I sure hope he doesn't.

Rep. DeFazio spoke last week at the Portland City Club, and the first thing he said in his prepared remarks was that he was against this legislation. Why? He saw this as a financial boondoggle that will make Enron look like a good thing. He doesn't believe this will do anything for the environment; instead it will serve Wall Street and other financial games.

Refer to his website for more detailed information on his position, or visit the City Club website to hear his entire presentation as an MP3 file.

As I type this, the Bill just passed in the House, 219-212, but I did not see how DeFazio actually voted. I'm sure the details will be made available shortly.

Well, I'd have to take this no vote from DeFazio into consideration if he decides to run for Governor.

The Senate is going to kill it. This was among the dumbest bills ever put forth in any of the 111 Congresses to date.

I am not surprised by the continuing efforts to monkeywrench the US economy, in fact I expect them. I also expect it to meet with the enthusiastic applause of many americans, but everytime it happens, I shake my head in amazement anyway.

This is one of the least 'progressive' bills ever passed by a democrat controlled house.

I applaud DeFazio for voting "No". I agree that it would create anarchy in the carbon marketplace and would make Enron look like a Sunday School picnic. Since it would also gut Appalacia and more than TRIPLE energy costs for all it is a bad bill that needs to die.

I'd encourage the skeptics over the man-made climate change to think of the sky in Beijing. The current consumption of dirty, noxious energy reminds me of human smoking habit.

Pollution is one thing. Altering the climate is another. Yes, the smog is quite bad in Beijing and other parts of China. It still gets quite cold in those cites, too.

I'd encourage the proponents of man-made climate change to ponder how our climate has changed considerably to both extremes long before man walked the earth. Oregon was covered by glaciers before man walked around these parts. We also have evidence of tropical plants in our fossils, too. Too many dinosaurs farting I guess; just like the cows today.

Read Strassel in today's WSJ to see how the proponents are losing credibility due to their extreme views.

John Calhoun:

So why would DeFazio oppose this?

Bob T:

Maybe because it's a terrible bill.

Bob Tiernan Portland

Hopefully this will result in congress going to the other party so that we can all prosper under a stalemate between congress and the prez.

It is simply unbelievable that any so called progressive would vote to make life worse for people by raising their cost of energy, food and just about everything else.

Buy maybe they are too stupid to realize the harm they are doing to their fellow people.

In any case the people gave power to one party and that one party just screwed them.

So the Futures Trading Full Employment Acts bill passes.

We could do better by opeing the transit market to alternatives. Some have suggested that we could reduce emissions by as much as 50 to 75%.

"The Senate is going to kill it. This was among the dumbest bills ever put forth in any of the 111 Congresses to date."

Of course it is. Stupid doesn't do this bill and global warming justice.

How is it that so many on the left such as

Posted by: Evan Manvel | Jun 26, 2009 4:29:10 PM Hooray! House passed the bill 219-212. Thank goodness!

think this is good?

Could it be that the AGW movement has nothing to do with climate and everything to do with the left's enviro/land use/transportation/energy/taxation etc etc etc agenda?

Of course.

As Kari himself has acknowledged a couple times here, it doesn't matter if AGW is a complete fraud. All of the policies riding the AGW movement are needed anyway. It's just that too many people are too stupid to realize the wisdom Evan and Kari et al represent so a campaign of imaginary global warming must be used to advance all of their worthy causes.

Never mind how reality pans out with high costs and catastrophic outcomes.

When the whole country is run like California victory will be declared.

With out a doubt a terrible piece of legislation. A horrific three hundred page middle of the night amendment stuffed into the bill by presumably the democrats.

Thankfully, the minority leader summarized a few of the more stinking changes. I am sure that every pending sale of existing houses would benefit from having to meet the California building code and other regulations before sale. Not.

Look to California for some of the most destructive rules and regulations. Energy deregulation. MTBE. This was another Enron for all. It passed with the help of eight Republicans. We can only hope it is killed in the Senate. What is wrong with Pelosi? Everything.

As goes California so the nation. Down the drain.

