The New 'Nuclear Option': Fast-Tracking Climate Change in the Budget
President Obama's budget is a veritable road map to a more progressive tax policy, as I noted earlier today, but it also includes specific plans for regulating carbon emissions to fight climate change.
That, in turn, opens the door for Congress to use "budget reconciliation" process rules that would shield climate legislation from Senate filibusters when it comes to a vote (expected later this year or early next year). Using reconciliation to speed passage of health care reform has been a hot topic since onetime health secretary Tom Daschle flirted with the idea earlier this year, but budget reconciliation for climate change is a relatively new prospect in the Capitol Hill pipeline. And guess who thinks it's a terrible idea, as Roll Call reports today (sub. req'd)?
One energy industry spokesman who suggests waiting a year or two on climate change said that using reconciliation "is the nuclear option" and that Democratic leaders don't appear willing to go there yet. "It would signal all bets are off on any kind of bipartisanship," he said....
Climate change seems to be the heavier lift, with Republican leadership already blasting cap-and-trade as a tax increase by another name in the midst of a recession, which paradoxically could make reconciliation more necessary if Democrats really want to get it done. And doing both in one bill could make for some messy politics.
"The nuclear option," eh? If energy industry reps keep using that term, they're just going to make House Democrats more inclined to pull the trigger, given how happy the lower chamber is with the filibuster-happy Senate GOP these days. Stay tuned ...
Josh
Elana
Matt
Eric
The carbon reduction program is a source of revenue. The budget is a completely reasonable place for it.
March 3, 2009 6:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
The budget makes a lot of assumptions about what the Climate Change Law/regulation will say. That's fine, that's what budgets do, predict and plan for the future. But to say this gives specifics, other than the assumption of a $20/tax, is pretty misleading when there are multiple tracks the final legislation can take.
The fact they are only proposing 15% of the revenue to go into alternatives research is way low IMO. If you funnel more money in faster to solve the problem, it gets solved faster. That should be the goal, not to create and extend a revenue stream for the general fund for the next 40-50 years.
March 3, 2009 7:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
er, the actual percentage is 20% when you do the math, but I still think that's low.
March 3, 2009 7:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not against spending more money in this case, but the idea that putting more money in will necessarily solve the problem faster is similar to the ideas busted in The Mythical Man-Month.
March 4, 2009 8:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
What would we be willing to pay for a method to lower carbon output by 5 to 8 percent?
I have heard but have no cite that this is the reduction achieved by the current economic difficulties.
I once had a passing conversation with a scientist who said we had 7 years to control carbon before we lost the planet .... that was 15 years ago.
Obama does need to use the reconciliation process to get what is needed to save the planet.
I voted for McCain in part because he indicated he was willing to use nuclear power to control carbon and I believed that he was be able to get enough cooperation from the Democrats to get it done. I believed that Obama would propose a marvelous climate control program that I would vastly prefer in the abstract but would settle for some ineffective program in the interests of bipartisanship since he would be otherwise unable to obtain any Republican cooperation.
March 3, 2009 7:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nuclear power was one of the many things John McCain was unable to enjoy while he was a POW.
March 4, 2009 8:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Look, folks. Bush got "elected" and was given his policy program by both a GOP and Democratic congress. This included giving the wealthiest Americans a huge tax cut that had a major role in ballooning the deficit.
Obama got ELECTED on a very clear policy program of returning to former, already moderate tax rates on top earners and immediately introducing a very aggressive program to move away from fossil fuels and develop non-carbon based alternatives.
He has a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress and an opposition party "hoping he will fail". I don't care what it takes in utilizing or changing congressional rules, but this nation voted for very specific changes in national tax and energy policies. If the Democratic party does not use its mandate to send him the legislation he needs, then we must flush the Democrats who oppose (or fail to lead) down the drain with the GOP.
Dealing with global climate change is not a policy choice any more than being attacked by Japan at Pearl Harbor was a choice to go to war. If we cannot address climate change with the same sense of immediacy and resolve, we are not worthy of our heritage.
March 3, 2009 8:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I love it. Brilliant idea to put as much as possible of obama's agenda in the budget process. There goes the filibuster. Treat the republicans as furniture at this point if they want to act as children, treat them as such. He has two years and maybe 4 to get his agenda in process. No time to mess around with niceties. Ram it through by way of the budget. Brilliant.
March 3, 2009 9:10 PM | Reply | Permalink