Waxman Promotes Cap and Trade and Carbon Capture in Interview

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee (image: usnews.com)

We recently outlined, here on The Heat Zone, the provisions of the Waxman- Markey climate and energy bill, which aims to substantially reduce national greenhouse gas emissions. The so called cap and trade part of the bill would work by setting a permissible emissions level, or cap, for a given business and then issuing credits. If that business reduces its emissions below the cap, it can sell its excess credits to another business which can’t or won’t reduce its own.

Initially hailed by environmentalists and most Democrats, the bill is meeting staunch opposition from industrial and agricultural sectors and the Republicans who represent them. Their fear is that, with or without credits, complying with new emissions caps will force businesses to incur huge costs that will inevitably get passed on to the consumer.

Representative Frank Lucas, Republican of Oklahoma, wrote on June 4th, “The cap-and-trade part of this bill will essentially create a national energy tax, and it will do more harm to production agriculture, American industry, and our standard of living than it will do any good for the environment.” Lucas said. He added that if you like to be warm in winter, cool in summer, own a farm or small business, travel anywhere or just like to eat, you are going to be affected by it.

Representative Henry Waxman, Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, was interviewed on the liberal news site HuffingtonPost.com and given an opportunity to respond to some of the many criticisms being hurled at the bill.

The interviewer went straight to the cost of cap and trade, asking Waxman why he feels such a system is the best method.  Waxman responded by saying “certain [greenhouse gas] reductions can be quite costly. However there is no reason to have money spent on those reductions upfront, especially when we are developing technology that is more efficient at providing reductions.”

He then went on to talk about a controversial technology known as CCS (carbon capture and storage) which opponents say would cost hundreds of billions of dollars to implement. We discussed CCS on the Heat Zone earlier today.  “For example,” Waxman continued, “we hope in the future that we could obtain sufficient amounts of energy from burning coal. Currently, burning coal is a heavy contributor to greenhouse gases. Yet rather than insisting that coal be eliminated as a possible energy source, we give the industry time and resources to develop technology known as carbon sequestration.” he goes on to say.

“This technology (CCS) would make coal burning as environmentally friendly as any other nonpolluting fuel. In the meantime industries will have meet our current caps, but in the long run there will be technology that will make (it) easier,” he said.

So, Waxman has basically admitted that until technologies like CSS (if ever implemented) make carbon reduction “easier,” industry will have to cope with reducing their emissions any way they can. This is going to cost them money and they are going to pass it on to the consumer.

The interviewer went there next, pointing out the Congressional Budget Office reports that a 15% cut in carbon emissions would cost the average American $1,600 a year, and asked Waxman why industries, especially electric power plants, will get their emissions cap permits essentially for free under his bill.  Waxman responded:

The Environmental Protection Agency did an evaluation of the cost to comply with the amount of carbon reductions that would be required under the legislation. They estimate for the average family the cost would amount to no more than that of a postage stamp. The goal is to allow the industries to reduce their carbon consumption without having them pass the price on to the consumer. If we charge for permits, [businesses] would increase the costs to consumers. The idea of providing for free allowances is not excusing them [industries] from the requirements to reduce carbon emissions, but rather to help the American consumer. Specifically in areas like the Midwest where so much of their energy is derived from coal, these consumers would have to pay much higher prices for energy (if they had to pay for permits)  than their counterparts in the rest of the country.