Cloudy Skies and Cloudy Attacks
Juan Non-Volokh points toward an important article by David Whitman in the liberal Washington Monthly about the Clear Skies Act. As a reminder of Clear Skies, it replaces existing regulations of utility emissions with a “cap and trade” program. The Clear Skies Act would set “caps” on the total amount of emissions, and portions of the caps would be handed out as tradable permits to power plants. The idea is to encourage more cost-effective emission reductions and “facilitate greater overall emission reductions than can be achieved under existing law through the administrative process.”
Whitman thoroughly dissects the history of Clear Skies legislation and the slow evolution that got us where we are. Whitman makes the compelling case that environmentalist loathing for the Bush administration was placed before concerns for a better environment.
As might be expected, green advocates criticized the Bush bill . . . for failing to go far enough or fast enough in reducing pollution. But in a novel twist, environmentalists have also asserted that Clear Skies is actually weaker than the existing Clean Air Act - and would thus allow millions of tons of added pollution and inflict tens of thousands of needless deaths during the next decade. . . . In fact, this oft-repeated green bromide turns out to be false. But the dispute over the bill’s impact is only part of the story of how the perfect has become the enemy of the good in the clean air wars.
The “oft-repeated green bromide” was repeated by Brian Balta in my post on the subject two days ago. These claims are made on dubious assumptions about what emission reductions under the current regulations can achieve. Under realistic assumptions, though, Clear Skies results in greater, more efficient emissions reductions. As hard as it is for some on the Left to grasp, Bush is attempting to make meaningful reforms.
The response of environmental advocates to Clear Skies is not altogether surprising, given the movement’s loathing for Bush and his appointees, many of whom were drawn from the ranks of industry lobbyists. Yet for many years, green advocates have often shown a self-destructive intolerance for compromise. . . . Ultimately, the environmental movement’s intense pressure to hold ranks - call it the thin green line - precluded honest debate about Clear Skies.
Bishop Grewell and the Gristmill offer more commentary.
Paul Goyette responds here to my Clear Skies Act post, arguing that changes to “new source review” (NSR) makes Bush’s proposal “a huge backwards step, custom tailored to protect the interests of big industry, but by encouraging the use of old technology.” NSR requires that older plants install modern pollution-control equipment whenever upgrades or non-routine maintenance of a plant increases air pollution. But what Paul fails to mention, or isn’t aware of, is that power companies exchanged accelerated air-pollution reductions for potential relief from NSR. David Whitman explains the turn of events best:
Even more significant, several electricity generators were, for the first time, contemplating capping emissions of carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas implicated in global warming. Reflecting the emerging consensus, seven different lawmakers had introduced multi-pollutant legislation in the House or Senate in 1999 that sought to compel utilities to cut back on such emissions, including carbon dioxide. In the 2000 campaign, Bush effectively signed on to the potential deal, pledging both to revamp new source review and to support market-based legislation to cap power plant emissions of four smokestack pollutants, including carbon dioxide. By the time he assumed office the following year, Bush appeared on the verge of achieving the clean air deal of a decade.
In essence, NSR changes are part of a “grand compromise” in exchange for mandatory caps on carbon dioxide emissions. But thanks to a clumsy political strategy it never came through. Paul complains that changes to NSR have occurred already, and this is true because by late 2003 the administration realized Clear Skies wouldn’t make it through Congress and opted instead for regulations (called Clean Air Interstate Rule - CAIR) that were close to it. As Whitman explains:
By all rights, green groups should have gotten behind CAIR. It established a cap-and-trade system to reduce interstate air pollution in 29 Eastern states and D.C. and set emissions caps similar to Clear Skies, requiring states to cut sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions by about 70 percent in the next 10 years. By 2015, the CAIR rule will prevent 13,000 early deaths and save $80 billion each year. With the exception of the 1997 air quality standards, the new EPA proposal is projected to save more lives than any air pollution regulation issued by the Clinton administration.
Josh — First of all, regardless of whether there was a tradeoff, NSR is a terrible poliicy — it actually encourages power plants to use backwards technology instead of updating, which is completely wrong, both from the perspective of the environment and the plants in question. The restrictions create perverse inscentives. You can’t just say it was a tradeoff for some other policy and expect that to justify something this ridiculous.
Also, if there was a tradeoff, then there isn’t anymore, since Bush has eliminated (or made toothless) the vast majority of the NSR limits anyway.
