..cap-and-trade may have reached its political high water mark. I sure hope so.
Climate Change Collapse
Environmentalists are stunned that their global warming agenda is in collapse. Senator Harry Reid has all but conceded he lacks the vote for passage in the Senate and that it's time to move on. Backers of the Warner-Lieberman cap-and-trade bill always knew they would face a veto from President Bush, but they wanted to flex their political muscle and build momentum for 2009. That strategy backfired. The green groups now look as politically intimidating as the skinny kid on the beach who gets sand kicked in his face.
Those groups spent millions advertising and lobbying to push the cap-and-trade bill through the Senate. But it would appear the political consensus on global warming was as exaggerated as the alleged scientific consensus. "With gasoline selling at $4 a gallon, the Democrats picked the worst possible time to bring up cap and trade," says Dan Clifton, a political analyst for Strategas Research Partners. "This issue is starting to feel like the Hillary health care plan."
It's a good analogy. Originally, Hillary health care had towering levels of support, but once people looked at the cost and complexity they cringed. Jobs were on the mind yesterday of Senator Arlen Specter, who has endorsed a tamer version of cap-and-trade. "Workers in Pennsylvania worry that this will send jobs to China," he tells me. They're smart to worry. Look no further than the failure of the Kyoto countries to live up to their promised emissions cuts. Bjorn Lomborg, the author of the Skeptical Environmentalist, tells me: "The Europeans are so far behind schedule, it is almost inconceivable that they will meet their targets."
Even John McCain, a cap-and-trade original co-sponsor, now says that this scheme won't fly until China and India sign on -- which could be never.
Senators also criticized Warner-Lieberman's failure to clearly specify what would happen with the vast revenues the climate bill would generate -- some $1 trillion over the first decade, which environmental groups wanted as a slush fund to finance "green technologies." Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire insisted the proceeds be used for other tax cuts, like the elimination of the corporate income tax. The Natural Resources Defense Council desperately tried to persuade Congress in the 11th hour that the expensive price tag is a bargain because "the cost of inaction" would reach $1.8 trillion by 2100 due to increased hurricanes and rising oceans -- an argument without a shred of scientific or fiscal credibility.
Republicans in the Senate this week did such a masterful job of picking the cap-and-trade bill apart with objections, yesterday Barbara Boxer of California was "pulling her hair out with frustration, " as one Republican leadership staffer put it.
Environmentalists have always eyed 2009 as the real target year for enactment. But there was no show of strength this week and cap-and-trade may have reached its political high water mark. Conservatives at least are in a far stronger position now to demand major pro-growth tax cuts in exchange for new global warming taxes.
-- Stephen Moore
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