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Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the House global warming panel, will introduce a bill next week that would cut emissions 85 percent below 2005 levels by 2050, more than the leading Senate bill to be debated on the floor next week. Markey said the measure would generate $8 trillion through the auctioning of emissions allowances to polluters. That money would be spent on developing new technologies like carbon capture and storage, retraining workers in green-collar jobs and helping consumers reduce their energy costs. Markey said he had briefed staff to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on the parameters of the bill, but he did not indicate his legislation would reach the floor this year. He did say that Congress should begin to act on global warming this year in preparation for next year, when the president is likely to be friendlier to a cap on carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions. All three major candidates support limits on greenhouse gas emissions. President Bush, meanwhile, has announced much more modest climate goals than Democrats and some Republicans in Congress have called for. Markey’s bill differs in significant ways from the legislation crafted by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), John Warner (R-Va.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) said he welcomed Markey’s initiative. “I am delighted to see that Congressman Markey has come forward with a plan to address climate change. I welcome input from all Members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce,” Dingell said. “I look forward to receiving a copy of the legislation and look forward to holding hearings on the subject in June.” Markey’s bill would not give polluters free emission allowances, but instead immediately put a price on emissions in an auction. That would likely raise the cost of compliance earlier than the Senate measure and therefore is likely to be opposed by the business community. Markey said auctioning the allowances rather than handing them out for free would force industries to invest in energy-efficiency technologies that would allow them to reach emission targets in the near term. “The business community that has been polluting has to accept the responsibility that this is a price that has been paid for by the society as a whole,” Markey said. The measure also does not include a “safety valve” that would suspend the carbon auction if the prices for allowances rose too high. Instead, Markey said the Government Accountability Office and the National Academy of Sciences would be charged with reviewing the market and recommending any necessary legislative fixes. Markey equated the congressional debate surrounding global warming to the fight that preceded passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. That legislation, fought by the Baby Bells, led to an information technology revolution that has given the world Google, Amazon and YouTube, Markey said. “That is the role of government, to move from the black-rotary-dial-phone era to the broadband-Google-YouTube era. We had to change the policy, though, because the companies weren’t doing it.” Markey said he sought to trigger an “explosion of energy, technological development that will give us the same ‘wow’ feeling that we get from our information technology today.” |
