Re: [Pen-l] Waxman-Markey: Disaster or Foundation for Lasting Prosperity?

[Gar Lipow <gar.lipow@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 2:31 PM, ehrbar <ehrbar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> What shall we do about the dilution of Waxman-Markey that is going on
> before our eyes?  Here is my answer.  Waxman-Markey will not be an

I'm in the midst of writing a post on why Waxman-Markey is much worse
than it appears.  Here is a three line summary of something that will
come in more detail1) ALL the offsets are the bad kind, though each is
bad in its own special way.    In spite of Romm, you can subtract 100%
of offsets from the reduction size.  2) Various factors in the size
and structure of the permits given away reduce the effectiveness.
Increased risk of non-compliance with caps. 3) The downstream
sectorial nature of the caps leave more room for evasion and also
build political infrastructure for pushback against attempt at future
modifications that tighten the billl

The argument for Waxman-Markey would be that it gets us started on
cuts, and that it puts in place infrastructure that we can then add
tighter cuts to. But  various flaws mean essentially zero cuts in the
short term. And infrastructure is political as well as physical.
Waxman-Markey helps create and increase the political infrastructure
for avoiding cuts down the road.

Sorry about posting this without analysis or evidence. That will
follow. But I wanted to give people a heads up that there serious
reasons to believe  Waxman-Markey a net negative for the climate.
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