Greenpeace Says 'No' to Climate Bill: ACES Is Too Weak
by Stacy Morford - Jun 25th, 2009
Greenpeace came out against the House climate bill today, joining Friends of the Earth in urging Congress to vote no on the critically weakened American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) climate bill.
The legislation, headed for a House vote as early as tomorrow, falls far too short of what the science says is necessary to prevent serious climate change, and it gives away far too much to polluters, Greenpeace said.
Unless the bill is significantly strengthened – and the proposed amendments submitted this week give little indication of that happening on the House floor – then, Greenpeace says, the legislation isn't worth passing.
"To support such a bill is to abandon the real leadership that is called for at this pivotal moment in history. We simply no longer have the time for legislation this weak."
The Greenpeace statement (below) was issued a few hours after President Obama gave a short televised statement strongly urging House members on both sides of the aisle to pass the legislation. Obama spoke of the bill in terms of reducing the nation's dependence on foreign oil, creating jobs, and seizing the opportunity to lead in the development of clean technology.
For ACES to become the strong climate bill that was initially promised, one that could restore the United States' position as a world leader in environmental protection, Obama will have to invest his political capital, Greenpeace Deputy Campaigns Director Carroll Muffett says.
The bill was already marginal when it came out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where coal-state Democrats extracted concessions for the industry. Greenpeace Executive Director Phil Radford took a stand then in calling for a stronger bill. Greenpeace kept working behind the scenes, but none of the group's efforts to fix the bill paid off, Muffett said.
The tipping point came this week when bill sponsor Henry Waxman bowed to the demands of farm-state Democrats, led by Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), and agreed to shift authority over offsets from the EPA to the Department of Agriculture.
That shift was made "with the express political purpose of making it easier for industrial agriculture to access offset credits," Muffett said. "The big problem with offsets is if they aren't stringently policed, you have a great risk of undermining the system."
On top of that, Waxman agreed to block the EPA from considering land-use changes when calculating the lifecycle emissions of biofuels, a move demanded by Peterson to protect large ethanol producers.
Another serious flaw was the change to Section 116 to allow any coal fired power plant that has received even just its initial permits to avoid regulation under this bill, "yet another concession to the coal industry," Muffett said.
"You’re talking potentially 100 coal-fired power plants that are now exempted from these rules."
Then came the EPA's analysis, showing that the bill would lead to burning more coal and more than doubling nuclear generation, with marginal benefits for renewable energy and a delay in real emissions reductions.
In its statement today, Greenpeace – backed by 2.8 million members – urges Obama "to move beyond rhetoric and deliver on his commitments to 'restore science to its proper place' and to lead the world in addressing climate change," but Muffett doesn't see that happening through the ACES bill.
"The received wisdom inside the beltway is that things can only get worse in the Senate, and when you look at the array of Senate committees that have jurisdiction, and the composition of those committees, you can see why."
It may take the pressure of the rest of the world's leaders to make a difference, Muffett said. In the meantime, Greenpeace will be encouraging the EPA to finalize its greenhouse gasendangerment finding and move quickly to set regulations.
1Sky, Sierra: Strengthen This Bill
Other environmental groups urged Congress to stick with ACES and kept up the drum beat for amendments to strengthen the climate bill on the House floor.
Forty-eight House members signed a letter to Waxman and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this week calling for three vital changes recommended by 1Sky, Sierra Club, Environment America and eight other groups:
Raise the renewable electricity standard to 30 percent by 2020;
Eliminate the provision that would strip the EPA's authority to regulate carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act;
Reduce the allocation giveaways to polluters.
Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Pete Stark (D-Calif.) submitted one of those amendments, to try to preserve the EPA's power to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. If approved, it would strike Sec. 831, a single sentence in the bill that states no greenhouse gas may be added to those in Sec. 108(a) of the act on the basis of its effect on global climate change.
Meanwhile, Waxman, his Energy and Commerce Committee members, White House officials and House leaders turned up the lobbying in a bid to secure the 218 votes they'll need for the bill to pass the House and move into the Senate.
“It’s close, but right now we’re at the 218 mark,” Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) told CQ this evening. “It was very close earlier today, but the president has been on the phone with some members. Folks are coming off the fence. Folks who have been procrastinating on this are realizing they will have to make up their minds."
Following is the statement Greenpeace released today:
Since the Waxman-Markey bill left the Energy and Commerce Committee, yet another fleet of industry lobbyists has weakened the bill even more, and further widened the gap between what Waxman-Markey does and what science demands. As a result, Greenpeace opposes this bill in its current form. We are calling upon Congress to vote against this bill unless substantial measures are taken to strengthen it.
Despite President Obama’s assurance that he would enact strong, science-based legislation, we are now watching him put his full support behind a bill that chooses politics over science, elevates industry interests over national interest, and shows the significant limitations of what this Congress believes is possible.
As it comes to the floor, the Waxman-Markey bill sets emission reduction targets far lower than science demands, then undermines even those targets with massive offsets. The giveaways and preferences in the bill will actually spur a new generation of nuclear and coal-fired power plants to the detriment of real energy solutions. To support such a bill is to abandon the real leadership that is called for at this pivotal moment in history. We simply no longer have the time for legislation this weak.
