Mandawhat?

Watch in amazement as John McCain fails to realize that a cap-and-trade system necessarily involves a "mandatory cap" on carbon emissions. Obviously the root of the issue here is that McCain doesn't understand anything about carbon policy and doesn't care about it either. But he wanted to sign up for a "centrist" solution on the sexy issue of climate change, so his staff came up with a plan. But "mandatory cap" sounds like the lefty position, so McCain thinks he must not have it.

Maybe he should explain to people the real difference between his plan and Barack Obama's, namely that under Obama's plan you need to pay the government for carbon permits whereas under McCain's plan polluters get free permits that they can then sell. Either way, energy's going to get more expensive and some hardship will exist, but under Obama's plan revenue will be generated that can be used to ease the pain. But of course to explain his plan to people McCain would need to get someone to explain it to him first.

Comments

If we were being charitable to McCain, we could say that he's drawing a distinction between establishing fixed emissions abatement requirements for each point source (this would be the dreaded "mandates"), vs. establishing an aggregate cap and letting the market figure out the allocation.

But that's probably not what McCain meant.

Posted by nbt | June 16, 2008 10:25 PM

Mandawho?

Posted by jay | June 16, 2008 10:31 PM

Ageist!

Posted by DTM | June 16, 2008 10:37 PM

It sounds more like he's thinking of mandatory as in mandatory caps on specific polluters, rather than an overall national cap.

Posted by Mario | June 16, 2008 10:44 PM

Mandashuffleboard?

Posted by southpaw | June 16, 2008 10:44 PM

Either way, energy's going to get more expensive and some hardship will exist, but under Obama's plan revenue will be generated that can be used to ease the pain.

Uh - but more pain will be generated, with companies losing more money in burning carbon (which is passed on to comsumers), so it's not like there is no downside to Obama's plan.

Obviously the root of the issue here is that McCain doesn't understand anything about carbon policy and doesn't care about it either.

You could replace "carbon policy" with a lot of other words and it would still be so true.

Posted by Glaivester | June 16, 2008 11:01 PM

More seriously, and somewhat less ageistly, he's made this mistake repeatedly in the past. Hilzoy documented it here and again today here. It's worth pointing out, too, that McCain's own legislation, McCain-Lieberman, has what looks to me like a system wide cap:

SEC. 124. ESTABLISHMENT OF TRADEABLE ALLOWANCES. (a) IN GENERAL- The Administrator shall promulgate regulations to establish tradeable allowances, denominated in units of carbon dioxide equivalents, as follows:

(1) For calendar years beginning after 2011, the number of tradeable allowances shall be equal to 6,130 million metric tons, measured in units of carbon dioxide equivalents, reduced by the amount of emissions of greenhouse gases in calendar year 2012 from non-covered entities.

(2) For calendar years beginning after 2019, the number of tradeable allowances shall be equal to 5,239 million metric tons, measured in units of carbon dioxide equivalents, reduced by the amount of emissions of greenhouse gases in calendar year 2020 from non-covered entities.

(3) For calendar years beginning after 2029, the number of tradeable allowances shall be equal to 4,100 million metric tons, measured in units of carbon dioxide equivalents, reduced by the amount of emissions of greenhouse gases in calendar year 2030 from non-covered entities.

(4) For calendar years beginning after 2049, the number of tradeable allowances shall be equal to 2,096 million metric tons, measured in units of carbon dioxide equivalents, reduced by the amount of emissions of greenhouse gases in each such calendar year from non-covered entities.

I do think McCain has repeatedly misstated his own policy, and that suggests he either doesn't understand it or is deliberately muddling the issue.

Posted by southpaw | June 16, 2008 11:09 PM

Glaivester,

I think the additional incentive for consumers to switch to less carbon-intensive products is more of a feature than a downside in Matt's view.

Posted by DTM | June 16, 2008 11:17 PM

Glaivester,

There will be additional costs passed on to consumers in either case, since the permits have a value and generating emissions thus has an opportunity cost for businesses. From the consumer's point of view, there's no difference. The advantage of auctioning, besides there being no good reason to give heaps of money to polluters, is that you could use some portion of the revenue to give rebates to consumers to soften the effect of higher energy costs.

Posted by BP in MN | June 16, 2008 11:39 PM

But . . . but Obama is inexperienced and wouldn't know what to do when he gets into power . . . or something.

Posted by ben | June 17, 2008 12:54 AM

"Mandawhat? Mandawho?" sounds kind of like the beginning of that Numa Numa song.

Posted by Neil the Ethical Werewolf | June 17, 2008 1:19 AM

Mandaheee? Mandawhoo? Mandawhaa? Mandahaha . . .

Posted by southpaw | June 17, 2008 1:25 AM

Best. Election. Ever.

Posted by scythia | June 17, 2008 1:57 AM

Actually, the answer was more confused than you give him credit for. The question wasn´t about cap and trade at all but about mandatory goals for renewable energy (a stupid idea btw). He didn´t just fumble his description of his own plan he also totally missed the whole point of the question.

