Waxman-Markey
To state the obvious, the House is supposed to vote on the Waxman-Markey bill today. Warts and all, I’m definitely hoping the thing passes. I think the case for it gets unassailably strong when you recall that even if it does pass, that hardly means it becomes law. Instead, if it passes these ideas need to go through the ringer at several Senate committees, then somehow find 60 votes in the Senate, then go to a conference committee, etc. That means that as far as the details are concerned there are plenty of opportunities for the political process to make this bill better or worse.
If it passes, that puts us one step closer to a genuine moment of decision—a final vote on a conference report on a comprehensive energy reform bill. If the bill dies here, we just don’t get to the point and the status quo will continue indefinitely.
22 Responses to “Waxman-Markey”
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June 26th, 2009 at 10:39 am
I think the case for it gets unassailably strong when you recall that even if it does pass, that hardly means it becomes law.
Wait, what?
June 26th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Reading the piece on James Hansen in the latest New Yorker, I feel distinctly less sanguine about the efficacy of anything that might come out of this Waxman-Markey process.
June 26th, 2009 at 10:52 am
@right: Matt’s position is coherent and reasonable here. He’s saying that opposing the bill’s passing the House because it’s imperfect doesn’t make sense, because once it leaves the House it will still be revised significantly, and because if it doesn’t get through the House there will be no bill at all. It might make sense to oppose the final passage of the current bill (or Obama’s signing of it) because of its inadequacy, but right now it’s better that it get as far as it can.
June 26th, 2009 at 11:08 am
It might make sense to oppose the final passage of the current bill (or Obama’s signing of it) because of its inadequacy, but right now it’s better that it get as far as it can.
I just do not see this logic.
A) The perfect is the enemy of the good.
B) Conditions now are almost certainly better for getting a climate bill through than they will be until 2012 at least. If you oppose the bill you get this year (assuming there is one this year) it seems unlikely that you will get a better bill as a result.
C) All I ever hear liberals say is how very, very urgent climate change legislation is. Delaying a bill that gets you something for a bill that gets you nothing goes against this.
D) Legislative fights are never over the final package, they are over the delta from the status quo. If you’re perfect bill consists of X + Y + Z, and political reality means you have to pick one, then get X. And next time political reality will say you can only have one of Y + Z. This is why conservatives fight tooth and nail against every expansion of government. It is much easier to have a constant incremental expansion of government programs than it is to ever roll anything back.
June 26th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Greenpeace opposes the bill.
Remember that supporters, such as Matthew, are supporting a bill that will lead to the deaths of thousands upon thousands of Bangladeshis and other third world people. Waxman-Markey = third world massacre. There is simply an incredible lack of moral and ethical seriousness on the part of Waxman-Markey supporters. There’s blood on their hands.
June 26th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Never mind that Australia is pulling out of this nonsense, or that both China and India have said that they won’t participate. We should hit ourselves over the head with a shovel to make people like Matt feel good about themselves, even though there will be no global impact.
Whether you believe in this nonsense doesn’t even matter at this point; the other major industrial powers don’t, and they’ll pick up any slack from us (along with the jobs and industries we’ll lose).
As that happens, the left will end up backing tariffs as a way to prevent that (as Steven Chu himself noted a long while back). That will lead to all the excitement of 1930: recession, high tariffs, and then depression.
That will be just great for the poor; great work, progressives.
June 26th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Al #5
How exactly will restricting carbon emissions in the US lead to a death of Bangladeshis?
June 26th, 2009 at 11:35 am
I just do not see this logic.
JD, your post seems to agree with the excerpt you quoted, so I don’t see what you’re arguing with. Matt and I would both agree with your points, in the main. That said, there’s a decent case to be made against W-M, so I’ll play devil’s advocate.
There’s good evidence (see 538 for this) showing that the better the economy and the higher the gas prices, the greater the public’s willingness to tackle climate change. Given that the economy is fairly likely to right itself within the next few years, and that energy prices will rise with it (see Matt’s posts on volatility), climate legislation might well be a more sellable proposition a little ways down the road. Perhaps more importantly, the congress should be significantly more liberal in 2011.