DeFazio voted NO because he does not like the trading mechanism. He supports the cap, but wants to use the clean air act mechanisms to control global warming pollution. Even though I disagree with his vote, here is his intelligent floor speech:

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=107197708952&ref=mf

Oregon, the country, and the world are already starting to face the catastrophic outcomes of global warming. This century is going to be very bleak if we don't start to limit this pollution immediately. It will be nothing like the twentieth century.

Even though this bill falls short of what is needed, its a start, and the CBO and EPA both estimate that it will cost less than $200 per year per household. It will probably be less than that, since CBO did not include reductions in energy bills due to energy efficiency.

Factually, ta barnhart, you are in error. Without the votes of eight Republicans this stinking heap would have justly failed.

Hopefully, it will be killed completely in the Senate.

How about capping without modification of all building codes to comply with California standards. It seems that too many are not familiar with this hopelessly flawed and destructive piece of legislation.

Before the sale of a house it would be inspected to see if it met California's codes and regulations. A sale could not take place until then. Seriously, this is not about climate change. This is designed to further ruin real estate transactions.

Listen to DeFazio's full City Club speech. One of his stories, about the evils of offsets, was particularly scary. A gas that the rest of the world destroys as part of the process of creating refrigerant (and which I think he said is 12,000 times worse than car emissions) is being stored by China, and only destroyed when European companies (under the thumb of cap and trade) pay China to destroy it. In other words, in the real marketplace, this stuff is destroyed, but in the cap-and-trade world of offsets, it's hoarded and sold, resulting in no net benefit to anyone except the capitalists in China.

T.A. - you are right, it is hard to conceive that De Fazio thought the failure of this bill in the House would have helped control emissions. Sometimes he just doesn't listen well.

Jonathan, you are right that offsets are a BIG potential failure of this bill to control emissions. It will all come down to whether the next phase of CDMs, and the offsets that are designed in this country, are truly additional. There is no certainty that this will be done,or we will come even close, because there are big money interests that would love to treat those as free money.

Marv, you do not know what you are talking about. Section 231 of the bill makes no reference to other states meeting Title 24 Standards - the talking point you are repeating is a big fat lie.

Jonathan Radmacher:

A gas that the rest of the world destroys as part of the process of creating refrigerant (and which I think he said is 12,000 times worse than car emissions) is being stored by China, and only destroyed when European companies (under the thumb of cap and trade) pay China to destroy it. In other words, in the real marketplace, this stuff is destroyed, but in the cap-and-trade world of offsets, it's hoarded and sold, resulting in no net benefit to anyone except the capitalists [mercantalists] in China.

Bob T:

There's also the example of carbon trading that Russia has participated in with the EU. As scientist Richard Muller pointed out, Russia's collapsing economy allowed it to "sell a large number of credits for carbon dioxide that it never would have produced. Trading of credits, in this case, led to an increase in the carbon dioxide dumped into the atmosphere over that which would have been emitted".

Bob Tiernan Portland

t.a. barnhart:

what leads to better legislation is getting a first bill passed and then improving it in subsequent sessions.

Bob T:

That's the opposite of reality. We get better legislation (sometimes) by forcing a bill to be well thought out, lean, and to the point. And sometimes legislation that invites distortions and dealmaking (like this one) gets worse when tinkered with over and over again following passage. The farm subsidies of the New Deal era are a great example. That bill created constituencies that would never let go, and now the left still supports this junk even though the bulk of beneficiaries are corporate farms and individual millionaire land-owners, like Scotty Pippin. Attempts to eliminate this junk are always attacked, strangley, as attempts to help corporate farms. So reform goes nowhere, and corporate farms benefit.

If cap and trade passes, it will immediately create constituencies who will resist reform, or favor making it worse. That's the history of most law that deals with "managing" commercial activities beyond the basics.

Bob Tiernan Portland

Curious. The amendment is a talking point? Facts don't matter. Ok.

Markey of Massachusetts, ranking member on Waxman's committee, BRAGGED that there's 10x as much money for the non-existent pipe dream known as "clean coal" as there is for renewable energy.

That along with DeFazio being right about the speculative aspects being hard to monitor as regards how much impact is really being had on emissions levels.

A bad bill. We shouldn't settle for it- we can't afford to settle for it.

I like the Russian example Bob Tiernan cited as regards the problems with the trading being able to achieve any positive effect.

