Sanders on Lieberman-Warner

Bernie Sanders has a smart rejoinder to the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill, a welcome bipartisan effort to tackle a serious problem that, unfortunately, doesn't tackle the problem:

Today, however, we have a qualitatively different situation. I wish it wasn't so, but it is. The issue is not what I want versus what Senator Lieberman or Senator Warner or Senator Inhofe may want -- and the need to work out an agreement that we can all accept. That's not the dynamic we face today. The issue today is one of physics and chemistry and what the best scientists in the world believe is happening to our planet because of greenhouse gas emissions. The issue is what we can do, as a nation, along with the international community, to reverse global warming and to save this planet from a catastrophic and irreversible damage which could impact billions of people.

The tragic element here is that had Al Gore taken office in January 2001 we might have found ourselves in a situation where we were debating something along these lines in 2002 or 2003 when something like Lieberman-Warner could have been an adequate first step. But as time goes by the fact that there's both more carbon in the air, and a warmer planet, and a higher baseline level of emissions all make it less-and-less viable to start gently.

Comments

This seems a little strange to me. The time horizon for global warming is pretty long. If Lieberman-Warner passes, and in 2011 we find it's not working, and we have to pass another bill, do you think the GOP's going to campaign against it?

Personally I don't like Lieberman Warner either. I'd much rather auction the credits off. But Lieberman-Warner without the safety valve might be a livable compromise.

Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot | November 1, 2007 4:48 PM

had Al Gore taken office in January 2001 we might have found ourselves in a situation where we were debating something along these lines in 2002 or 2003 when something like Lieberman-Warner could have been an adequate first step

Honestly, I don't think so, and I'm devastated that Gore doesn't seem to be running this time. Had he been properly inaugurated, I think he would have been a one-term president (originally, I predicted this for whoever won, but didn't factor in elective wars & electoral shenanigans), and Congress would have probably been just as foot-dragging and obtuse with anything he proposed as they were wrt Kyoto. As a nation, we're just not temperamentally disposed to do the right thing until it's too late.

Posted by latts | November 1, 2007 4:56 PM

Nick, according to this post at Grist's Muckraker, Lieberman-Warner doesn't include a safety valve, but Bingaman-Specter does. If you have different information, I'd be very interested. Currently, it seems like the most realistic avenues to pursue in improving L-W are incorporating Boxer's 'look-back' provisions (so that we could do those 2011 revisions you talk about) and (maybe?) increase the proportion of credits to be auctioned above the current 20%.

Posted by phensley | November 1, 2007 5:07 PM

Oh, well, that's much better. I was listening to news on the radio and they mentioned something about the global warming bills and safety valves (I think it was in the context of talking about Carl Levin), and I just assumed it was Warner Lieberman.

Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot | November 1, 2007 5:17 PM

Bingaman-Spector has a safety valve -- one that makes a mockery of the bill. It's awful.

Lieberman-Warner has a more sophisticated cost containment mechanism that offers some flexibility without sacrificing the long-term targets. It's actually one of the best things about the bill (and could easily be ported over to other bills). I wrote about it in some detail here:

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/7/25/01948/0376

The big problems with L-W, as it stands, are that it takes far too long to auction all the permits and it's not economy-wide (so the reduction targets you see are targets for the covered sectors of the economy -- a new analysis out today shows that "80% by 2050" is actually more like 45%).

Posted by David Roberts | November 2, 2007 5:09 AM

The tragic element here is that had Al Gore taken office in January 2001 we might have found ourselves in a situation where we were debating something along these lines in 2002 or 2003 when something like Lieberman-Warner could have been an adequate first step. But as time goes by the fact that there's both more carbon in the air, and a warmer planet, and a higher baseline level of emissions all make it less-and-less viable to start gently.

Oh please. Gore was VP for 8 years, and what did he get accomplished. Pretty much nothing.

Oh please. Gore was VP for 8 years, and what did he get accomplished. Pretty much nothing.

Which is what the framers of the Constitution (remember that?) had in mind.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | November 2, 2007 10:26 AM