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Contact Jim: jdipeso@rep.org (253) 740-2066 / 2009 Archive / 2008 Archive / 2007 Archive / 2006 Archive / 2005 Archive
The Chemistry Experiment on Capitol Hill
April 8, 2009
The chemistry experiment known as a climate/energy bill has begun. Even though Democrats operate the lab and control the chemicals, there is already wariness in their ranks about getting the mixture right, lest their concoction bursts and makes an unpleasantly loud noise, with reverberations stretching into 2010 and beyond.
The coastal Democrats who run the committees in charge of writing the climate bill have been making gestures to congressional Democrats who hail from coal-dependent Midwestern and Southern states and are worried that carbon caps will hit their constituents with higher energy costs. Congressman Henry Waxman, the Energy and Commerce Committee chairman representing a very liberal district in wealthy west Los Angeles, has offered soothing assurances that he’s not going to run wild.
Research carried out by the respected Resources for the Future (RFF) think tank indicates that the impacts of putting a price on carbon vary among low-income households in different regions of the country.
RFF analyzed 10 scenarios for distributing emissions allowance revenues -- dividends to all households, both taxable and non-taxable, tax cuts, expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, and efficiency investments, for example.
Under the taxable cap-and-dividend scenario, with a carbon dioxide price of $41.50 per ton, low-income households in the Ohio River Valley, the Plains and Northeast would fare worse than similar households in California, Nevada, Texas, and the Pacific Northwest. The analysis took into account changes in fuel and energy prices, along with changes in prices of consumer goods and services. But the differences are small when described as percentage losses in income - 1.02 percent in the hydropower-rich Northwest, 1.78 percent in the coal-dependent Ohio River Valley.
While climate change is a long-run problem, "Finding ways to alleviate disproportional burdens of the policy seem especially important in the early years of climate legislation," RFF analysts wrote in the fall 2008 edition of the institute's policy journal.
The regional fracture within the Democratic caucus is an opportunity for Republicans to play a role in shaping a bipartisan climate deal – if they choose to be constructive critics rather than spoilers.
As long as congressional Republicans continue drawing their communications and political tactics from the tired playbook that voters repudiated in two consecutive elections, they will be marginalized and could help make real the scenario that they most fear – a climate bill that is too costly and relies too heavily on command-and-control.
It's time for GOP leaders in Congress to stop acting like generals fighting the last war.
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