called “endagerment finding.” Here’s an excerpt from the press release:

EPA’s proposed endangerment finding is based on rigorous, peer-reviewed scientific analysis of six gases – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride – that have been the subject of intensive analysis by scientists around the world. The science clearly shows that concentrations of these gases are at unprecedented levels as a result of human emissions, and these high levels are very likely the cause of the increase in average temperatures and other changes in our climate.

On this point, I gotta say that I kind of side with Boehner (despite the obtuseness with which he makes his case — check out this video). Historically, the EPA has regulated harmful substances that stem from a relatively narrow set of activities and that create clear, fairly immediate damages. The same cannot be said of GHG emissions. Pretty much everything we do releases carbon. What’s more, the nexus between these activities and future damages is not nearly as tight as in other cases. In other words, the public health argument is much stronger for substances like atmospheric sulfur dioxide: the acid rain it causes leads to fairly immediate, quantifiable damages. Yes, climate change will undoubtedly cause lots of damages, many of them irreversible. But much debate remains on how to value them. And, finally, some states rely more heavily on high-carbon industries — like oil and gas, steel or manufacturing — than others. These differences raise legal, economic and logistical questions about whether the EPA should be the forum through which emissions are regulated. In short, an accross-the-board, command-and-control regulatory framework from the EPA would be a burden for many. So, I can understand Boener’s refutation of the Agency’s decision.

Then again, I “get” why the EPA acted the way that it did. Though the timing of the announcement feels more like political maneuvering than pure science. As Juliet Eilperin from the Washington Post suggests,

[t]he agency’s proposed finding is likely to intensify pressure on Congress to pass legislation that would limit greenhouse gases, as President Obama, many lawmakers and some industry leaders prefer. But cap-and-trade legislation, which would limit emissions and allow emitters to trade pollution allowances, is fiercely opposed by a coalition of Republicans and Democrats from fossil-fuel-dependent Midwestern states who fear that such a system would raise energy prices and hurt the nation’s economy.

Bottom line for me, I suppose, is that: (1) Yes, we need climate legislation that puts a price on emitting carbon — though I’m in the camp that favors a tax over a cap-and-trade system, (2) Yes, I think Rep Boehner sounds waaay out of touch when he hems and haws about the extent to which humans have altered the globe’s climate. The time for splitting hairs and flirting with climate change denial has passed. Now is the time for meaningful action. (3) Yes, I remain cautiously optimistic (bordering skeptical, depending on the day) about the prospects of large emitters in the developing world taking on some sort of economy-wide emissions reduction targets. Just check out this bit on China from the Yale Environment 360. Not that this will gurantee progress at the international climate negotiations scheduled for December… (4) Yes, I think DC can be a wacky town. Only here will you hear someone reference cow farts in the hope of generating a sound byte that actually advances their position.