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Opinions on the American Clean Energy and Security Act
Hexmage-PA
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I was wondering how the people here on the forums feel about the climate change bill that was recently passed in Congress. Some say that it will create a dangerously large increase in taxes. I've also read complaints that the bill doesn't go far enough in trying to mitigate pollution.
American Clean Energy and Security Act Information at Open Congress
Here are a few of the bill's proposed amendments:
Accepted
- John Dingell (D-MI) offered an amendment that establishes a bank to assist with loans for clean energy development.
- Betty Sutton (D-OH) offered an amendment establishing a "Cash for Clunkers" program, giving $3,500 or $4,500 toward the purchase or lease of more fuel efficient vehicles if anyone trades in qualifying, less-efficient vehicles.
- Kathy Castor (D-FL) offered an amendment giving states the ability to adopt feed-in tariffs for renewable energy as defined in the bill.
Defeated
- Mike J. Rogers (R-MI) offered an amendment that cancels the law unless China and India adopt similar standards.
- Roy Blunt (R-MO) offered an amendment that cancels the law if the average price of electricity in a residential sector increases by 10% or more. After defeat, he offered a second amendment that would cancel only Title III (the cap-and-trade scheme) of the law if residential electricity prices rise by 20%. After defeat of this measure, George Radanovich (R-CA) offered a similar amendment that would cancel only Title III if electricity prices in the residential sector rise by 100%. This measure was also defeated. In the hearing, Bart Stupak (D-MI) called into question the seriousness of these "message amendments." He stated they are only offered to be used by the Republicans to spur sensational headlines about lack of sympathy by Democrats. Ranking Member Joe Barton (R-TX) responded that they were indeed "message amendments" to the American people in an attempt to convey that supporters of the bill care nothing about cost to the ratepayer.
- Lee Terry (R-NE) offered an amendment that cancels the law if average gas prices reach $5 per gallon.
- Fred Upton (R-MI) offered an amendment that suspends the law if the nation's unemployment rate for the prior year reaches 15% as a result of the law.
- Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) offered an amendment requiring the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to label energy bills, food, manufactured products and fuels with the price impact this law has on the item.
- Cliff Stearns (R-FL) offered an amendment to remove existing nuclear power from the baseline of the Renewable Electricity Standard. (Although nuclear power does not emit greenhouse gasses, this amendment would have potentially reduced the overall implementation of renewable energy under this act by around 20%, the amount of nuclear electricity generation in the United States).[6]
American Clean Energy and Security Act Information at Open Congress
Here are a few of the bill's proposed amendments:
Accepted
- John Dingell (D-MI) offered an amendment that establishes a bank to assist with loans for clean energy development.
- Betty Sutton (D-OH) offered an amendment establishing a "Cash for Clunkers" program, giving $3,500 or $4,500 toward the purchase or lease of more fuel efficient vehicles if anyone trades in qualifying, less-efficient vehicles.
- Kathy Castor (D-FL) offered an amendment giving states the ability to adopt feed-in tariffs for renewable energy as defined in the bill.
Defeated
- Mike J. Rogers (R-MI) offered an amendment that cancels the law unless China and India adopt similar standards.
- Roy Blunt (R-MO) offered an amendment that cancels the law if the average price of electricity in a residential sector increases by 10% or more. After defeat, he offered a second amendment that would cancel only Title III (the cap-and-trade scheme) of the law if residential electricity prices rise by 20%. After defeat of this measure, George Radanovich (R-CA) offered a similar amendment that would cancel only Title III if electricity prices in the residential sector rise by 100%. This measure was also defeated. In the hearing, Bart Stupak (D-MI) called into question the seriousness of these "message amendments." He stated they are only offered to be used by the Republicans to spur sensational headlines about lack of sympathy by Democrats. Ranking Member Joe Barton (R-TX) responded that they were indeed "message amendments" to the American people in an attempt to convey that supporters of the bill care nothing about cost to the ratepayer.
- Lee Terry (R-NE) offered an amendment that cancels the law if average gas prices reach $5 per gallon.
