States Set to Sue the U.S. Over Greenhouse Gases 440
dnormant writes to tell us The New York Times is reporting that more than a dozen states are gearing up to sue the Bush administration for holding up efforts to regulate automobile emissions. "The move comes as New York and other Northeastern states are stepping up their push for tougher regulation of greenhouse gases as part of their continuing opposition to President Bush's policies. On Wednesday, Gov. Eliot Spitzer's administration is to issue regulations requiring power plants to pay for their greenhouse gas emissions, part of a broader plan among 10 Northeastern states, known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, to move beyond federal regulators in Washington and regulate such emissions on their own."
One problem with this plan (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:One problem with this plan (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:One problem with this plan (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should there be an exception for "regular guys like you"? To the extent that you are contributing to the problem and enjoying the benefits of the power produced, it seems only logical that you should be required to help fund the solution. With any luck, requiring power companies to pay for the costs of the pollution they create (and presumably pass that cost on to their consumers) will motivate both the power companies and the consumers to switch to cleaner (and hence cheaper) methods of power generation... which is of course exactly what we want to have happen.
Re:One problem with this plan (Score:5, Insightful)
hmmm (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:One problem with this plan (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a good thing if examined in a vacuum (assuming the ludicrous notion of CO2 being a pollutant, or that you could accurately figure out the damage caused by climate change within trillions of dollars).
When you consider China and India doing nothing to pass those costs on to their users, you don't have a free market. You have the US destroying their competitiveness (and their ability to innovate) while doing little to solve the problem on a global scale (it is called "global warming").
Guys like Spitzer are always the first to attack private business. A better solution would be to offer tax incentives to companies that want to replace coal plants with clean power sources, including nuclear. But you won't see Spitzer proposing that because it's a truly innovative idea. Suing the Feds and attacking business is the easy way out.
Re:Cars aren't even the majority of emissions (Score:5, Insightful)
But I think the more drastic changes that will help meet Kyoto targets are in the area of where power comes from. When the wealth redistribution costs to a country outweigh the cost of installing solar panels on every rooftop, then there will be change in that country. The same holds true for making more efficient cars or mass transit or wind farms, they will only ever be "the norm" when they cost less than just burning more fossil fuels. That Kyoto-carbon-tax is helping to push that day a little closer.
Re:Six Month Notice (Score:3, Insightful)
It's because the Media has been mau-mau'd to death and is now afraid to look for the truth. Whenever they try to get to the heart of a matter, they are attacked for being "liberal".
I can understand that the Right has beaten the Media to death, but it doesn't excuse them losing their courage completely.
The good news is I have a feeling the BS isn't working as well as it used to. More and more, people I encounter from all walks of life and all ends of the political spectrum are ignoring the talk radio goons and Fox News and can see through the crap. Despite their best efforts, the assault on the middle class in America is bringing a lot of former political enemies back together.
Smog is slowing global warming! (Score:1, Insightful)
We have to keep our smog emissions up or we'll cause more global warming, not less by reducing green house gases!
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/PBS_show_asserts_greenhouse_gases,_atmospheric_pollutants_dimming_future [wikinews.org]
As usual, the masses get an oversimplified solution to a complex problem when the science is inconclusive. None of these problems or solutions will ever be discussed or provided in enough detail outside a conference setting to not be dumbed down. Certainly don't completely trust a movie, newspaper article, or even a magazine article. Heck, it they can't spell every name correctly in the article, why would you expect them to get the science correct within the word limit too? A scientist will provide an upper and lower estimate for an outcome and document the assumptions that go into those predictions. Sadly, a journalist will condense that into the "could" phrase paired with the worst case possible, because that will get your attention. They will use alarming headlines EVEN if those headlines are the best guess, but simply the worst case.
Politicians will grab onto either the worse or best case dependent on their goals, who lobbies and contributes the most. If they can't discuss both sides at length and only say their sides talking points, hold onto your wallet, it is going to cost you money and may be really bad for us all.
