The Wonk Room

Dingell’s Climate Plan Is A Good Start, but Not Good Enough»

Our guest blogger is Robert M. Sussman, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund and former Deputy Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Sussman is now overseeing EPA transition planning for President-elect Barack Obama.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairmen John Dingell (D-MI) and Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality Chairman Rick Boucher (D-VA) unveiled their long-awaited draft of climate change legislation early last month. Longtime allies of the auto and coal industries, Dingell and Boucher have nevertheless produced a thoughtful and serious effort to grapple with the complexities of creating a cap-and-trade system. As they say in their memo to the full Energy and Commerce Committee, “politically, scientifically, legally and morally, the question has been settled: regulation of greenhouse gases in the U.S. is coming.”

The draft bill has a number of strengths for which Dingell and Boucher deserve credit. It is economy-wide, covering 87 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. It sets a long-term target of reducing emissions by 80 percent of 2005 levels by 2050 that corresponds with prevailing scientific consensus. It contains strong energy efficiency programs. It uses the allowance allocation process both to stimulate low-carbon energy technologies and provide consumers relief from high energy prices. It provides for strict oversight of the carbon markets to prevent manipulation and assure transparency. And it creates a “strategic reserve” of allowances that would be auctioned if allowance prices are too high, but avoids a “safety valve” that would suspend the emission cap if allowance prices exceed a predetermined level.

Despite these positive features, two aspects of the bill—the absence of allowance auctioning in the cap-and-trade program and weak emission reduction targets for 2020—raise serious concerns and should not be the starting point for legislative action in the new Congress. More »

Heritage’s Broken Conclusions On A Green Recovery»

Our guest blogger is Dr. Robert Pollin, Professor of Economics and Co-Director, Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

In a November 5 blog post, Dr. David Kreutzer, Senior Policy Analyst for Energy Economics and Climate Change in the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation, claims that policy initiatives to advance a green investment agenda necessarily hurt economic growth and employment. In particular, Kreutzer claims the report I co-authored, Green Recovery, suffers from a “broken windows” fallacy:

The authors of this study fall prey to the classic “broken windows” fallacy whereby spending money creates jobs as the expenditure multiplies throughout the economy. The fallacy comes from ignoring the equally large destruction of jobs (actually larger because of something called “deadweight loss”) from taxing the $100 billion, which eliminates a similar cascade of job creation elsewhere.

Kreutzer reaches this broken conclusion by ignoring all the findings in Green Recovery. Contrary to Kreutzer’s claim that green jobs require the “equally large destruction of jobs” in other sectors, green investments are all potent sources of net job creation relative to spending on traditional fossil fuels, including oil, coal and natural gas. Our research found that green infrastructure investment program would create nearly four times more jobs than spending the same amount of money on oil energy resources. For each $1 million of green investments paid for by cutting oil subsidies, a net 12.5 jobs are created. Green investments produce net job creation because their labor intensity and domestic content are significantly higher than investments in fossil fuels.

Labor Intensity: With green investments, more money is being spent on hiring people and less on machines, supplies, and consuming energy. Imagine hiring construction workers to retrofit buildings or install solar panels, or bus drivers to expand public transportation offerings, as opposed to drilling for oil off the coasts of Florida, California, and Alaska.

Domestic Content: When we retrofit public buildings and private homes to raise their energy efficiency, or improve our public transportation systems, virtually every dollar is spent within the U.S. economy. By contrast, only 80 cents of every dollar spent within the oil industry remains within the U.S.

Through public investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy, we overturn the long-held conventional wisdom reflected in Kreutzer’s critique — that we can have a green economy or a growing economy, but we can’t have both. In fact, not only can we have both, but green public investments to fight global warming are, at once, a powerful engine of job creation and a necessary instrument for achieving environmental sustainability.

Read an extended response from Dr. Pollin, in which he also discusses the question of energy costs and how Kreutzer overlooked the economic impact of global warming.