- Fred Upton (R-MI) offered an amendment that suspends the law if the nation's unemployment rate for the prior year reaches 15% as a result of the law.
- Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) offered an amendment requiring the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to label energy bills, food, manufactured products and fuels with the price impact this law has on the item.
- Cliff Stearns (R-FL) offered an amendment to remove existing nuclear power from the baseline of the Renewable Electricity Standard. (Although nuclear power does not emit greenhouse gasses, this amendment would have potentially reduced the overall implementation of renewable energy under this act by around 20%, the amount of nuclear electricity generation in the United States).[6]
Hexmage-PA on
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Also i'm curious, would most people agree that the bill has been watered down to the point of being pretty ineffective? I've seen numbers thrown around on how much the bill would reduce global temperatures by 2100 and it doesn't look that promising. Of course a little is better than nothing.
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That would reduce our greenhouse gas output.
Except that those of us who aleady do what we can to use the minumum electricty and gas possible would get totally screwed.
Logically, if you agree with the overall premise of the legislation, you are going to get totally screwed if this isn't the case. So.... sucks to be you.
My only problem with this legislation is that I don't necessarily have any faith in our legislators. Or anyone, for that matter. There is something to be said for raising the costs of certain technologies to make alternatives more attractive. Not sure how I feel about trying to lower the costs of the alternatives.... (So, I'm not a fan of the special loan programs.)
that being said, I'm glad I can get 4500 bucks for free.
Quite the opposite, I would argue. Here's my thinking:
The cap-and-trade scheme will raise $texas for the feds. In its absence, this $texas would have to be raised through some combination of other taxes and more debt.
If you are using close to the "minimum" of eletricity and gas possible, this tax should be virtually guaranteed to hit you less than any other fund raising measure.
Don't get me wrong though; if we could make this tax neutral by imposing a big carbon tax and then give it all back through refundable tax credits, I'd be even happier.
tl;dr: Pigovian taxes, yay!
I'm a little mad at the restrictions in the scheme. I have a '95 Celica that I'd love to trade in for $4,500. But since I was a responsible purchaser in the past (26mpg combined, new standard), no government cheese for me
Guess this'll learn me to buy a gas guzzler next time.
I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying you just don't want to get a vehicle that gets 32 mpg?
And, more importantly, what would you rather the restrictions have been. Had they been more liberal in who could use them, the bill would have been more transparent at being a handout to the car companies, but it wouldn't have really been any help at all to the environment.
Edit: Oh, I hadn't really paid attention to the "must be below 18mpg" part before. I do still feel that would have just made it a more transparent handout to the car companies, though.
Yeah I think the market-forced based approach is a much better method of regulating industry.
you don't make lots of arbitrary rules you just tweak things so the most profitable way to operate is the way you want.
I think the list of cars (as opposed to trucks and SUVs) that can be traded in is pretty short. for instance the '96 ford taurus is rated at 20-21 mpg.
the only cars that apply are the ones built with V8.
heck, a 1986 ford taurus is supposed to get 20-23 MPG.... how is that right?
I'm saying, had I bought a Ford Ex...whatever, I would get $4,500 towards a shiny new 32mpg car now. Instead, I get nothing.
Also, this scheme was never designed to help the environment. Hint: Crushing an 18mpg car/truck, and building a new 22mpg car/truck to replace it, is not good for the environment. Ever.
I apologize for the stealth editing on you.... I hadn't realized you would get nothing for cars that got the combined above 18 at the time.
And I realize that about the crushing of the car. This does lead straight to my lingering thoughts on why we should consider this a good program for the clean energy aspect of the bill. I guess I can kinda see the "Security" part of it. (I'm assuming this is the whole "we're more secure if we do not rely on someone else's fuel...)
I guess your restrictions for Clunkers are more than up here in Canuckistan, because last month my folks turned in their old '95 buick to a local NGO that I had interviewed a while back that offers a Cash for Clunkers program and they accepted it perfectly fine.
Of course, our programs only give us $300, which is still more than the scrap yard and they're environmentally disposed of instead of just torn apart.
