Three and counting
Speaking of anniversaries, three years have passed since President Bush sent his Clear Skies initiative to Congress, where it has fallen victim to dueling experts and agendas. One camp contends that any forward-looking air-pollution law should also target power plants' CO2 emissions because of their purported link to climate change. On the other side are folks like Bruce Josten, executive VP for government affairs of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Josten says his organization opposes regulating greenhouse gas emissions because doing so would impose crippling costs on USA Inc. He says U.S. private-sector expenditures on technologies to reduce climate change already top those of all other countries combined. "Rather than tank the entire American economy and kill off millions of jobs, our concern is how to . . . balance [environmental protection and] economic growth," Josten said. "That's what we're trying to figure out."
Competing cost-benefit analyses
Adding to the Clear Skies controversy is a recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report underscoring EPA findings that alternative bills could produce benefits "far outweighing" costs. CRS is a branch of the Library of Congress. The CRS report, "Cost and Benefits of Clear Skies: EPA's Analysis of Multi-Pollutant Clean Air Bills," reexamined data touted by the EPA in October as the most thorough on legislation aimed at reducing air pollution from fossil fuel–fired power generation.
In addition to the Clear Skies bill as amended, the EPA analysis looked at two Senate bills more ambitious than Clear Skies. The CRS said its "reanalysis" indicates that Clear Skies would have "negligible incremental costs and add benefits of $6 billion in 2010 and $3 billion in 2020." So far, so good. The two competing bills sponsored by Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Sen. Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.) require steeper cuts and shorter deadlines. According to the EPA, Carper's bill would produce annual benefits five to eight times larger than those of Clear Skies at a yearly cost between $3 billion and $4.2 billion. Jeffords' more-restrictive alternative would produce benefits 10 and 16 times greater, imposing costs between $18.1 billion and $23.6 billion.
Faint praise
But the CRS concluded that the EPA's analysis isn't all that useful. The CRS says it penalizes short-term pollution reduction schedules for mercury found in the alternatives to Clear Skies and fails to consider how natural gas price volatility might impact the costs of plant air-pollution control. "The result is an analysis that some will argue is no longer sufficiently up to date to contribute substantively to congressional debate," the CRS report said. Ouch: That's going to leave a mark.
So the Clear Skies bill remains stalled in the Senate, with the bill's co-sponsors—Senators James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio)—"still waiting for a workable solution to be offered by the [Democrats]." Situation normal.
Where is a Rachel Carson when you need one?
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