Curious. The amendment is a talking point? Facts don't matter. Ok.

If facts mattered, there would be no climate "problem". It is a pure fabrication of some deluded "scientists" and people looking to get rich: Gore. Stern, Strong, wall street bankers et al. See sustainableOregon.com

The amendment presented at 3:09 am on Friday mandates all residences to conform with California building codes and specifications. The amendment also provides for the training of building inspectors and appraisers.

Once law this monster would require an inspection to determine if a dwelling conformed with California standards. The sale would not be permitted until the modificaions were made. Reducing profits for sellers.

Is there not already enough problems in real estate without putting a Federal inspection and unfunded mandate on top of it. If Walden and DeFazio agree that it is bad then it is bad. The other numb reps in Oregon are as errant as Pelosi.

Hey Chris:

What do we do for energy to heat our homes, light our homes and drive our cars (which use less energy than mass transit)?

Chris, it may be that we cannot get anything better than this framework from this Congress, from which we must improve to get enough emissions reductions. No one is under any illusion (Earl's words were unfortunate) that this will solve the problem, but with Obama administering it for the next 3 years, it may be a start. Had we been sitting here this weekend with a failed vote, it would have been catastrophic.

And your point about reclaiming EPA authority is valid. As we go into the Senate, I think retaining authority should be, and may become the bottom line for progressives.

But Waxman was our best ticket here- from Matt Yglesias this past week:

I think on the overall question of whether or not the package is worth supporting, probably the best thing you can do is read Charlie Homans’ Waxman profile from earlier this year in The Washington Monthly. There’s simply nobody else in Congress whose record of progressive legislative accomplishments can hold a candle to Waxman’s. When you draw intersecting curves of “what needs to be done” and “what can realistically be done,” Waxman has time and again put himself at the intersection, and I think it involves a fair amount of hubris to think that you know better than him what the best feasible legislative outcome is.

That said, there’s really no getting around the fact that the best feasible legislative outcome isn’t good enough according to the climate science. What we’re left with is essentially the hope for an iterative process—a flawed bill that makes progress helps spur a productive meeting in Copenhagen helps spur some kind of bilateral deal with China which helps create the conditions for further domestic legislation. I think this is the best idea anyone has, but it’s a pretty dicey proposition. Bottom line is that to get a better bill you need a situation wherein a non-trivial number of Republicans are willing to contemplate emissions reductions. Faced with uniform Republican support for untrammeled pollution, the only viable legislative path involves buying off every Democrat.

I just read Dennis Kucinich's statement on his website in opposition to H.R. 2454. Much of it is the same info. Chris Lowe has posted.

After having reviewed this, how can anyone honestly say this is an adequate response?

I accuse the environmental groups who've supported this of merely wanting to create amongst their donor base the appearance of their effectiveness at lobbying and getting results.

I accuse the politicians who've supported this of merely wanting to create the impression that they've acted decisively and done the right thing on the question of our most serious problem.

This bill is so bad that there can be no other correct analysis of their motivations.

Chris Lowe If you think our cars use less energy than mass transit, you're dreaming. J No such luck - I look at real data from the real world. In this case the U.S. Department of Transportation:

Cars: 3,512 BTU/Passenger-mile Transit buses: 4,235 BTU/Passenger-mile from: Table 2.13, TRANSPORTATION ENERGY DATA BOOK: EDITION 27–2008

Chris Lowe We change the ways we live to use less energy, and energy generated in different ways, and different kinds of energy (e.g. re-up the proportion of human energy in moving ourselves, especially over relatively short distances). J Do you think we can just do this without paying a heavy cost in lowered standard of living?

What is this "energy generated in different ways"? Have you found a practical non-carbon energy source, or are you advocating nukes? (Practical includes a consideration of cost, so those are your only two real world choices - solar and wind are non starters due to cost and intermittancy.)

Or are you suggesting a "great leak forward" or perhaps a "worker's paradise" or maybe you envision us emulating Cuba.

Chris Lowe Cars in principle could lower their BTUs/passenger mile by having fewer single occupancy vehicles J Or by making smaller, lighter cars or more hybrids. That BTU figure is about 22 mpg. Hybrids easily double that. A new Chinese single passenger car claims over 200 mpg (if true.) The current transit model will never compete with that.

