The Problem With Band-Aids

In early June, the Senate blocked legislation sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman, I/D-Conn, and John Warner, R-Va., that would have called for drastic changes to get the U.S. to curb its greenhouse gas emissions by more than 70 percent by 2050. Despite sky-high gas prices, a weak economy and an American public focused on the November election, the bill made it further than any other similar proposal. Now, the issue awaits its placement on the next president's agenda and Congress' next term.

Anthony Socci, a scientist from the American Meteorological Society, recently discussed the bill -- which he describes as Congress' "first conversation" on climate change -- in an interview with NationalJournal.com's Amy Harder and delved into what it will take for the next president and Congress to pursue a legislative solution to global warming. Edited excerpts follow. For previous Insider Interviews, click here.

Q. What role has Congress played in addressing climate change?

Socci: It's become a topic of discussion more broadly within Congress than it ever has been before. It's typically been largely a Democratic issue, but that's not to say that there haven't been some really Republican folks who've really dug into this issue, like John McCain, [Maine Sen.] Olympia Snowe, to name a couple.

The discussion has become more serious in this last year, and it got to the point with the Lieberman-Warner bill making it to the floor -- it never did get debated because it didn't get the necessary votes to overcome the roadblocks to a full debate. But many people would say that it's the first step in a much larger discussion. It puts a marker down.

Q. Is climate change a priority for Congress right now, considering that the country's attention is primarily focused on the election and high food and gasoline prices?

Socci: I hate to pull all those issues apart. I don't think you can separate climate change from energy, first of all. The whole point of this discussion about our energy future is to move away from fossil fuels for two reasons, minimally: the climate warming effect and what it brings about over time, and second, it's not a replenishable resource. It's a one-shot deal. It took millions of years to store that carbon, and we're eating it up in less than two generations. Once it's gone, it's gone. That's the point, that we need to tend to our long-range energy future, not Band-Aids that don't get us to a real future.

The problem with Band-Aids is that while they may look like they're fixing things temporarily, I'm not even sure they do that. Even the discussion these days about offshore drilling -- it'll be, minimally, probably 10 or more years before we see any sort of fallout from that. And in terms of prices, I'm not an economist, but I can't see it's going to make a big dent. It's a wild card on the supposition that there may be some huge oil field somewhere that we haven't discovered, and the probability of that is slim to none.

Q. What do you think was the chief reason that the climate change legislation failed?

Socci: I would have regarded that as the first conversation, even though it was abruptly terminated at some point; it didn't quite get to the point of a conversation, but it was the closest thing we've come to a conversation about a really important issue. It puts down a marker for a more detailed, more in-depth conversation, perhaps along the lines of Congressman [Edward] Markey's bill on the House side that goes into greater detail and more depth, more commitment. That's a more textured bill and a more comprehensive bill. That's not to say this first effort, the Lieberman-Warner bill, wasn't a good bill. It was a great first step. But it needs to be regarded as that. Even they [the bills' sponsors] would regard it as a beginning of a conversation.

So, why did it fail? I think the answer is simple: There isn't the political will. Certainly from this administration, I just don't think there is the will there, even if they got to the votes to continue that conversation and bring it to a vote. And even if it perhaps passed, I doubt it would have had enough votes to override a veto. Come next year, I think we are about to engage in a much deeper conversation, much more extensive conversation on this issue. And the issue is not just climate change, it's energy, it's all of the above, because they're all interrelated. I think we're going to get there, but it's going to be a long road ahead.

That's not to say that special interests haven't played a role, as well, in pulling the rug out from this bill. That's one of the major thorns in the side of public angst about the way this system operates -- the role that lobbyists play and these special interests that have the ear of people in power that the average person doesn't have. It's essentially not a level playing field.

Q. One of the criticisms of the legislation is that it would raise gasoline prices, already about $4 per gallon. What is the connection? Do you agree that it would raise gasoline prices?

Socci: It would. Both bills, both the Lieberman-Warner and the Markey bill, which has yet to be vetted on the House side, talk about increased prices during this transition.

Both bills give money, a certain percentage of money, back to low- and mid-income people to cover these energy costs. For low-income people below $70,000, it covers all of the alleged increase in energy costs. For mid-incomes up to $110,000 it gives something like 70-80 percent of the costs back. There are mechanisms in the bill[s] to offset the costs until we get where we want to be in this new energy economy.

Q. Do you see a solution that could address climate change without raising gasoline prices?

Socci: If we started this 30 years ago, when the oil shocks of the '70s -- we went into this conservation energy mode and really dug deeply into our demand and decreased our use of oil and gas by something like 20-plus percent, which was fairly remarkable. I don't think there is any way of getting away from the cost part of it, because the transition is going to cost. I don't think there's a soft landing, except the bills recycle some of that money, or reinvest it, and some of that reinvestment goes back to people's pockets. I don't think there's a way of getting around it [raising gas prices] in a market-based approach until we get to where we want to be. Then we're talking a different story.

Q. This bill pins most of the cost of curbing emissions onto producers, and critics say this would simply be passed on to consumers. What are your thoughts on this?

