Posted by Jonathan Adler:
Obama Opposes Climate Protectionism?
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_06_28-2009_07_04.shtml#1246234039
An NYT [1]story reports that President Obama "spoke out against a
provision in the bill that would impose trade penalties on countries
that do not accept global-warming pollution limits." If so, this is
very encouraging. So I consulted the [2]transcript of the interview
upon which the Times' story was based, and here is what the President
said:
Q. One of the provisions that got added very late to this bill that
senators had expressed some reservations about was the one that
puts tariffs on goods imported from countries that don't have these
sort of restrictions. What do you think of that revision and would
you like to see the Senate strip it out?
President Obama: At a time when the economy worldwide is still deep
in recession and we've seen a significant drop in global trade, I
think we have to be very careful about sending any protectionist
signals out there. There were a number of provisions that were
already in place, prior to this last provision you talked about, to
provide transitional assistance to heavy manufacturers. A lot of
the offsets were outdated to those industries. I think we're going
to have to do a careful analysis to determine whether the prospects
of tariffs are necessary, given all the other stuff that was done
and had been negotiated on behalf of energy-intensive industries.
So certainly it is a legitimate concern on the part of American
businesses that they are not disadvantaged vis-a-vis their global
competitors. Now, keep in mind, European industries are looking at
an even more ambitious approach than we are. And they obviously
have confidence that they can compete internationally under a
regime that controls carbons. I think the Chinese are starting to
move in the direction of recognizing that the future requires them
to take a clean energy approach. In fact, in some ways they're
already ahead of us -- on fuel efficiency standards, for example,
they've moved beyond where we've moved on this.
There are going to be a series of negotiations around this and I am
very mindful of wanting to make sure that there's a level playing
field internationally. I think there may be other ways of doing it
than with a tariff approach.
This seems to be much more equivocal than the initial story suggested.
The President certainly expressed skepticism about tariffs, but he
hardly staked out a firm position -- we should be "very careful," we
should study "whether the prospects of tariffs are necessary," but
there "may" be alternatives. I hope the NYT's interpretation is
correct, but I have my doubts.
On a tangential note, in the same interview -- which also included
Energy Scretary Steven Chu and White House energy czar Carol Browner
-- the latter erred when she suggested that CFC replacements were had
yet to be developed when Congress enacted a CFC ban in the 1990 Clean
Air Act. DuPont and other CFC producers began patenting and producing
CFC substitutes years earlier. Indeed, these firms supported the CFC
phaesout because it guaranteed a market for their alternative
products.
References
1. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/us/politics/29climate.html
2. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/us/politics/29climate-text.html
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