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More or less agree with everything in that.
I mean, it's a massive step up for America but, relatively speaking, it's nowhere near enough. The problem is, quite simply, a stronger bill would not have survived congress - especially in a matter which is ripe for some good ol' fashioned partisian bickering.
It's a shame, because pollution permit systems are by and far the most efficient systems for managing pollution - and Obama was right on the ticket with considering the possibility of ploughing tax revenue accrued by the scheme back into the public sector. It is sad to see that they're literally just giving away insane amounts of money - thus making the system somewhat a farce in practice.
Simply put, America needs to do a lot more in terms of reducing it's carbon footprint.
the only '95 buick that qualifies under our system is the roadmaster. and even that is just barely.
basically the only people who really benefit from this are people who want to trade in their SUVs and trucks for something new.... and it doesn't have to be a car.
This is the major shortfall of Cash for Clunkers. It's just not environmentally friendly to scrap your old car and buy a new car. I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but I read somewhere that the environmental benefits of a Prius don't balance out the environmental costs of manufacturing one until longer than anyone buying a Prius will be driving it. Something like 15-20 years.
It's the same phenomenon as people who tear their kitchens apart just to install "eco-friendly" appliances, floors, counters, and cabinets. Unless you actually needed a new floor, appliance, or whatever, you've just don't more harm to the environment than good by creating a bunch of waste, not to mention the environmental impact of the manufacturing of all that stuff you just bought.
Step one in being an environmentally consious consumer is always asking yourself, "Do I actually need to replace what I already have?"
I just wish it was a national program as opposed to an NGO supported nationally, but still a private thing you need to search for information for.
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[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
we're saving gas
don't you care about the environment/children/baby seals?
Being a shortsighted dumbfuck is a requirement to pass laws like this.
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Because a 1986 Ford Taurus was much lighter and had a much smaller engine than the 2009 version.
This is the same for pretty much every Japanese car as well - a model from the late '80s/early '90s gets better mileage than a 2009 model of the same car.
A 2009 Honda Civic gets 34 MPG highway. My 1992 Civic was rated at 42 MPG highway and got better mileage than that when I was driving it 10 years later.
they don't care about the highway MPG, its the combined MPG that counts. a 2009 ford taurus is supposed to get 21 MPG, it probably gets better for almost all drivers.
if you tell me that a 23 year old taurus will actually get the same gas mileage as a 1 year old taurus, I call BS.
one of those cars is actually a clunker, the other is not. both don't qualify for this rebate.
Okay, I see your' $5 a gallon' of gas and raise you 'CEOs not making $texas-oil over what is basically a monopoly'.
The old way involved running the car with all accesories turned off, which resulted in unrealistically higher-than-actual MPG ratings for cars. Now they test cars under more realistic circumstances.
So that 20-yr-old Taurus was never going to get near what it's EPA fuel efficiency was. Now, if you're a smart driver, it's pretty easy to actually do better than the EPA estimates for your car.
As to the current iteration, I'd like to know which numbskull thought 18-22 MPG was a good initial benchmark for the minimum target of what would qualify as a car you could trade-up to through Cash for Clunkers.
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http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/findacar.htm
they all use the new system. the new system also just sucks differently from the old system, its not any more accurate.
It certainly seems... generous in its estimations. My '94 Ford Ranger, on a good day, driving downhill on an empty freeway with a good tailwind, can MAYBE get 18 mpg. That site has it listed as getting anywhere from 16 to 24 mpg.
Of course that just makes me wonder what's up with my truck that it's getting less than the estimate...
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True. My observation still holds though. Cars get worse gas mileage now because they are heavy/more powerful.
That's not entirely true. There are more larger vehicles on the road now than 20 years ago, but the components are actually much lighter in a lot of cases.
The premise isn't entirely true either. The first example I looked up is the Honda Civic:
Honda Civic Gas Mileage: 1978-2009
Avg Mileage: 2002-2009
City: 33.5 Hwy: 39.7
Avg Mileage: 1986-1993
City: 32.7 Hwy: 37.5