On your other point, if you’re talking about a mediocre bill now versus a good one in two years, the good one is probably the way to go, despite the urgency. Even if the mediocre one is passed with the assumption that it will be improved later, one legislative brawl is more likely to succeed than two. This is exactly the same problem Democrats are facing with the stimulus: they passed a weak one, and it wasn’t enough, but now Republicans are making the (mendacious and wrong, but appealing) argument that if the first one “failed” we shouldn’t have another. Similarly, if we pass any kind of climate-change bill now, I fully expect Republicans to block any future attempts to add to or revise it by saying “What? We already passed a bill for this.” In that respect it really is worse to waste our one chance on a bad bill rather than hold out for a good one. Time is a constraint, but not the only one.
June 26th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Al #5
How exactly will restricting carbon emissions in the US lead to a death of Bangladeshis?
The negligible restrictions on carbon emissions under Waxman-Markey leads to the death of Bangldeshis in the same manner as the current nonexistent restrictions will. See the linked post.
June 26th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Congress often screws up badly enough that no bill becomes preferable to what they are offering. Waxman-Markey is worse than nothing. They didn’t even need the Senate’s help to ruin this chance.
June 26th, 2009 at 11:59 am
Matt’s position is coherent and reasonable here.
It’s coherent, but a weird line of reasoning. The case for passing it is “unassailably strong” because it’s likely to change? Why couldn’t they just change it now? Why is the vote on a conference-committee-revised bill any more a “genuine moment of decision” than this vote?
June 26th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Watch out, year 2020, here we come!
By 2020, utilities will be forced to be producing 20% of their electricity from renewables…
That’s WAY more ambitious than Al Gore’s goal of 100% by 2019…
How, you ask? Allow me to explain:
–redacted–
June 26th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Al #9, your argument is kind of comical. Apparently you concede that business-as-usual worldwide GHG emissions will lead to the death of Bangladeshis. So that means that opponents of the Waxman-Markey bill, like yourself, are definitely supporting the death of Bangladeshis. No?
The Waxman-Markey bill may or may not be “enough” of a cut. But without some action by the US, we will never get India and China on board to cut GHG emissions. So Waxman-Markey is a necessary step to have some possible hope of averting the death of the Bangladeshis. (Or are you supporting even deeper emissions cuts?)
June 26th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Umm, the US “leading” on this won’t get China and India to follow. In fact, all the incentives will run the other way. We are making it more expensive to do business in the US with this; that will give an advantage to countries like India and China. Why would they not keep their costs lower? They’ll happily take industry away from us, increasing their wealth at our expense,
Passing this bill will do nothing but impoverish the US, and – as the saying goes, hit the poor hardest.
Great work, progressives: we’ll lose jobs, industry, and screw over the poor. But it’s ok, because it’ll make Matt and his fellow travelers feel better about themselves.
At least until he’s baffled about why the A/C in Washington stops being affordable.
June 26th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
But without some action by the US, we will never get India and China on board to cut GHG emissions. So Waxman-Markey is a necessary step to have some possible hope of averting the death of the Bangladeshis.
This does not make sense. It may well be that some action by the US is necessary to get India and China to go along. And it may well be necessary that they won’t go along regardless of what the US does. But what reason is there to think that we need to do something absent a coinciding obligation on their part?
June 26th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
“wringer”
June 26th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
But what reason is there to think that we need to do something absent a coinciding obligation on their part?
Because there’s an obligation to do something, period, and the situation is urgent.
June 26th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
So there’s an obligation to do something that will raise the cost of doing business here in the US< have no global impact on the supposed problem – because China and India will not be playing ball?
How stupid is that? This is the economic equivalent of unilateral disarmament. If you have fantasy beliefs about how international relations work, maybe that makes sense. If you live in the real world, not so much.
June 26th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
I’m not thrilled with W-M either, because I think it doesn’t go nearly far enough. But it’s what we’ve got, and some sort of step has to be taken, even if only as a beginning.
Sometimes someone has to lead even if you don’t know if anyone will follow — even if you’re pretty damn sure they won’t.
If you think that’s hopelessly naive and unrealistic, and therefore we ought to sit on our hands, well, bully for you. Keep on fighting the good fight here in the blog comment section. No doubt your grandchildren will be proud that you took a principled stand, as they survey their fucked-up planet.
June 26th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
No, your grandchildren will be laughing at the absurd belief you had that CO2 was killing the planet. They’ll look at it in much the same way we look at creationists.
June 26th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
They’ll look at it in much the same way we look at creationists.
Hilarious, you pretending to be pro-science here.
June 26th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
We’ll see who’s laughing in 10-20 years when it’s completely obvious how stupid this is