Socci: Part of that criticism of the Lieberman-Warner bill has merit in the sense that it only auctions off 20 percent of the permit. You compete for those permits in an auction market. The rest of the 80 percent are given away, so it covers 80 percent of the cost of reduction. So, there is a sense among some people that it gives energy-producing industries the potential for windfall profits -- in other words, in addition to getting these allowances or these auction credits right up front for the cost of reducing emissions by these targets they set up over time, they're also allowed to pass off costs to consumers, even though these revenues go back to some consumers and offset some of it, but they're allowed to do that. It's easy to see or imagine a scenario where they could really reap significant profits from this. Whereas the Markey bill auctions off 100 percent of the permits right up front. You have to vie in the marketplace and you pay for the pollution right up front in the form of buying these. Nothing is given away; it's all auctioned off.

Q. The Hill is buzzing now with talk of domestic drilling to curb gas prices. Critics of this bill say there wasn't enough focus on domestic energy production in the measure. Do you see domestic drilling as part of America's energy solution?

Socci: I question why we would open up additional drilling or auctioning off additional sites to drill when there is something like 68 million acres of land already in acquisition or permitted to these companies that hasn't been drilled. There's a bill on the floor about to be introduced to Congress that says use up this [land] first, and then we'll talk about this later. That's a more reasonable approach. And, I'm not trying to be formulaic about it, but it just [doesn't make] sense to me why you would leave this 68 million acres sitting there without doing the exploration and then ask to acquire more acreage to potentially do more.

Q. Some critics say that cap-and-trade regimes are a sure way to lose jobs, and considering the state of the economy, that certainly won't go over well with either Congress or voters. Do you agree with that assessment?

Socci: Eventually we will move from one kind of energy-based society to another. That's going to mean shifting job skills. People will have to do different things. Both of these bills reinvest money back for retraining people and give them the skills for working in a different kind of energy-based system. It doesn't leave out this idea that people are left hanging, that they're going to be walking the streets.

Q. What's the ideal legislation for effectively addressing climate change?

Socci: You have to take the assessment of the science community seriously. Those assessments say that if you really want to keep emissions and climate change at a manageable level, whatever that means, then the ideal goal is to get something like 80 or more percent emissions reduction [from 2005 levels] by 2050 and then you're well on your way -- presumptively well on your way, assuming there are no wild cards in the deck. In terms of ultimately stabilizing climate perturbations brought about by the burning of fossil fuels, it appears that the closer one gets to zero emissions, the better the chance of constraining future climate changes.

Q. Do you see the Markey bill being an improvement over the Lieberman-Warner bill?

Socci: It has more layers. It hits the nail on the head, for the most part, and even does one better than that in terms of the scientific concerns raised. The Markey bill, when you add all the pieces together, you are looking at something like 85 percent or 96 percent reduction of emissions [from 2005 levels] by 2050. That's an ambitious goal, but with targets along the way -- 2012, 2020. It's consistent with the broader scientific assessment of the issue. That said, I think the so-called 'holy grail' of the most ambitious efforts going forward is zero emissions.

Q. If you had to name the top three roadblocks to addressing climate change -- specifically concerning congressional efforts -- what would they be?

Socci: Political will. The influence of lobbyists and special interests, those are huge roadblocks. The tendency to look at short-term fixes as opposed to long-term solutions.

Q. Some Republicans said that this bill was simply an election ploy on behalf of the Democrats to show voters their concern for global warming. Do you agree with that?

Socci: No. These bills have been a long time coming. There have been lots of failed attempts up to now; this is the first one that actually got this far. And that's why so many people are cheering and are like, "Wow, we finally got to this point." I think it's got a long history. It didn't start yesterday.

Q. Turning to the international stage, would you say that passing this type of legislation at home would send an important symbolic message to the world?

Socci: There's a history to global warming and greenhouse gas emissions, and the U.S. has been the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, so historically we have a legacy to having contributed significantly to loading of the atmosphere with greenhouse gases. It would send a signal that, yeah, we're now realizing our contribution to this problem and now really taking steps to do something about it. We may be well behind a number of countries, but it sends a positive signal that we're getting serious about this issue.

Q. How effective would any U.S.-only legislation really be considering climate change is a global problem?

Socci: That's hard to answer because both of these bills have international aspects that give credits. You can get allowances for trading or some business negotiation with a company in another country that's really been careful of its greenhouse gas emissions. You can get credit for that, and they get rewarded for that, too. There are international funds for technology development that you can get access to as a developing country if you meet the criteria. If you play the game, basically. So there are rewards out there.

Q. Should we be signing on to international treaties like Kyoto or taking a different approach, like participating in pacts to reduce emissions by a certain time, like what the G-8 recently settled on?

Socci: I recall some months ago someone saying that if you got the G-8 countries plus three or four, you're really looking at the lion's share of the emissions. I can imagine you could work something like that out.

Q. What is your opinion on Barack Obama's and John McCain's stances on climate change? Do they differ dramatically?

Socci: They're both concerned about climate change. They've both talked about cap-and-trade -- this permitting system to varying degrees, different flavors of it. Essentially, they're in the right ballpark, similar ballpark. I think they begin to depart on this idea of drilling.

Q. What should be the first step of the next administration to start combating this problem?

Socci: You need incredibly strong leadership and look to the long view and look to the science community in these assessments that come out for guidance and keep going back to them. I'm not trying to be self-serving in that sense. I'm not on the front lines of this research, but still, the science community is the community that is exploring this in tremendous detail, and it's hard to dismiss that. ...

Somehow you have to get the special interests out of the picture and create a level playing field, and I think that starts with really strong leadership. That's the key you need.

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