UPDATE: At Climate Progress, Joe Romm offers a detailed critique of Kreutzer’s blog post, writing that it is a “truly bizarre disanalysis that conflates greenhouse gas regulations with a green recovery or green economic stimulus.”

A Letter To Obama: Build A 21st Century Transportation System»

Our guest blogger is David Goldberg, Communications Director at Transportation For America.

Congratulations! Your election, and results from down-ballot votes around the country, represents a resounding call for a new direction.

The Transportation for America campaign, representing more than 100 organizations and thousands of energized citizens around the country, salutes you. And we join you in seeking infrastructure investment that will stimulate the economy now and lay the groundwork for a clean-energy future that is less dependent on oil.

Americans are ready for this bold vision. Even in this tattered economy, citizens in California, Washington, Hawaii, Colorado and at least 10 other states voted themselves a tax increase so they could jumpstart construction of light rail, commuter train service, high-speed rail and other clean transportation options. Now they, and dozens of other communities, need a federal partner that can step up and do its part.

We call on you to follow through on the vision you offered in the campaign by acting rapidly, starting with the transition and during the first 100 days, to urge Congress to pass a smart package of stimulus investments as well as a new national transportation program. Appoint a Secretary of Transportation with a proven record of understanding both urban and rural needs, as well as how transportation, growth and development, the economy and the environment interact.

By fixing our highways, bridges and transit systems, and pushing ahead with ready-to-go rail projects, we can create millions of jobs that can’t be outsourced, launch a clean, green economic recovery, and get started on building a 21st century transportation system.

To quote our next president: “Yes, we can!”

Join Transportation for America in sending this letter with your own thoughts to the President-elect.

Heritage Foundation Compares New Deal To Nazi-Soviet ‘Collectivism’»

The Heritage Foundation, a once proud bastion of conservative thought, is now resorting to absurd historical revisionism and mentions of “Nazi Germany” to attack needed progressive policies. Heritage blogger Nick Loris responds to the United Nations Environmental Program’s Green Economy Initiative and the Center for American Progress’s Green Recovery program with this absurd rant:

The United Nations is proposing an environmental ‘New Deal’ that would “be similar to Franklin D Roosevelt’s New Deal which helped the US recover from the Great Depression of the 1930s.”

First, the reality is that FDR’s New Deal did not help the U.S. recover from the Great Depression but simply made things worse. Second, the only thing a green ‘New Deal’ will do is lead us down a Green Road to Serfdom. (Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom is a telling portrayal of what collectivism in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany can lead to: impoverishment and oppression of freedom.)

In fact, economists broadly agree stimulative government spending is necessary to prevent a further collapse of the global economic system — just as the New Deal and the deficit spending of World War II restored the health of the global economy in the last century.

Scientists are warning with increasing stridency that carbon emissions must be drastically curbed to prevent a collapse of the world’s climate system. Instead of recognizing the real threat of the climate crisis, Loris writes, “The threat of climate change legislation is very real and very scary.”

Loris’s charge of Nazi-Soviet “collectivism” is utterly bizarre. The U.N.’s Green Economic Initative is a mainstream capitalist effort, with research overseen by Pavan Sukdhev, a top investment banker and self-described “total capitalist.” Its press release celebrates venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, public-private partnerships, and growth of international markets. CAP’s Green Recovery program primarily uses tax credits and federal loans to spur private investment, as well as investment in a 21st-century public infrastructure.

A cap and trade system to limit greenhouse pollution would correct what economist Sir Nicholas Stern called “the greatest market failure in history” — the failure to put a price on the pollution that is causing global warming. The fossil fuel industry is energy- and capital-intense, but creates few jobs. Despite Loris’s baseless claims that “taxing and spending does not create wealth,” moving to a green economy will in fact generate more jobs and greater economic growth, as California’s green economy has proven.

The Heritage Foundation is sliding into irrelevance. The last eight years of conservative misrule in Washington have demonstrated convincingly the failure of the right-wing policies it heralds. By all logic, preserving the planet from runaway global warming and restoring the health of the international free-market economy should be conservative ideals. Instead, they’re spending their time and money promoting puerile YouTube videos.