Posted by PoP | June 17, 2008 5:17 AM

Actually, the answer was more confused than you give him credit for. The question wasn´t about cap and trade at all but about mandatory goals for renewable energy (a stupid idea btw). He didn´t just fumble his description of his own plan he also totally missed the whole point of the question.

Posted by PoP | June 17, 2008 5:18 AM

Why are we talking about mandates when we could be talking war with China. Hell, they're trying to recover from a big flood at the moment (unlike us, heh heh) and we could take 'em out with a couple of strategic fighters ('member Iron Eagles?).

Posted by John McMaverick | June 17, 2008 6:32 AM

He's obviously lost his bearings.

Posted by JimmyJack | June 17, 2008 6:34 AM

McCain is perfectly corect; Matthew and Gristmill are being morons here.

The legislation does NOT require mandatory caps on each source - a source can emit any amount it wants so long as it purchases the requisite credits.

One wonders why Matthew and Gristmill repeatedly make fools of themselves on this issue. It is as if Matthew and Gristmill aren't even able to grasp the concept of "cap and trade". See, Matthew and Gristmill, the "and trade" part makes McCain's policy different than a "cap". That's why the "and trade" part is included in the title. It's not that difficult to figure out.

Posted by Al | June 17, 2008 7:37 AM

Raise energy costs at a time when energy costs are already rising on strong demand and China is allowing emissions grow even faster than anticipated? Whatever the policy merits, that's a political loser.

Posted by Rid | June 17, 2008 7:58 AM

Al, MY didn't say what you said he did.

One wonders why you repeatedly makes a fool of yourself.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | June 17, 2008 8:11 AM

Al cracks me up.

"Cap-and-trade" obviously means no cap! I mean, "trade" is right there in the name!

Posted by DTM | June 17, 2008 8:13 AM

I dislike mccain and al as much as the next guy, but everyone's being a little too hasty here.

when mccain differentiates between cap-and-trade and mandatory cap, he presumably means he doesn't favour imposing a mandatory cap on any particular company or facility.

you could construe a limit on aggregate carbon emissions as a 'mandatory cap', but that system is more commonly referred to as 'cap and trade' so let's give him a pass here, especially because some people have proposed capping each individual factory's emissions, and that system is often referred to as 'mandatory caps'.

so again I hate McCain and I think it's funny when he gets confused but we're being a bit hasty here.

Posted by Sam | June 17, 2008 8:55 AM

he presumably means

If we could somehow power automobiles with the engery expended over the last 28 years figuring out what the heck Republican presidential candidates mean by their facially silly pronoucements, we wouldn't have to worry about oil . . .

Posted by rea | June 17, 2008 9:04 AM

There he goes again with his "policy" that we all need to "understand." Good luck with that in November, Poindexter!

Posted by Eric Scharf | June 17, 2008 9:18 AM

The advantage of auctioning, besides there being no good reason to give heaps of money to polluters, is that you could use some portion of the revenue to give rebates to consumers to soften the effect of higher energy costs.

This is something I don't particularly understand. Do tax rebates work to soften the effect of economic costs? I took my $600 and put it into a savings account (actually, most of it is going to pay for "involuntary" plane trips for weddings this year that I would have paid out of pocket anyway, but thats another story.) I thought one of the biggest criticisms of the gas tax holiday (putting aside the lost government revenue) was that the per consumer savings wasn't really enough to soften the blow. Would these rebates be enough?

Posted by Adrock | June 17, 2008 9:37 AM

Interpreting McCain to be referring to per source caps makes no sense given what he actually said, which was:

"MCCAIN: Sure. I believe in the cap-and-trade system, as you know. I would not at this time make those -- impose a mandatory cap at this time. But I do believe that we have to establish targets for reductions of greenhouse gas emissions over time, and I think those can be met."

What else could the "those" in his second sentence be referring to but the "cap" in his first sentence? Note also he says "a mandatory cap" singular, as opposed to "mandatory caps" plural, which you would expect if he was referring to individual caps for each source.

No, he clearly just believes that a cap-and-trade system implies overall emissions "targets" as opposed to overall emissions caps, which does in fact mean he doesn't understand his own proposal.

By the way, rather than rebates I think the best thing to do with the revenues is to use some (or even all) of those revenues to subsidize substitutes for carbon-intensive products. That maximizes the incentive to switch to such substitues (call it a stick-and-carrot approach). But just handing those revenues out per capita may be the most politically savvy move--basically, you tell people that as long as they can beat the average consumer's carbon level, they will actually make a profit. And lots of studies have shown that more than 50% of people tend to think they are better-than-average by any given measure.

Posted by DTM | June 17, 2008 1:48 PM

Cap-and-trade without the cap . . . that's transformative, man.

Posted by SqueakyRat | June 18, 2008 12:24 AM