Cap and trade will signal U.S. ready to clean up act

TENNESSEAN.COM

October 9, 2009

Cap and trade will signal U.S. ready to clean up act

Our View

The collision of cultures and commerce over health-care reform soon may pale in comparison to the clash over climate-change legislation.

The debate may not flare up in town-hall meetings, but whether Americans will find a way soon to limit greenhouse gas emissions will have repercussions throughout the industrialized world.

The U.S. House passed a bill last summer to cap carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions from power and industrial plants to reduce pollution 80 percent by 2050. The government would issue emission allowances that companies could buy or sell, depending on whether they are meeting the cap; thus, the term "cap and trade."

That bill awaits reconciliation with a similar bill in the Senate, which is having a more difficult time winning approval. The bills have the support of the Obama administration, but battles of the past few months over health care and a slip in President Barack Obama's approval ratings have dimmed chances for passage.

Leaders of other countries expressed concern this week about Obama's ability to complete a climate-protection treaty by December. As the United States is (along, perhaps, with China) the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, all eyes are on the U.S. going into treaty talks in Copenhagen in December.

Without passage of a climate bill by Congress, however, it will be hard for negotiators to get developing nations to agree to a treaty. And treaties that don't have buy-in from all affected parties seldom are worth the paper they're written upon.

Where does the problem lie for the bills in Congress? Squarely in the laps of certain members of the coal and petroleum industries who don't want the cap, even though the Senate bill would give them overly generous trading abilities; groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has lost dozens of member businesses because of its hard-line stance against climate legislation; and conservative lawmakers who are acting at the behest of lobbyists for these industries and groups or in a bid to embarrass Obama and the Democrats before mid-term elections.

This bill is not perfect. Sponsors have made emission allowances too generous for big polluters in an attempt to win votes, and they have not articulated clearly enough how emitters can benefit from this.

Still, this legislation is urgently needed. The nation must reduce its greenhouse emissions, not only to slow climate change but to clean up the air and water. Without cap and trade, there will be no economic catalyst for the emerging clean-energy technologies in the United States — leaving American companies to buy these technologies from other countries, at far higher prices, later when fossil fuels are running out.

And then there is the domino effect of the greatest country in the world — the United States — setting
an example of wanton pollution for 100 developing nations to follow.

Cleaning up America's power plants and industries will not be easy; nothing worthwhile ever is. But it is
time that America accepts the burden of being the nation that the rest look up to, and that means
slamming the lid on greenhouse gases.