Study: California’s Green Economy Has Created 1.5 Million Jobs, $45 Billion»

As Bush’s pollution-based policies continue driving our economy and planet into disaster, conservatives are crying that changing course with progressive energy policies would “ravage the countryside” with “huge economic costs.” But a major new study of the success of California’s green economy tells the true story: a green recovery will restore the middle class, lift people out of poverty, and protect the planet. The study by economist David Roland-Holst finds that “California’s energy-efficiency policies created nearly 1.5 million jobs from 1977 to 2007, while eliminating fewer than 25,000.” Today, California’s per-capita electricity demand is 40 percent below the national average:

Total electricity use, per capita, 1960-2001

Instead of household income being lost to the capital intensive energy sector, Californians have enjoyed the benefits of their wages being plowed into job creating sectors, such that “induced job growth has contributed approximately $45 billion to the California economy since 1972.”

“Energy Efficiency, Innovation, and Job Creation in California,” by David Roland-Holst, an economist at the Center for Energy, Resources and Economic Sustainability at the University of California, Berkeley, is the first study of how the savings from California’s energy efficiency standards affected its economy through “expenditure shifting” away from the energy sector. The author explains:

When consumers shift one dollar of demand from electricity to groceries, for example, one dollar is removed from a relatively simple, capital intensive supply chain dominated by electric power generation and carbon fuel delivery. When the dollar goes to groceries, it animates much more job intensive expenditure chains including retailers, wholesalers, food processors, transport, and farming. Moreover, a larger proportion of these supply chains (and particularly services that are the dominant part of expenditure) resides within the state, capturing more job creation from Californians for California. Moreover, the state reduced its energy import dependence, while directing a greater percent of its consumption to in-state economic activities.

California’s appliance, building, automotive, and utility efficiency standards are a model for the nation — saving money, creating jobs, and saving lives through significant reductions in pollution.

Digg it!

It’s Time To Build The Green Collar Economy»

Our guest blogger is Van Jones from Green for All, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

At best, the federal government’s bail out of Wall Street will help the U.S. economy — which is already in a ditch — avoid a total meltdown. Fine. Now we need a plan to jumpstart the economy and actually get America moving again.

In my new book, The Green Collar Economy, I propose a bold, green cure for the economic mess we are in. Think of it as a comprehensive plan to bail out ordinary people — and the planet, too.

We just found $700 billion. Let’s find another $350 billion. That’s half the price tag of the Wall Street rescue — which has no guarantee of success. But with $350 billion investment, we absolutely and positively could retrofit and repower America using clean, green energy — and create millions of new jobs, in the process.

In other words, a comprehensive “green bailout” could give America TWICE the bang … for half the bucks. Other experts agree with me. A new report just released by the U.S. Conference of Mayors says that we can create more than 4 million green jobs if we aggressively shift away from traditional fossil fuels toward alternative energy and a significant improvement in energy efficiency.

Another report just released by the Political Economy Research Institute and the Center for American Progress shows that the U.S. can create two million jobs over two years by investing $100 billion in a green economic recovery plan. The report also shows that this investment would create four times more jobs than spending the same amount of money within the oil industry.

The time for choosing has arrived. Looking at both our energy system and our financial system, we face some hard choices. Our energy system can create awesome storms. Or it can create awesome jobs. Our financial system can become a global sinkhole — or a global springboard.

The gray economy that is collapsing is based on consumption, debt and environmental destruction. The green economy that is emerging will be based on production, smart savings and environmental restoration.

The bottom line is: you can’t base a national economy on credit cards. But you can base it on solar panels, wind turbines, smart bio-fuels and massive, a program to weatherize every building and home in America.

A green economy would be less vulnerable to oil shocks and financial bubbles. In a green economy, we would rely on less credit from overseas and more on creativity right here at home. It’s time to stop borrowing and start building.

As Thomas Friedman says, “We don’t just need a bailout. We need a buildup.”

