Climate Bills and a Green Economy

EIA: Climate Bill Analysis to Take Up to 8 Weeks

April 30, 2010

Reuters - The U.S. Energy Information Administration will take up to eight weeks to analyze the stalled Senate climate bill after receiving most of its details from the office of Senator John Kerry, a spokesman said on Thursday.

Elements of the bill, which is aimed at reducing greenhouse gases, were delivered to the EIA both verbally and by hard copy.

"We received details. It's not a copy of legislation, but it was specific enough to allow us to go forward with our modeling efforts," said Jonathan Cogan spokesman for the EIA, the independent statistics arm of the Department of Energy.

Because of the way it was delivered, some stakeholders, such as environmentalists and utility lobbyists, are openly wondering if the bill is complete, despite six months of work on it by Kerry, a Democrat, and Senators Lindsey Graham, a Republican, and Joseph Lieberman, an independent.

Kerry also has been careful not to commit any of the bill's details to paper but some of its key features have been leaked by sources.

Previously, government agencies have found the impact of climate legislation on consumers to be negligible. The EIA found last August that a bill passed in the House of Representatives would raise household costs about $134 in 10 years.

Details of the Kerry plan on how to tackle emissions from the transportation sector, and how permits to pollute would be distributed to power companies, are still unclear.

Kerry said earlier this week that the bill was being sent for analysis after a political dust-up with one of its key supporters prevented its official unveiling.

The bill was to have been revealed on Monday but Graham pulled his support in anger after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid talked about tackling immigration reform this year.

Sending the bill to the agencies for analyses before it has been publicly revealed could help lawmakers with time running short before elections in November. Barring any changes in the legislation that would set back the EIA, that could put the climate bill on the Senate floor in June at the earliest, but more likely in July. That assumes political differences are ironed out and Kerry moves forward with the bill.

The Congressional Budget Office is also likely to conduct its analysis of the bill.

Scenarios: Impact of Oil Spill on Climate Bill

April 30, 2010

Reuters - A massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is unfolding just as the Senate was on the verge of considering climate change legislation that included an expansion of offshore oil drilling.

The bill, which aims to reduce U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases linked to global warming, already faced many political difficulties in the Senate.

Some senators hate the bill's plan to establish a new Wall Street trading system for pollution permits. Their opposition may have only deepened with this week's blistering cross-examination of Goldman Sachs Group Inc executives by a congressional committee. Federal prosecutors are investigating the investment bank's actions in trading mortgage-related products.

And just a few weeks ago, a horrible coal mine disaster in West Virginia made some wonder whether the climate bill should include billions of dollars to help fund coal industry efforts on "clean coal."

Against that backdrop, the sunken, leaking oil rig is spewing 5,000 barrels of crude oil a day and the slick is moving toward the state's shores.

Here are some possible impacts of the environmental disaster on climate change legislation hung up in the Senate ...

The Gulf Coast oil spill could breathe new life into the core goal of climate change legislation: Helping foster the development of clean alternative energy sources, including solar and wind power. This week, the Obama administration approved construction of the Cape Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts, which would be the first U.S. offshore wind farm. The oil spill could bolster public support for such projects and help efforts to reduce the U.S. carbon footprint, the second largest in the world after China ...

[Or] the oil spill becomes one more impediment to passing a comprehensive climate bill this year, so Senate Democrats shift their attention to immigration reform as their next, big initiative in this election year.

"Immigration has pretty formally jumped the queue here," said the Senate Democratic source, who added that if the Senate complete only one more major initiative after Wall Street reform, immigration will "be the bill we do this year."

Analysis: Climate, energy bill could be harmed by Gulf spill
A historic environmental protection bill is in danger after a massive oil spill put a new focus on the perils of offshore drilling, a feature that was supposed to win wider support for the legislation. The bill, supported by President Barack Obama, calls for new offshore drilling — a concession by environmentalists. But with the tragedy off the Gulf Coast growing daily, even conservationists who have waited a decade for the legislation are now saying it will fail if offshore drilling remains in the bill.
Gulf of Mexico oil spill sparks new US drilling ban