With many others in the environmental, faith and consumer rights communities, Greenpeace has expressed tremendous concern about the role of offsets in this legislation. Unless strictly controlled, the abuse of offsets could prevent real emission reductions for more than a decade. The decision to move authority over offsets from EPA to the Department of Agriculture further reduces the likelihood that such controls will be maintained and increases the likelihood they will undermine real reductions.
This legislation sends a strong and unmistakable signal to the world that the United States is not yet ready to show the leadership necessary to reach a strong agreement at Copenhagen in December. Already, we are seeing the impact of this signal as one country after another retreats from the aggressive targets needed to avoid catastrophic climate change.
We call on the Congress to reject this bill and begin immediate and urgent work on legislation that treats seriously the dire threat of climate change. We call on President Obama to move beyond rhetoric and deliver on his commitments to “restore science to its proper place” and to lead the world in addressing climate change.
See also:
Clean Energy Climate Bill Gives Coal a Competitive Future
Polluters' War on Climate Legislation Is Taking a Toll
Nobel Laureates: CO2 Emissions Must Peak by 2015 to Avert Climate Ruin
Lawyers Advising Clients to Prepare for Economy-Wide GHG Regulation
CBO Answers Big Climate Bill Question: Cost
(Photo: Greenpeace/Eric Larsen)
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Betting against the tide of history?
"To support such a bill is to abandon the real leadership that is called for at this pivotal moment in history. We simply no longer have the time for legislation this weak."
Those who believe in climate change may have "won" the debate scientifically. But they have most certainly not convinced everyone. What is Greenpeace talking about when they refer to "leadership" up above? Dicatorial power? Have any of you who refuse to support this bill because you do not think it goes far enough stopped to actually think about what happens if more consvervative Republicans and Democrats do well in the mid-terms; or if Obama should not be re-elected in 2012?
I believe in increased use of renewable energy, decreasing the outpouring of fossil fuels, decreasing our reliance on foreign oil (and so the wars that they cause), in decreasing the numbers of miners who die of lung diseases and cave-ins, and in weakening the political power of the oil, gas, and coal lobbies. Having said that, if "greens" hold out for "something better", it will be decades at best before they get it. At least with ACES, we have a beginnig to erode the power of polluters. But the attitudes of Greenpeace and some of the people on this blog is why many in mainstream America believe that the environmental movement is out of touch. There are those out there who still hold fast to the idea that Creation is fact, evolution is fiction, and that man cannot possibly alter the climate. They also believe that we lost over 4,000 in Iraq and spent a trillion dollars there because of 9-11 and not because of the real reason, OIL!
These people, along with the energy robber barrons who manipulate them, will not allow much more to be passed than is spelled out in ACES. ACES is a beginning; but if it is short-ciruited, the environmentalists will never get to the middle. That is because the energy lobby will have all its financial and political resources left to fight more potentially substantial legislation.
There are groups which understand this, like The Environmental Defense Fund. The more extreme groups, whether right or wrong, have alienated too many Americans to be effective. And as demonstrated by their stance against ACES, they will continue to do so.
Falling Behind The World?
There are several problems with weakening this bill, and on this front Greenpeace is looking out for the interests of the US and the environment. That in itself is a rare convergence.
Other nations such as China, Germany and Spain are already well on the way to having clean eregy as a major part of their electricity production, and could well go completely green in the near future. The US is risking falling WAY behind on this front. If this happens, as the watered down bill looks set to do, the long term repercussions will be felt for decades if not centuries. I hope all those self interested parties detracting from the bill are happy to hand their children a world where the US is considered a backward place and is sidelined on the international stage as being a needy, fuel dependent dinosaur state.
There is MORE we can do!
This bill (weakened or not) won't be enough to make the change we need!! Check out thedirtylie.com to see upcoming events and protests against global warming and pollution.
Cost-Benefit Analysis on Climate Action
Why don't we do a cost-benefit analysis, as many in Washington like to do in order to verify whether legislation should or shouldn't be supported?
If we did one, here's what it would come down to:
Cost of Climate Catastrophe Alone > Action To Bring CO2 Down to 350ppm
Cost of Climate Catastrophe Alone < Action To Take CO2 to 450ppm or Higher
It's that simple. Why? Think about it? If we don't take CO2 down to 350ppm, then all the money CBO says we will spend (the $100+ per citizen per year) will be money flushed down the toilet. That's because we'd reach tipping points anyways and so we'll still incur the cost of climate catastrophe alone because natural systems will be the ones driving climate change (due to dying forests, oceans holding no more CO2, permafrost melting, etc. etc.).
In the end, this will mean the cost of climate catastrophe plus the cost of leaving CO2 at 450ppm or so. In that case, why not let CO2 go to 550ppm or even 1000ppm. Is there really a difference? If our goal is to not reach 350ppm, we should then spend money on figuring out how we can adapt to climate catastrophe, especially in vulnerable areas of the world. PERIOD.
Where are the common sense economists when we need them in Washington?
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