Rather than just giving platinum parachutes to those who wrecked the economy, let’s throw a green lifeline to the ordinary people who want to rebuild it. We can’t drill and burn our way out of our present mess. But we can invent and invest our way out. And in The Green Collar Economy, I suggest a game plan for getting started.

Join MicCheck Radio to hear an exclusive interview with Van Jones about the Green Collar Economy.

UPDATE: Living on Earth’s Jeff Young explores the “elements of a green economic bailout” with CAPAF fellows Bracken Hendricks, Carol Browner, and Van Jones:

As Washington rescues Wall Street, a growing chorus of big thinkers from the left and right are calling for a greener approach– using investment in clean energy and efficiency as a way to stimulate the economy.

Representatives Announce Legislative Principles To ‘Save The Planet From Calamitous Global Warming’»

Today, 152 members of the House of Representatives — over one-third of all members and nearly two-thirds of all Democrats — signed and submitted a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stating their guiding principles for “comprehensive global warming legislation” to “save the planet from calamitous global warming.” The letter, led by representatives Henry Waxman (D-CA), Ed Markey (D-MA), and Jay Inslee (D-WA), was delivered to Pelosi this morning.

The legislators describe four key goals:

1. Reduce emissions to avoid dangerous global warming;
2. Transition America to a clean energy economy;
3. Recognize and minimize any economic impacts from global warming legislation; and
4. Aid communities and ecosystems vulnerable to harm from global warming.

These are the necessary principles that should guide any path out of the climate crisis. What makes this letter significant is the strong, specific details endorsed by the 152 signatories. These include the following measures to respect the severity of the danger of rising greenhouse gas emissions:

– “The United States must do its part to keep global temperatures from rising more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial levels.”

– “Total U.S. emissions must be capped by a date certain, decline every year, be reduced to 15% to 20% below current levels in 2020, and fall to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.”

– “A mechanism for periodic scientific review is necessary, and EPA, and other agencies as appropriate, must adjust the regulatory response if the latest science indicates that more reductions are needed.”

– “Cost-containment measures must not break the cap on global warming pollution.”

– “The United States must reengage in the international negotiations to establish binding emissions reductions goals under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change . . . for the United States and other developed nations to achieve combined emissions reductions of at least 25% below 1990 levels by 2020, as called for by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”

More »

McCain Confuses Coal With ‘Clean Coal’ In New Ads»

On a day when Congress focuses on the deteriorating financial markets, John McCain has given up his pledge to stay in Washington to get a deal done. Instead, back on the campaign trail, he wants to talk about coal. McCain is selling a fantasy of a coal- and oil-based economy, in ads airing in Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia:

“Clean coal” is important to America. And to Colorado. For Coloradoans, coal means thousands of jobs. Economic growth. More affordable electricity. For America, coal means energy independence. And “clean coal” means cleaner air. But Obama-Biden and their liberal allies oppose “clean coal.”

Listen here:

In fact, coal is a dirty, deadly fuel that is becoming increasingly expensive. And a coal-based economy doesn’t promise real job growth, either. The coal industry has in fact been cutting jobs while increasing production and profits. Finally, continued use of coal — as the most concentrated global warming pollutant — is threatening the future of human civilization, something McCain himself seems to recognize.

McCain’s ads confuse coal with “clean coal” — the industry’s preferred term for technologies still in development to sequester coal’s deadly pollution. Such advanced coal technology may promise “cleaner air” — in comparison to the continued use of traditional coal plants — if and when it is developed. The “clean coal” propaganda campaign must not substitute for real technological innovation. This is what Al Gore meant when he said last week:

If the coal companies can actually sequester CO₂ safely, then okay. But don’t, don’t pretend to do it. Don’t, don’t, don’t give us this illusion. Because that’s what they did on Wall Street. “The risk isn’t there. Don’t worry about it. Just keep focusing on the short term profit.”

