Obama should refocus on cap and trade

The IU Central Heating Plant is an imposingly large, smoke-belching eyesore dominating the view between the Kelley School of Business and the northwest residence halls.

But it does its job cheaply.

The plant is an obvious target of Coal Free IU, a student group founded last semester as part of a national campaign by the environmental group Sierra Club.

The students from Coal Free IU scouring the campus for signatures are reminiscent of the students who fought for the IU Task Force on Campus Sustainability which eventually led to the IU Office of Sustainability.

In Bloomington, these signs make it seem like we are closer to finding a way of balancing the risks of global warming with the costs of action or convincing people that the risks are real.

However, if you look to Washington, you will see our leaders are failing at both.

The carbon cap-and-trade bill that made it through the House of Representatives was loaded with bribes for special interests, and the number of Americans who believe global warming is a serious threat is declining.

For now, President Barack Obama is trying to salvage health-care reform and focus (in a move more about politics than policy) on job creation.

He needs to get to global warming eventually. When he does, he must play an active role championing a bill that taxes carbon (directly or implicitly) and redistributes revenue to the American people. This is an alternative to filling a bad bill with pork while relying on bogus arguments about jobs and national security.

Getting a good climate change bill through Congress will not be easy.

E-mails showing unacceptable behavior by leading climate scientists and a mistake by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change about the decline of Himalayan glaciers have not helped at a time when, last year, Gallup showed a record-high 41 percent of Americans think evidence for global warming is exaggerated.

Add to people’s skepticism the claim by many congressional Republicans that the mechanism for lowering emissions – in current climate change bills, capping carbon emissions and giving out permits – is an energy tax in disguise.

In reality, this is how the policy is supposed to work. By issuing emission permits and allowing companies to trade them, the government would be putting a price on carbon and, if it auctions the permits, would be collecting revenue from our emission of greenhouse gases.

Revenue from permits could be redistributed to the American people to soften the blow of the carbon price. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., is pushing a version of cap and trade that would do just. She calls it “cap and dividend.”

Depending on how revenue is distributed, most Americans could end up better off. Unfortunately, the House bill gives out most of the permits free to favored industries.

Obama needs to get more involved and tell Congress it has to do better.


E-mail: nrdixon@indiana.edu