Kerry-Boxer Still Shorts Cleantech and Green Energy
The Kerry-Boxer climate change bill is starting to look a lot like the Waxman-Markey bill that passed through the house this spring.
Sen. Barbara Boxer introduced her chairman’s mark late Friday night with a list of the key changes from the house measure. The Environment and Public Works Committee will begin hearings on the measure tomorrow.
The bill also includes a list of the carbon allowances and, like in Waxman-Markey, there’s still not that much going to cleantech and clean energy.
About 10 percent will go to states for energy efficiency and 4 percent will go to energy R & D starting in 2012. Carbon sequestration fares better, garnering 5 percent by 2020, but that’s small potatoes compared to the other allowances, which we list below: -35 percent will go to electricity consumers, mostly through local distribution companies, and will phase out between 2026 and 2030
-9 percent will go to natural gas comsumers, through local distribution companies, with the same sunset clause
-15 percent will be auctioned off to protect low and moderate income households from increases.
-10 percent will be auctioned from 2012 to 2029 to fund government deficit reduction, which increases to 25 percent in 2040.
- starting in 2026, 6.6 percent of allowances will go to consumers as direct rebates, increasing to 50.8 by 2035
They’re roughly comparable to the allowances in Waxman-Markey.
A grab bag of other allowances will fund more investment in clean vehicle technology, green building codes and worker training.
Bloomberg calls these giveaways to industry but, as Harvard’s Robert Stavins points out, most of the proceeds of the allowances must be passed through to consumers so they’re not giveaways.
The EPA also released its analysis of the senate measure, which finds “the costs of the bill are likely to be quite similar to the costs of” Waxman-Markey.
The Heritage Foundation released its own analysis that the house and senate bills “are an expensive and ineffective response to the overstated threat of global warming.” Worth looking at just to see what they’re saying.