More »

Green Jobs Now Day Of Action, Today: 660 Events In All Fifty States»

Thousands of Americans are rising up together today to say, “We’re Ready” for green jobs now. Van Jones, head of Green For All and a Center for American Progress Action Fund senior fellow, explains:

George W. Bush’s house of credit cards is falling down — on the heads of the American people. We need dramatic action — but not just to bail to financial titans who destroyed the economy.

We need to throw a green life-line to the people who want to rebuild it.

There is only one comprehensive solution to the present mess: put America back to work retrofitting and repowering America with millions of green-collar jobs.

Watch it:

The Green Jobs Now Day of Action is taking place in every state in the nation, with over 660 different events (here’s the photostream — you can participate by sending in your own photo that declares “I’m Ready” for green jobs). Here are just a few:

ATLANTA

As Newt Gingrich sells his toxic pollution-based agenda across town, the Green Jobs Now people are coming together to install thousands of next-generation lightbulbs and conduct energy audits in communities like Adair Park that are too often forgotten. Join the work — and celebration. Here are some of the organizations working together to build the green recovery in ATL:

United Way Metropolitan Atlanta; Green Jobs Institute, Green World Promotions, Clayton County Clean; Energy Coalition; Spellman, Morehouse, Emory, Agnes Scott HBCU’s; Georgia State University; Georgia Stand Up; Annie E. Casey Foundation; National Wildlife Federation; SEEED, Sustainable Atlanta; Edge Connection; Southface Institute; Reach Them to Teach Them, Conserve Georgia; Home Depot; Green Atlanta

More »

Gore: Lifting Oil Shale Moratorium ‘Is Utter Insanity’»

The Wonk Room has previously explained how the push for oil shale is like drilling for a trillion tons of tater tots. At the Global Clinton Initiative on Wednesday, Gore offered a stark criticism of the House of Representatives vote to eliminate the moratorium on oil shale development in the continuing resolution for the 2009 budget:

Now, one final point. Today, today, the US Congress is dealing with energy. They are without debate and without a single hearing preparing to lift the moratorium on the development of oil shale, which would vastly multiply the amount of CO2 from every gallon of gasoline.

This is utter insanity.

And it demonstrates the wealth and power of the entrenched carbon lobby to twist policy and to put out illusory impressions about this, is overwhelming free debate. So, we need to stop this. You know, each year, we have a great discussion here, and there’s progress made. But it’s not enough. It’s not enough.

We, the human species, have to solve this crisis.

Watch it:

Yesterday, Sen. Reid (D-NV) and Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) unveiled an economic stimulus bill (S. 3604) which would continue the oil shale moratorium, includes $500 million to support weatherization of low-income homes, $7.5 billion for loans to auto companies to manufacture advanced, more energy-efficient vehicles, $2 billion for public transit, $350 million for Amtrak, $300 million for advanced battery research, $300 million to help local governments improve energy efficiency, $750 million for environmental clean up, and $800 million for urban and rural clean water systems.

The Center for American Progress Action Fund supports the passage of this green economic recovery plan, which is coming up for a vote right now.

UPDATE: The bill was filibustered 52-42. Senators Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Evan Bayh (D-IN) joined forty Republicans to vote against the bill. Sens. Biden (D-DE), Graham (R-SC), Kennedy (D-MA), McCain (R-AZ), Obama (D-IL), and Stevens (R-AK) did not vote.

UPDATE II: Eric Kleiman, Bayh spokesman, explains Bayh’s vote against the stimulus bill:

The package included billions of dollars in deficit-financed spending of questionable stimulative value, including $925 million for a U.S. polar icebreaker and $250 million for the next generation NASA spacecraft.

Green Jobs Now, Or Newt’s Two-Cent Solution?»

In a new video, Green Jobs Now compares Newt Gingrich’s “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” propaganda to the Green Jobs Now green recovery agenda. Newt fares poorly. Watch it:

The Green Jobs Now Day of Action is this Saturday, September 27. Thousands of Americans will be calling for investment in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and job training for people who are ready to get to work building a more just and sustainable economy.

