Posted by Jim Lindgren:
Will Cap and Trade Pass Congress?
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_06_21-2009_06_27.shtml#1245813199
The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on cap-and-trade
this week.
The bill seeks to lower US per capita cabon emissions levels to levels
below those of the US colonial period.
As I [1]blogged four months ago:
The goal is an 83% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 compared
to 2005 levels.
That would bring US per capita emissions of CO2 down to a level
below what we had in the 1700s. As Steven Hayward wrote in the WSJ
last April about an 80% reduction then on the table:
Begin with the current inventory of carbon dioxide emissions � CO2
being the principal greenhouse gas generated almost entirely by
energy use. According to the Department of Energy's most recent
data on greenhouse gas emissions, in 2006 the U.S. emitted 5.8
billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, or just under 20 tons per
capita. An 80% reduction in these emissions from 1990 levels means
that the U.S. cannot emit more than about one billion metric tons
of CO2 in 2050.
Were man-made carbon dioxide emissions in this country ever that
low? The answer is probably yes � from historical energy data it is
possible to estimate that the U.S. last emitted one billion metric
tons around 1910. But in 1910, the U.S. had 92 million people, and
per capita income, in current dollars, was about $6,000.
By the year 2050, the Census Bureau projects that our population
will be around 420 million. This means per capita emissions will
have to fall to about 2.5 tons in order to meet the goal of 80%
reduction.
It is likely that U.S. per capita emissions were never that low �
even back in colonial days when the only fuel we burned was wood.
The only nations in the world today that emit at this low level are
all poor developing nations, such as Belize, Mauritius, Jordan,
Haiti and Somalia.
If Obama succeeds in his quest to reduce carbon emissions by 83% by
2050, American business will be destroyed. Manufacturing in the US
will essentially disappear to countries that do not have
anti-business, anti-growth policies, mostly in the Far East.
It would be hard to imagine a government policy that is likely to
be more destructive of jobs and economic growth than this one.
So what are its chances in Congress? Normally, the bill would not be
brought forward in the House without the votes, but I came across
[2]this speculation:
The erratic course that legislation establishing transferable
global warming fees has taken shows how hard it is to get a
coalition together for a future problem that many people think is
overstated.
While her admirers say that the reason the speaker kicked the bill
out of committee for a sudden vote by the full House is because she
believes she can get the job done, it's at least as likely that
Pelosi knows she can't.
Leaving the bill in the hands of skeptical and regionally motivated
committee chairmen and subject to special interest lobbying, Pelosi
was losing control of the bill. Worse than having the Waxman-Markey
bill defeated would be having it pass in some form that is really
more of a subsidy to carbon emitters than a crackdown. . . .
By bringing the bill out for a vote this week, it will almost
certainly fail in the House. If, by some miracle it does get out of
the House, the Senate would smite any bill that amounts to a tax or
hurts manufacturing states. . . .
Rather than being a sign of new life, Pelosi's decision to push the
cap and trade bill out of committee may be something of an assisted
suicide.
While I do not know anything of the bill's chances in the House, it
wouldn't be a miracle if it passed. Yet, given the Senate's refusal to
fast-track the bill earlier this year, I suspect that the Senate will
not pass any version of cap-and-trade this year.
But that wouldn't be the end of cap-and-trade. The Obama
administration might just implement it under its power to prevent air
pollution.
References
1. http://www.volokh.com/posts/1235712057.shtml
2.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Cap-and-trade-mercy-killing-48894357.html
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