Chris Lowe mass transit by increasing ridership. J Even transit in the big dense cities dosen’t do a whole lot better.

Chris Lowe An aspect here may be finances vs. energy use. I had a conversation a while ago with a planner from TriMet in which I asked him about why not use smaller vehicles rather than cut service in relatively underused areas. His answer was that the heavy buses are designed to last a million miles & the smaller ones nothing like that, would need more frequent replacement at higher $ cost. J Economics rears the ugly head of reality. You choose your efficiency and pay your price. Want zero carbon power without nuke - just spend ten times what we currently spend to install solar on your roof. You will effectively be turning your current $100 dollar/month electric bill into a $500-1000/month expense. It can be done if money is no object. That is how the rich do it and get bragging rights.

Chris Lowe Some more market-oriented people here sometimes have suggested opening up transit to more private competition. That could be worth thinking about -- vans & mid-sized jitneys operating at fuller capacity & maybe greater flexibility or takig routes more places -- there'd be opposition from the taxi end. J That appears to have great potential and great opposition from Trimet. And their union(s).

Chris Lowe I am advocating a different standard of living. Actually, advocating debating and thinking different standards plural of living, and discussing what's lower & higher and how we value those things and how we combine them. J Then you are getting into having a debate about how OTHER PEOPLE SHOULD LIVE. How would you like George Bush to lead such a debate about how YOU should live? Or jimmy Swaggart?

Chris Lowe For instance on the cars w/ lower BTUs per passenger mile, that's all well & good but if we've got driving patterns about how work and home are distantly separated, so that the cars are traveling many more miles, they're still using more BTUs. J How do you put jobs and housing together when two people work in different locations? Remember only minimum wage jobs are easily interchangeable. Highly skilled jobs are only available in a very few places per skill. Throw in a few kids in school, activities etc & you cannot reduce driving much. Besides why is it your place to tell others how to order their life? Perhaps they value other things higher than BTUs. It is not your place to set priorities for others.

Chris Lowe Now some folks advocate denser living in urban areas & prefer that, others want suburban space -- perhaps the "suburbs" need to become more autonomous urbs in their own right, with designs that permit less driving to get to work, or other kinds of destinations? J Actually jobs are spread out throughout the region. As is housing.

A real problem is that lately housing locations are being decided by political pressure groups instead of demand. A free market would put housing where the jobs are. Metro is putting housing in Damascus while the jobs are in Beaverton. Only politicians would be so stupid. And of course they are not stupid, they are just pandering to campaign donors and pressure groups.

jamie: if a diesel bus gets 7 mpg and carries 30 passengers, then each passenger requires only .3333 of a gallon to travel a distance of 70 miles.

If a passenger car gets 20 mpg and carries 3 people, each passenger in it requires 1.167 gallons to go a distance of 70 miles.

There is something about the stat you quoted which is not taking this aspect into consideration, I'd say.

Advocating for a different standard of living has been the agenda of progressives of the ultra rich. Lets see. Reagan tax cuts saved by raising social security w/h seven times and then including those receipts in the general fund to avoid Gramm-Rudman; trade agreements that bring about deindustrialization; anti-union policies like firing the air traffic controlers, etc;Gram,Leach,Blyely to remmove banking regulations. Robber banks.

All of these things intended to destroy a middle class and lower the standard of living for the vast majority of the american people while concentrating wealth in the hands of about one tenth of one percent of the population.

So, what else? Oh yes, no health care reform that would actually help small business and the people. And while we are at it lets delude ourselves into thinking this is a progressive agenda and anyone who disagrees is a troll.

Chris writes very well but changing the standard of living the way the Republican/Democrat parties have been doing is not a truly progressive agenda. Deluded by his own rhetoric and still a very good writer.

marv:

anti-union policies like firing the air traffic controlers

Bob T:

Interesting that so many people still want to see that only in those terms. They deserved to get fired. Fortunately, many of them never went on strike because they knew they were not permitted to do that per the contract, and they didn't believe they'd get away with blackmailing the taxpayers. They would have been fired even if there had been no union.

