McCain “might take [new CAFE standards] off the books”

[RedEarth]

We’ve heard climate double talk from McCain on “mandates” and “dependence on foreign energy sources.” Now, in a stunning interview with E&E News (subs. req’d), the McCain campaign seriously undermines its claim that the Arizona Senator could successfully take on the global warming threat.

As the reporter put it, “the Arizona senator’s presidential campaign is trying to differentiate itself from its Democratic rivals by rejecting calls for additional climate-themed restrictions.” This, however, is a potentially fatal difference.

....

Does anybody who cares about climate change really think we are pushing clean technologies and clean transportation too hard? Other than Sen. McCain’s campaign, that is — we’ve already seen that McCain does not support renewable technology tax credits that have been “on the book” for years even before we have a cap & trade. This is an especially jaw-dropping statement given that even the delayers themselves have been saying we need a bigger clean tech push for years.

2. Holtz-Eakin … questioned the candidates’ calls for a new federal low carbon fuel limit, stronger fuel economy standards and policies to reduce U.S. oil consumption. Cap and trade, Holtz-Eakin said, is the ideal solution by itself…. Asked if this position meant McCain would block implementation of new corporate average fuel economy requirements that President Bush signed into law last December, Holtz-Eakin replied, “He’s not proposing to eliminate those. He simply wants to check as time goes on if they become completely irrelevant. You might want to take them off the books , but we’re not there yet.”

He cannot be serious. We might “want to take off the books” because a cap & trade system might render them irrelevant?

http://climateprogress.org/2008/03/23/campaign-stunner-mccain-might-take-new-cafe-standards-off-the-books/

[wtmusic]

1. Why cap and trade alone won't work

"It was Holtz-Eakin who made the point that beneath the surface of cap-and-trade is a broad philosophical difference. McCain's opponents, he said, would not stop with cap-and-trade. They would supplement it with additional policies and regulations: increases in CAFE, efficiency standards, renewable portfolio standards, etc. This, Holtz-Eakin contended, was a symptom of their addiction to the heavy hand of government control, used to "micromanage" the economy. McCain, he said, would pass cap-and-trade and otherwise get out of the way and let the economy do its thing.

Grumet made the point that to get the reductions we need purely with cap-and-trade, you'd need a price per ton of carbon so high as to be prohibitive -- on the order of $150/ton. A more reasonable price, say $35, wouldn't do much to affect, say, the transportation sector. That is precisely why you need CAFE and other supplemental policies (efficiency standards, utility decoupling, etc.).

(For what it's worth, as I understand it Grumet has the better of this one. Most energy policy analysts I know of recognize that a reasonable price on carbon is only the beginning, and will not in and of itself get us where we need to go.)"

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/3/14/221425/110/