Activists Criticize Polluter Giveaways in House Energy-Climate Bill

Some of the biggest names in global warming and clean energy advocacy are dismayed at the condition of the House clean energy and climate bill, which emerged last Friday from subcommittee markup.

"Chairmen Waxman and Markey have done heroic work in reaching agreement on the Energy and Commerce Committee around a comprehensive clean energy and climate plan, a critically important milestone that has faced seemingly insuperable obstacles," says the Sierra Club's statement. "But it is clear that Big Oil, Big Coal and other polluters are still holding out for a Congressional bailout. They will continue to try to riddle this legislation with loopholes, water it down, and load it up with hundreds of billions of dollars in giveaways. They don't want it to deliver a recovery fueled by the clean energy jobs that America needs."

Tyson Slocum, Director of the Energy Program at Public Citizen, doesn't mince words, calling the bill "a huge disappointment":

Not only will it prove a boon to energy industries, but it won’t protect consumers and may very well not even curb global warming. The first draft, penned months ago, was on track to accomplish these goals, and we applauded it as a great start. Since then, however, lawmakers have met in secret with representatives of the coal and oil industries and facilitated industry efforts to gut the bill...instead of a transparent process involving debate and voted-upon amendments, committee leadership conducted closed-door negotiations with polluters. The result: The bill was radically altered to accommodate the financial interests of big energy corporations while giving nothing new for the environment or for working families. This is hardly the transformation this country needs to jump-start its economy and curb climate change...Ultimately, the people’s business should be done in front of the people. Instead, deals have been cut in back rooms to bribe special interests into supporting the bill.

The committee’s decision to give away most of the pollution allowances for free for the next two decades is unacceptable...Europe’s experience shows that when the right to pollute is given free to energy companies, nations fail to meet their emissions caps and price signals in the carbon trading markets are undermined. While we can understand providing some allowances to energy-intensive domestic manufacturing industries that are subject to fierce international competition, the same cannot be said for oil refiners or coal utilities. The bottom line is that this thwarts the very goal of curbing global warming.

One prominent dissenter from the building wave of dismay is Joe Romm, the climate policy blogger at the Center for American Progress. He's not gushing over the bill, but he's not crying over it, either -- instead offering 10 reasons to support it:

1. The Waxman-Markey bill will create jobs by spurring investment in renewables and efficiency.
2. Boosting investments in low-carbon energy will help the United States regain the lead in the manufacture and sale of clean-energy technologies.
3. The global warming threat is growing, and we have no more time to lose.
4. The bill would cut greenhouse gas emissions enough to equal pollution from half a billion cars.
5. It would increase new building efficiency by 50 percent.
6. It limits impact from energy costs on families and would make emitters pay to pollute.
7. It provides a smooth transition for energy-intensive industries.
8. Opponents of action would continue the status quo of doing nothing, which cost the average family a $1,000 increase in energy bills over the past eight years.
9. Investments in carbon capture-and-sequestration research and development to reduce global warming pollution from coal-fired power plants.
10. The bill has critical industry support.