Bob Tiernan Portland

Yes, Chris, I support a single payer system.

The energy bill that passed the House will weaken the economy. Your advocate this legislation. It is a bubble creator not a problem solver.

With a majority in both the House and Senate wouldn't one expect a reversal of the destructive legislation and policies of Bush, Reagan and Clinton?

Since that is not happening and single payer is not going to happen is that the change you can believe in?

So, in other words, all you "keep your powder dry" and "don't spend political capitol easily" Democrats, your punting the issue of Democratic foot-dragging has left the big confrontation between party members, not between parties.

Is this what you meant about picking your fights well? How about admitting that there's not much difference between mainstream Dems and Reps, as everyone with a brain was arguing during those "powder and capitol" discussions. And we have to go to your MOST PROGRESSIVE to get the level of action that middle of the road lawmakers accept around the world. That proves the oft-asserted contention among true progressives that an American progressive- a raving one, like DeFazio- is someone that has shown a glimmer of progressive thought. As this vote shows, it's just a glimmer; nothing that can be counted on.

This is why you will find yourselves just as out of it in coming years as the Republicans. More so. When businesses are paying though the nose to just keep the lights on, they will be mighty po'd at the Reps for stonewalling, but that's what they were elected to do. Their real wrath will no doubt be reserved for Dems, who were supposed to be different. At least Reps admit they are feckless.

And every successive issue, those that have left only say the louder how glad they are. Not to worry. It's Sunday. Surely Carla will have something to guffaw about that the Republicans said. I've an idea. How's about pols of both stripes do morality plays to earn their money. Leave the politics to people that will address issues. The parties define everything strictly in terms of their one-upmanship over the other, never saying , "was this good enough for the country", always wanting to appear in the right, and down with the people. Fine. Become professional actors. There's real work to get done, and BOTH PARTIES do more to stop ANYTHING than to promote any particular idea, EVER!

Fuck your goddamned mothers' milk and fuck what you think you have to go along with to get along. You have no credibility from results. Since this blog's inception, Kari has ridiculed government service as service, meaning "not a top paying job, requiring personal sacrifice". These hacks have show utter contempt for the concept, while telling us that their perennial non-results is smart politics. Their stooges SPEAK to us and 15 people grovel their appreciation.

Congress computes the "poverty line", as the limit you can just get by on. That should be their wage, and taking any soft money or quid pro quo should be a felony. Kari claims that leads to third world graft and everyone on the take, "just to get by". BULL FUCKING SHIT!!! You really can't call a greedy pig a greedy pig, can you, greedy piggies? And, by the way, a lot of corrupt, third world politicos have done more positive on climate change than ANY of your power primates.

Screw joining another party. Are those Al-Quaeda training camps still around? If the US can' shake this crap, I'd as soon put a bullet in every one of your stupid skulls as watch you destroy the earth for the sake a your party politics. This fourth, as you celebrate god knows what, watching the tactical air wing burn jet fuel to inspire you, you do have something to be proud of. When a population saturation is reached, most those extra bodies spend all their time simply trying to screw with other people. The US can celebrate having achieved that to a far, far greater extent than any collection of useless bodies in history.

You are correct, sir, and I apologize.

Perhaps I was thrown off by your advocacy of a change in the standard of living. What does that involve? A living wage? Repeal of NAFTA? Enforcement of WTO?

Which direction for the majority? When we advocate for change only to find more of the same what do we do with our frustration. Obama and team are not the change I want. The democrats are failing in their spectaculor immitation of the republicans. They will be voted out.

Chris Lowe You want to tell me how to live my life to the point of saying that I can't even have conversations with people about what makes a good life and a good standard of living? J I did no such thing. I merely objected to you planning to tell others how to live.

Chris Lowe You seem to be of the school of thought of Margaret Thatcher, that "there is no society, only individuals and families," or at any rate ought not to be. J Does that mean you think we all should be obedient little robots?

Chris Lowe It is somewhat hard for me to see how you organizing with others to impose that erroneous view of the world on me and others J It is not imposing anything. It is letting others alone.

Chris Lowe is any less coercive than my organizing with others to try to order society in light of another view of matters. J You have a strange view of coercive.

