Ding Dong! Cap and Trade is Dead

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

Ding dong! Cap and trade is dead
By: MARK HEMINGWAY
Commentary Staff Writer
07/22/10 1:55 PM EDT

Well, the job-killing proposal is dead for the time being, anyway:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will bring a limited package of oil spill response and energy measures to the floor next week, delaying action until at least this fall on a broader proposal that would impose greenhouse gas limits on power plants, senior Senate Democratic aides said.

Aides insisted Reid’s decision is a nod to the packed floor schedule the Senate faces before it leaves in two weeks for the August recess, and that he he has not abandoned plans to try and bring up a broader climate and energy plan later in the year.

Ezra Klein, however, is pretty pessimistic about the future of carbon cap legislation, noting that Harry Reid is even afraid to say the words “cap and trade.” Meanwhile, Duke Energy and other companies who have made huge financial bets on the legislation are still pleading with Democrats to move forward with the legislation.

[SrWoodchuck]

Geee! Thanks for the post!

 

As the owner of an all-electric home [The Clean Energy Wave of the Future--in 1979] I am "glad" they have other destructive legislation to hack out first.

 

I suppose this will have to wait until the lame-duck sessions, when they'll be getting "even" for their losses. God help me, I can't afford triple electrical bills.

[Pepper]

Dead my be the word we want in the headline but it is premature.

 

It will never die. Like a horror film creature, it will continue to live in some other form.

[pollyannaish]

I'll take whatever reprieve we can have in the short term.

 

 

This combined with the news they may extend the Bush tax cuts says to me that they are in an absolute panic.

[Geee]

Pepper. You called it:

 

 

Draft green-industry outline may help climate talks

By Darren Goode - 07/22/10 07:45 PM ET

 

While Senate Democrats have punted for now on a bill to cut power plant carbon emissions, a small band of environmental groups and utility companies have forged a tentative deal that could help revive the measure down the road.

 

The draft proposal – dated July 19 and circulating on Capitol Hill -- would block key EPA greenhouse gas regulations in exchange for the imposition of new emissions limits.

 

The three-page draft summary of “key elements” that would make up a utility-focused carbon-pricing plan also contains the outlines of a deal on allocating valuable emissions credits and a method for containing costs to power companies.

 

The draft would also retain emissions reduction goals through mid-century that the Obama administration and Senate climate advocates have proposed. This includes reducing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020; 42 percent by 2030 and 83 percent by 2050, according to a copy of the draft summary obtained by The Hill.

 

The companies involved in the talks include Duke Energy and Exelon, which are among the nation’s largest utilities. Environmental groups involved include the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense Fund and the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

 

An agreement still looms with the Edison Electric Institute – the influential trade association representing investor-owned utilities. EEI’s endorsement could help pay greater dividends in future efforts to bring along centrists in both parties. There are also a host of other potential pitfalls that complicate trying to do a Senate climate bill this year -- including election-year politics and other legislative priorities.

 

But the draft compromise may give a glimmer of hope to Senate Democratic leaders.

 

The draft includes language that would mirror or be similar to language in a draft plan Kerry and Lieberman have offered regarding allocation of emissions credits to power companies and ways to contain the costs of a carbon-pricing plan to these businesses.

 

It also echoes that draft in giving consumer rebates to pay for higher electricity costs.

 

It mirrors that Kerry-Lieberman draft in offering emission credit allocations from 2013 through 2029. This includes allocating 75 percent of free allowances based on historic emissions and 25 percent based on retail sales. A House-passed climate bill had a formula split evenly between historic emissions and retail sales. The change from the House bill is a bid to try to satisfy Senate Democrats from the Midwest and Great Plains, who argued the House bill hurts coal use and their electric power companies.

 

Elsewhere, to help contain costs to businesses, the draft in 2013 would establish an initial “price ceiling” of $20 per ton for purchasing emission credits and a “price floor” of $12 per ton.

 

Both the floor and ceiling prices would increase five percent plus inflation annually through 2020 and seven percent plus inflation annually beginning in 2021.

 

Participating electric utilities would get regulatory relief from future EPA greenhouse gas rules, with the exception of any regulations controlling more conventional pollutants like nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, lead and ozone. This is also consistent with language included in the Kerry-Lieberman draft.

 

It also includes new performance standards for new coal production in the draft from the two senators, as well as help for carbon capture and sequestration.

 

http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/110509-draft-green-utility-outline-may-help-climate-talks-

[Valin]

Climate bill tabled, blame game begins

DARREN SAMUELSOHN

7/22/10

 

(Snip)

 

The blame game has already begun.

 

One exasperated administration official on Thursday lambasted the environmentalists – led by the Environmental Defense Fund – for failing to effectively lobby GOP senators.

“They didn’t deliver a single Republican,” the official told POLITICO. “They spent like $100 million and they weren’t able to get a single Republican convert on the bill.”

 

But many say it was Obama who didn’t do enough to make the climate bill a big enough priority, allowing other monster big-ticket items like the economic stimulus, health care and Wall Street reform to suck up all the oxygen and leaving environmentalists grasping for straws too late in the game – well past the expiration date for other big accomplishments during the 111th Congress.

 

“The absence of direct, intense presidential leadership doomed this process,” said Eric Pooley, author of “Climate War,” a just-published book that chronicles the past three years of debate on global warming. “We did have a window there, and now the window is shut. It’s more about prying it back open than anything else.”

 

(Snip)

 

 

 

 

Lets you and him fight.

[kevindavis]

Dead my be the word we want in the headline but it is premature.

 

It will never die. Like a horror film creature, it will continue to live in some other form.

 

I agree it is a bit premature..