Congress worked out health care. Is climate change next?

[Statistical]

Six weeks ago, it looked as if there was no chance that Congress would approve climate change legislation this year.

...

Passage of health-care legislation, however, may have changed all that.

Democrats and their liberal supporters saw how much good could be accomplished by not allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good. And Republicans and the business lobby were reminded of the concessions they could have won but didn't by their decision to abandon bipartisan compromise and instead try to kill the legislation altogether.

Now, thanks to the heroic efforts of two dogged senators -- Democrat John Kerry and Republican Lindsey Graham -- and the quiet support of the White House, there looks to be a 50-50 chance the Senate will pass a simpler and more moderate version of a bill this year that would begin to substantially reduce carbon emissions in the United States.

Many in the environmental community have come around to Kerry's view that this is the best shot they are going to have anytime soon at passing comprehensive energy and climate change legislation. And parts of the business community have come around to Graham's view that they can't afford another decade of uncertainty over regulatory issues, particularly with an activist Democrat in control of the regulatory agencies, just as they cannot afford to alienate an entire generation that has a keen interest in the environment and doesn't look kindly on their intransigence.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/15/AR2010041505755.html?hpid=topnews

The bill still seems overly complex to me.

Electrical Power will be a Cap & Trade System.
Manufacturing/Industry will be exempt until 2016 then join the Cap & Trade.

Gasoline & Heating will not be included in C&T system and instead will have a flat carbon tax applied.
Americans will get tax credit (dividend portion of the tax & dividend) to offset higher prices.

Still I guess it is a first step towards a low carbon future.

[cloudythescribbler]

1. The problem is that a really weak health bill can be corrected over time, but the climate won't wait

The health bill ended up being very watered down, not only abandoning single payer (as Obama did in the campaign) but protections of states' ability to pursue single payer, as well as the public option. OK, the bill had a LOT of major flaws, but can be fixed over time as problems arise.

With climate, as Bill McKibben rightly points out, the operation of the greenhouse effect isn't like a political give-and-take. It will unfold, with tipping points, as the overall CO2 level in the atmosphere -- ALREADY TOO HIGH -- continues to rise. Major and drastic action needs to be taken, nationally and globally, and if it isn't, the whole of nature on this planet is in peril. Even the "strongest" legislation liberals are proposing, reducing GHGs EMISSIONS by some 83% by 2050, is catastrophically inadequate, when we need to lower the ATMOSPHERIC LEVEL of GHGs, already approaching 400 ppm CO2 to less than 350 ppm. That's what Jim Hansen, the world's most reknowned climatologist studying the greenhouse effect, joined by a steadily growing crowd of experts, tells us

We need MASSIVE PUBLIC investment, getting over the willies in this area, to replace coal rapidly, while massive conservation efforts, like flat electricity rates where major industrial and commercial users pay the same rate as ordinary homes. This money could then be taxed away from the utilities as a windfall and returned to businesses in the form of tax cuts on payrolls, encouraging employment while cutting electricity consumption.

There's much more, but these issues are a start

[Statistical]

2. I agree the climate can't wait however political realities are just that realities.

If the options in 2010 are:
a) current climate bill (I wouldn't consider a 20% renewable energy mandate by 2020 to be weak)
or
b) no climate bill try again in 5-10 years

I will take the "weak" climate bill.

Even if the bill needs to be improved later the partial reduction between today and whenever some future bill passes has to be accounted for.

If nothing else it gets Americans use to the idea and lets them see the green energy can be a plus (plus for planet, plus for jobs, plus for price of energy).