BTW, did you ever figure out any practical replacement energy source? You know one that we can afford and that actually will work when the mandates kick in?

"I would have preferred Obama start with a substantial, revenue neutral gas tax."

Obama is no help: Read "Obama's Used Green Team: Meet the Retreads" at http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair06262009.html

DeFazio wasn't the only Dem who opposed this bill. So, too, did Dennis Kucinich for a good reason - http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20090627_kucinich_says_climate_bill_might_make_things_worse/

Stephen Amy Jun 28, 2009 6:49:14 AM jamie: if a diesel bus gets 7 mpg and carries 30 passengers, then each passenger requires only .3333 of a gallon to travel a distance of 70 miles. J A few details: The average bus gets less than 7 mpg, 5 I’d guess. The average bus caries about 10 people, not 30. Buses also carry zero passengers to and from their route. Add it all up and you get the numbers that I posted. They are from the Feds. Similar numbers can be found elsewhere. Including Trimet data at PortlandFacts.com BTW, that BTU number corresponds to about 33 passenger-miles/gal. (138,691 Btu/gallon for diesel) and the average USA car carries 1.57 people. Later stats breakdown by type of trip.

Stephen Amy Jun 28, 2009 6:49:14 AM There is something about the stat you quoted which is not taking this aspect into consideration, I'd say. J I’d say you should look at real data instead of wasting your time on idle speculation.

You can start with authorative information source, the national transit database. Just find the “Sources of Energy (in Thousands) Gallons” and the “Passenger Miles Traveled” data and do the arithmetic. Table 17 has the energy consumption. Table 19 will give you the miles traveled. MB = motor bus; LR=Light Rail. You can also find ferries etc there.

O’Toole has combined the data from NTD’s many different spreadsheets into one at: ti.org/NTD07sum.xls

Have fun.

thanks a lot!

Agreed, Americans don't see the meaninglessness of "getting on with my life", in the big scheme. Yes, if justice prevailed, some great cosmic plague would wipe out everyone with a particular kind of cholesterol (read, Americans). The right attitude? Pay any cost, and BTW, thanks for the chance. No matter, that will soon not be the case any longer. Those who want fighting don't have long to wait until we start shooting water thieves. When we do, just tell yourself that you were able to hold out on the climate change bill!

Since the plauge isn't coming- the redeeming one, not the latest administration plan- how about doing something very unAmerican this 4th? I suggest listening online to the annual cricket match between Oxford and Cambridge. Of course Cambridge is full of naive realists, so they have an advantage batting, but I pull for my alma mater, and believe I would on grounds of good judgement anyway.

Now that's the systematic abuse of a discipline invented particularly for that abuse!

Zarathustra When we do, just tell yourself that you were able to hold out on the climate change bill! J Does this mean that you actually have found real evidence that CO2 causes dangerous warming?

