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Lessons from the Climate Pratfall

July 23, 2010

We all know what happened. On the very day that China announced a plan to institute carbon emissions trading beginning in 2011, Harry Reid stood in a hallway and delivered a whole lotta nothin' on climate legislation.

Now you know why Tom Friedman wished plaintively in his book Hot, Flat and Crowded that we could be China for just one day.

Who is to blame?

Start with obtuse Republicans who successfully branded climate policy as "cap and tax." Thanks, guys and gals, you brought smiles to the petroleum ministries of Iran, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia. Mahmoud, Hugo, and King Abdullah ought to bake Mitch McConnell a cake.

Republicans, however, are not in charge of Congress and the executive branch. Democrats are in charge. Mealy-mouthed Democrats let irresponsible Republicans get away with demagoguery and didn’t play ball with other Republicans willing to deal.

The finger points right at the top. In his Dot Earth blog, the New York Times' Andrew Revkin pointed out that President Obama failed to exert leadership and failed to challenge James Inhofe and the other OPEC enablers who see nothing wrong with perpetuating America's overdependence on coal and oil.

After Reid laid the egg, the White House actually blamed environmentalists for failing to line up enough votes. Enough votes for what? The president never spelled out to Congress exactly what he wanted, didn't knock heads together on Capitol Hill, and didn't brandish consequences if lawmakers went all wobbly on him.

Waiting for lobbyists to gift-wrap 60 votes and hand them to the president and the feckless Reid on a silver platter is not leadership. Somewhere, the ghosts of Ronald Reagan, Harry Truman, and Theodore Roosevelt are shaking their heads.

There are others who deserve blame - bloviating narcissists on talk-radio and on the blogs, mendacious ideologues who manufactured the so-called "climategate" controversy, even citizens who let clever merchants of deceit push their emotional buttons and jam their critical thinking circuits.

What must be done?

Republican Congressman Bob Inglis of South Carolina has a suggestion. On the day of Reid's pallid announcement, Inglis told utility executives that climate policy needs a messaging makeover - stop dwelling in the weeds of cap-and-trade, offsets, and other wonkery that is chiefly of interest to economics PhD's. That doesn't sell. Instead, sell carbon pricing as a market-based solution for stimulating innovation and entrepreneurship.

Inglis' idea has been heard before, but rebranding could enable sensible conservatives to lead the way towards a centrist climate bill that responds to Americans’ worries about the economy, pollution, and national security.

Next, vigilance will be required against assaults on EPA’s Clean Air Act authority to set limits on greenhouse gas emissions. One such attempt was beaten back earlier this summer. There will be more. Until the Senate is ready to legislate climate policy seriously, EPA is an imperfect but potent arrow that must remain in the quiver.

This is where Obama can show that he means business. Mr. President, pull out that veto pen and wave it around every time talk of curtailing EPA’s authority springs up in Congress.

Next, Big Coal friends like Byron Dorgan should repeatedly administer the cold shower that he and the late Robert Byrd gave Big Coal until Big Coal gets their message that continuing to pretend that energy markets won't change is a fast ticket to palookaville.

By 2016, half the nation's coal-fired power plants will be more than 50 years old. Utilities can rely on those don't-laugh-it's-paid-for coal beaters for only so long before they must be replaced. Impending EPA regs - NOx, SOX, mercury, coal ash - threaten to speed those plants' trip to the boneyards. Utility bosses have said as much.

By coming to the table, the coal industry could help negotiate a climate bill with R&D aimed at finding economical ways of burying carbon. That would give some cover to senators in coal states.

Without a reasonable prospect that sequestration can work, utilities will be wooed by the fetching message of the strutting gas industry.

The gas guys are telling the utilities that switching to gas will allow them to dump their dirty old coal plants, avoid a lot of EPA red tape, and get ahead of the curve if and when carbon is priced. If Big Coal doesn’t care for that sort of talk, then Big Coal should come to the table and negotiate.

Next, it's important to work the flanks of the issue by pushing for a national renewable energy and efficiency standard, broadening the clean cars deal that the administration worked out with Detroit, and extending tax incentives for renewables. Find more money for basic energy R&D so that innovators can develop cheaper solar technology, test the promise of modular nuclear reactors, and tap the enormous potential of ocean wave and tidal energy.

Too much is at stake for the Senate setback to be final. Climate stewards must arise from the mat and return to the arena.