Newt Gingrich’s “Solutions Day” is this Saturday, September 27. He’ll be calling for more drilling, privatizing health care and Social Security, and slashing corporate taxes.

Who will you join this weekend?

UPDATE: Adi at 1Sky reports: “We’re up to 558 events in all 50 states!” At SolveClimate, David Sassoon writes: “And the coalition now has a secret weapon: Patrick, and his caulk gun. Shock and Awe has met its match.”

Green Recovery Now: Two Million New Jobs In Two Years»

Today, the Center for American Progress released Green Recovery, a new report by Dr. Robert Pollin and University of Massachusetts Political Economy Research Institute economists. This report demonstrates how a new Green Recovery program that invests $100 billion over two years would create 2 million new jobs, with a significant proportion in the struggling construction and manufacturing sectors. It is clear from this research that a strategy to invest in the greening of our economy will create more jobs, and better jobs, compared to continuing to pursue a path of inaction marked by rising dependence on fossil fuel billionaires.

To create 2 million new jobs within two years, the overall level of fiscal expansion will need to be around $100 billion, or roughly the same as the portion of the April 2008 stimulus program that was targeted at expanding household consumption. This green economic recovery program will create more jobs and better paying jobs. If Congress were to decide as part of a domestic oil production and gas price reduction effort to spend $100 billion on new oil and gas subsidies and subsidizing gasoline and oil prices, only a quarter as many jobs would be created:

The plan calls for most of the stimulus to go directly to the private sector, with $50 billion for tax credits and $4 billion for federal loan guarantees. $46 billion in direct government spending would support public building retrofits, the expansion of mass transit, freight rail, and smart electrical grid systems, and new investments. This $100 billion investment is targeted at six key sectors in building a green economy today: More »

Denver Video: Pollution CEOs Versus Youth Activist Jessy Tolkan»

Last week the Rocky Mountain Roundtable hosted a day-long symposium on energy and climate change. One session included top officials from major global warming polluters — electric utility Xcel Energy, Arch Coal, Dow Chemical, natural gas corporation GHK, and top coal corporation Peabody Energy. The five men have, of course, become millionaires as their companies have spewed millions of tons of global warming pollution into the atmosphere. At the Roundtable, the pollution executives defended government subsidies for their respective industries, claimed solidarity with average Americans, and pooh-poohed any possibility of change from the status quo:

– Xcel Energy CEO Dick Kelly complained, “Consumers want access to renewable energy and information. People have expectations that the solutions are readily available. That’s not true.”

– Arch Coal CEO Steven Leer — whose company has spent decades litigating and lobbying against the Clean Air Act — admitted, “The Clean Air Act worked.” Leer, who owns $27 million in Arch stock options, continued, “Everybody’s seen pain at the pump.”

– Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris — who made $10 million last year and has fired 7000 American workers — complained, “It’s been a tough couple of years,” and urged the audience, “We can’t as a government abdicate helping corporations.”

– GHK founder Robert A. Hefner III argued, “We can have totally green natural gas plants” in order “to replace coal.”

– Peabody Executive Vice President Fred Palmer — a $25,000 donor to Gingrich’s ASWF 527 corporation — claimed “Clean coal is not an oxymoron.” He then stated, “The United States is not the problem,” putting blame on China.

The Wonk Room interviewed Jessy Tolkan, leader of the Power Vote campaign and executive director of the Energy Action Coalition, for a response:

As one of the most powerful voting blocs in America, we are going to make it abundantly clear that we don’t want an abundance of dirty energy in this country. We want an abundance of clean energy, and we’re going to force our elected officials to listen to us and not the oil and coal and natural gas industry.

Watch it:

In the interview, Tolkan also called Newt Gingrich’s “Drill Here, Drill Now” campaign “a bunch of bullshit,” saying she’s still naive enough believe we should tell the truth. Tolkan recommends that everyone check out PowerVote.org and join the Energy Action Coalition on September 27th in the Green Jobs Now Day of Action.

See also the Wonk Room video interview with Van Jones of Green For All.