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE ENERGY BILL Rep. Dennis Kucinich - I oppose H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. The reason is simple. It won't address the problem. In fact, it might make the problem worse. It sets targets that are too weak, especially in the short term, and sets about meeting those targets through Enron-style accounting methods. It gives new life to one of the primary sources of the problem that should be on its way out - coal - by giving it record subsidies. And it is rounded out with massive corporate giveaways at taxpayer expense. There is $60 billion for a single technology which may or may not work, but which enables coal power plants to keep warming the planet at least another 20 years. Worse, the bill locks us into a framework that will fail. Science tells us that immediately is not soon enough to begin repairing the planet. Waiting another decade or more will virtually guarantee catastrophic levels of warming. But the bill does not require any greenhouse gas reductions beyond current levels until 2030. There are several aspects of the bill that are problematic. 1. Overall targets are too weak. The bill is predicated on a target atmospheric concentration of 450 parts per million, a target that is arguably justified in the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but which is already out of date. Recent science suggests 350 parts per million is necessary to help us avoid the worst effects of global warming. 2. The offsets undercut the emission reductions. Offsets allow polluters to keep polluting; they are rife with fraudulent claims of emissions reduction; they create environmental, social, and economic unintended adverse consequences; and they codify and endorse the idea that polluters do not have to make sacrifices to solve the problem. 3. It kicks the can down the road. By requiring the bulk of the emissions to be carried out in the long term and requiring few reductions in the short term, we are not only failing to take the action when it is needed to address rapid global warming, but we are assuming the long term targets will remain intact. 4. EPA's authority to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the short- to medium-term is rescinded. It is our best defense against a new generation of coal power plants. There is no room for coal as a major energy source in a future with a stable climate. 5. Nuclear power is given a lifeline instead of phasing it out. Nuclear power is far more expensive, has major safety issues including a near release in my own home state in 2002, and there is still no resolution to the waste problem. A recent study by Dr. Mark Cooper showed that it would cost $1.9 trillion to $4.1 trillion more over the life of 100 new nuclear reactors than to generate the same amount of electricity from energy efficiency and renewables. 6. Dirty coal is given a lifeline instead of phasing it out. Coal-based energy destroys entire mountains, kills and injures workers at higher rates than most other occupations, decimates ecologically sensitive wetlands and streams, creates ponds of ash that are so toxic the Department of Homeland Security will not disclose their locations for fear of their potential to become a terrorist weapon, and fouls the air and water with sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, particulates, mercury, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and thousands of other toxic compounds that cause asthma, birth defects, learning disabilities, and pulmonary and cardiac problems for starters. In contrast, several times more jobs are yielded by renewable energy investments than comparable coal investments. 7. The $60 billion allocated for carbon capture and sequestration is triple the amount of money for basic research and development in the bill. We should be pressuring China, India and Russia to slow and stop their power plants now instead of enabling their perpetuation. We cannot create that pressure while spending unprecedented amounts on a single technology that may or may not work. . . 8. Carbon markets can and will be manipulated using the same Wall Street sleights of hand that brought us the financial crisis. 9. It is regressive. Free allocations doled out with the intent of blunting the effects on those of modest means will pale in comparison to the allocations that go to polluters and special interests. The financial benefits of offsets and unlimited banking also tend to accrue to large corporations. And of course, the trillion dollar carbon derivatives market will help Wall Street investors. Much of the benefits designed to assist consumers are passed through coal companies and other large corporations, on whom we will rely to pass on the savings.

What do we use for energy after we phase out Nuke & coal?

Treadmills?

According to Glenn Greenwald, the White House (hat is, Obama and his consiglieri are not too happy with "Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett,due to an impassioned floor speech he gave arguing that the bill was so industry-friendly that it would do more harm than good." Bullying Congressional Progressives: Creepy, Revealing Quote from White House Staffer Presumably, DeFazio and Kucinich knew the White House would be unhappy with them for voting against this bill, so it took a lot of courage on their part.

Several progressive wseb sites have agreed this is a sorry and flawed bill that had hundreds of pages that were never read by the representatives voting for it. Though they agree the bill was seriously flawed, these progressive sites were divided on whether to vote for the bill or not.

This is from Friends of the Earth:

"Friday was an historic day. For the first time ever, the U.S. House passed major climate and energy legislation: the Waxman-Markey bill.

"Unfortunately, the bill is so corrupted by polluting special interests, including Shell Oil and coal hog Duke Energy -- as well as corporate agribusiness and Wall Street -- that we can't celebrate. Instead of bringing about the transition to clean energy President Obama spoke of during his campaign, this bill is actually counterproductive, gutting the EPA's authority to fight global warming."

"Unfortunately, the bill is so corrupted by polluting special interests, including Shell Oil and coal hog Duke Energy Isn't it great how the protectors of the public are actually supporting raising energy prices to the point that poor people will not be able to afford heat for their home.

Andrew Plambeck:

DeFazio is absolutely right. This bill was intended to do absolutely nothing except gain Republican votes.

Bob T:

I doubt that. Seriously. There were only a handful of Repubs who did so, and that small number (and more) were bought by the Dems using tax dollars to promise some kind of pork or earmarks or something to help them use for re-election purposes. This is why that sort of money is corrupting.

Bob Tiernan Portland

Sal Peralta:

...there is no reason to suppose that any future iteration of this bill will improve it because there will be a constituency of billion dollar corporations that will benefit from gaming the new system.

Bob T:

Never let the politicians off the hook -- keep in mind that they want systems that various constituents can game because then they get to play game master and warlord.

Bob Tiernan Portland