Did you read Whitman’s piece? I don’t get the impression you did. NRS is indeed a terrible policy, and Bush (and environmental groups) wanted to scrap it for overall reductions in emissions, for new and old sources. NRS is relaxed while overall emission standards are tightened, doing away with costly and perverse incentives. That’s why Clear Skies virtually eliminates them and it’s also why virtually every environmental group signed on the idea in 1999.
Yeah, well, don’t believe everything you read. Changing those rules got the Bush folks to where they wanted to be, even more so if they weren’t able to pass the CAIR reforms they “wanted” to because now big industry can pollute largely unchecked.
I’m not opposed to the CAIR stuff, btw… but have you thought about that carefully? (I don’t get the impression that you have.) This whole market based cap and trade reform largely ignores locality, so that you end up with a lot of industry in Kentucky buying higher caps from industry elsewhere, and having concentrated levels of this stuff is what kills. Meanwhile it’s still going to be profitable for older plants to stay in business, just as they are under NSR. So in some significant ways, that policy wouldn’t even change things.
Paul, it’s a bit ridiculous to assert that the power industry can pollute unchecked. I have thought about the locality concerns and mentioned it explicitly in my original post. Did you read it? That’s largely why California and NY oppose Clear Skies, and the only legitimate criticism to cap and trade proposals.
Coyote Blog argues:
Under Clear Skies NSR limits would have been entirely removed for some plants, meaning they could continue to pollute at current rates without technology upgrades of any kind. Building in a market might create some incentives, but clearly there are plenty of counterncentives here if they’ve gone with a uppgrading old plants under NSR rather than building new ones in the past.
Let me tell you, also, how much I appreciate these personal attacks. Maybe I’m not as quick as you Josh, but I did read your post the other day (in fact I responded and linked to it, if you’ll remember) and you quoted the relevant portions of the article in your post above, which I also read.
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Under Clear Skies NSR limits would have been entirely removed for some plants, meaning they could continue to pollute at current rates without technology upgrades of any kind.
No. Clear Skies drastically cuts down on these emissions, meaning they could NOT pollute at current rates. But the distinction betwen old and new plants is removed, leaving only the amount of emissions.
Also, these aren’t intended to be personal attacks at all. I don’t even know you personally; these are attacks on your argument. But you stated I didn’t think something through, when I clearly granted the point explicitly. So why say I didn’t think it through? Either you didn’t read it, or forgot that I addressed it. It seems unfair to level an ad hominem attack against me, have me respond, and then accuse me of personal attacks. I’m perfectly calm.
Ok Josh, in your last post, you said you had read the full NAS Report (something I’ll admit I don’t have the time to do.) Therefore, I am going to quote a press account of that report from January, and I want you to tell me how it is wrong.
“The committee, which consists largely of academics, said in its 160-page report that it is “unlikely that Clear Skies would result in emission limits at individual sources that are tighter than those achieved when NSR is triggered at the same sources. . . . In general, NSR provides more stringent emission limits for new and modified major sources than” Clear Skies. The panel will issue a final report by the end of the year. ”
I think that we seem to be having a disagreement on the basic point here. The NAS Report, which is what I’m basing my point on, seems to me to say that the “Clear Skies” program will allow for more air pollution than the current NSR Rules would if they were followed. What I’m asking you to do is tell me why either the press accounts of that report were wrong or why Clear Skies will in fact give lower emissions. Aside from the fact that the legal process takes so long and eliminating that might encourage faster cleanup of some facilities, is there any data saying that the press accounts of the NAS report are inaccurate?
There was, btw, a $500 million NSR settlement against a power plant in Illinois today.
Lastly, can we at least agree that a cap and trade program for a substance like mercury, which tends to stay near where it is generated, is a bad idea?
For what it’s worth, I didn’t read the full report, only significant parts of it. But I’ll mull this over once I’ve finished a law review note today.
Balta wrote:
Lastly, can we at least agree that a cap and trade program for a substance like mercury, which tends to stay near where it is generated, is a bad idea?
Yeah, whose brilliant idea was it to lump mercury in with sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides? I’d think that disasters like Minamata Bay in Japan would have indicated that a program likely to create localized mercury hotspots is a really bad idea.
Just since I don’t want this discussion to die off - I’d like to point out that it seems both of Josh’s Clear Skies posts have ended with me asking a question and at least thus far not getting a reply.
I’m genuinely interested in whether or not my interpretation is wrong on this - if someone can show me I’m wrong I’m willing to change sides.
I’m sorry Balta. . . I’m just wanting to read that report in full before I do and I haven’t found time. I expect to soon.
Ok, I’ll be waiting - I’m genuinely interested.