Perhaps the most important climate change bill, to this date, is to be debated on the floor of the US House tommorow. I hope the debate does not get watered down as health care, another big domestic debate, gets debated in Congress on the US Senate side of the capital.
My problem with this bill is that the bill may be to little to late. We may already be at an ecological tipping point. I believe that on some things we already are…!!!
Lets assume my arguments on global climate change are the hard line that results from doing nothing and that this bill, also called the Waxman-Markey bill , is a good first step and that the bill goes far enough to mitigate some aspects of global climate change. The first question that arises is, “just what is cap and trade?”
This might be the most important point in any climate legislation for the short term. May and Caron, in their book, Global Warming For Dummies, describe cap and trade as: …”a contrversial approach to reducing greenhouse gase’s” that involves emmisions trading.
The US government decides just how much carbon we can have in the US by what year. The allowable level of carbon is called a cap. The trade comes in when a company comes in lower than its projected carbon cap and trades that surplus, for a predetermined amount, to another company that has gone over its predetermined cap of carbon. The company that goes over it’s predetermined carbon cap must pay the company that has a surplus of cleanness so that the company can pollute to its payment, or trade level, to the surplus company.
My thinking is that industry will not “buy” into the climate change legislation unless it has a business model like “cap and Trade” to back industry up.
This cap and trade has been tried before with a successful model of air cleanup in LA. Industry.that is large will buy into such a plan.
In today’sBozeman, Montana paper is an article entitled: “Climate Bill Backers Agree to Some Concessions”. I want to know if these “concessions” water down this bill so a climate change mitigation advocate cannot support the bill?
This bill is neccasary and was given a huge thumbs up by congree after the US Congressional Budget Office gave the bill a good review and democrats took the oppositions from rural folks, especiallyfarmers an ranchers, out of the bill.
Republicans are lined up to oppose this bill no matter what common sense it makes and view this in the cadry of issues they oppose for partisan reasons. One can only hope these folks come to their senses on this win-win for us as a species, but I dont see that as happening. Write your congressional rep. supporting this bill.
If I hear otherwize, and I decide this bill is not worth your support-I will let you know why on this blog. For now I say support this bill. Call your rep. by the end of business, east coast time.
Matt
June 26, 2009 at 2:54 am |
I don’t know much about how the US government works – but in Canada we have majority and minority governments, as we have more than 2 parties. With a majority government, it’s easy for the leading party to pass whatever they want. Is it at all like that with the Democrats right now?
Glad to hear the US is finally thinking about public health care.
June 26, 2009 at 7:20 pm |
If the Dem.s want to they can ram this legislation through.Tey do have the votes. Problem is that some of the Dem.s are buying into the notion that this bill represents a energy tax and will cost the US taxpayer at a bad time. We will see if that lie passes their sniff test and kills attempts to resolve our human created global crisis. This should not be a partisan isue but it is, ike most others are time.
Matt