And don't discount that scientist don't get publicity without always saying that "more study is needed" to determine other unknowns. That's a trick I used in grad school to get grant money with my adviser. More study is always needed
Be a critical thinker and reader.
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. (Score:2, Insightful)
Why is this even on Slashdot? (Score:1, Insightful)
Think about this...A coalition of states want to sue the Federal government for not writing a law telling them not to pollute... when they've already turned around and built a state's coalition to write laws so that they won't pollute.
Inarguably one of the dumbest things I've ever heard of.
But hey, it's against BOOOOSSSHHH!!! And we're starting the election season... EARLY.. So up on the front page it goes...
Arrrrgh! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:One problem with this plan (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One problem with this plan (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:One problem with this plan (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you have the option on your power bill to purchase "clean energy"? Now if there is some oversight of the power company that prevents them from passing the pollution costs on to people purchasing the electricity from solar and wind farms, then you have a strong economic incentive for the consumer which is the fastest way to create any large scale change. If if doesn't hurt people in the wallet, then everything will stay status quo.
Re:One problem with this plan (Score:1, Insightful)
Where did I say they shouldn't pay for it? I simply said they won't let it hit them where it counts: in the profits. The more it costs them, the more they pass on, and thus they have no reason to change anything until too many people decide that power is just too expensive.
Thus, the cost of power goes up, the pollution doesn't go down. Thus, the "Everyone else" keep paying for it anyway.
It's a non-solution.
Re:Arrrrgh! (Score:5, Insightful)
Ironic.
Re:Why is this even on Slashdot? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it's about the states wanting to write those laws, and the administration saying they can't because the Feds haven't.
Re:One problem with this plan (Score:5, Insightful)
Except suddenly nuclear, wind and solar will have a competitive advantage over coal, oil and gas; there's no luck involved. Energy providers have to compete to provide the lowest cost per kWH, and if carbon costs money, energy producers have incentive to cut it.
Free CO2 in the air is gonna cost somebody a lot of money someday. Collecting a fixed amount for it at the time of origination is a way of containing the risk, since climate change is liable to be more expensive and less predictable.
Nice (Score:2, Insightful)
Its a great indicator that the American people are more intelligent, responsible and honest than their leader.
Re:Six Month Notice (Score:1, Insightful)
Better yet, they can just stop repairing their roads.
By far most Americans believe that greenhouse emissions caused by humans are causing global warming
Because that is exactly what they are told.... over and over and over again. Many scientists, geologists and meteorologists disagree. Those are the ones that don't get grants and do get fired. No wonder they don't speak out.
Most Americans want the War in Iraq to end now and the troops brought home
Unless you know "most Americans" or run a polling company, you probably shouldn't be making such claims. Maybe you should know the facts before you spout off.
From HERE [pollingreport.com]:
The good news is I have a feeling the BS isn't working as well as it used to.
Not as long as there are people like me who gladly look up your BS and call you out on it.
Nice. (Score:3, Insightful)
Its a great indicator that the American people are more responsible, intelligent and honest than their leader.
Why the Global Warming debate is important (Score:4, Insightful)
For those of a conservative viewpoint, this is precisely the kind of thing that has been the worst of nightmares regarding the debate, where this is an attempt to broaden the power of the federal government and to enact legislation through judicial case law rather than through a body like the U.S. Congress.
From a strict constitutionalist viewpoint, state regulations are precisely what was envisioned by the founding fathers for issues like this. When faddish things like Global Warming (and concern about Global Warming is a fad right now, at least from a political perspective) come up, they should be debated by individual states and citizens of those states.
If left to develop on its own, without somebody crying "fowl" and demanding federal intervention, this "laboratory of American states" is precisely what is envisioned by the founders to see how political ideas like regulation of industries for CO2 gases was intended to develop. Legislation based upon the current wind of political thought was something the early founders of the American Republic feared the most, and it was intended to be a long and difficult process for a good reason, particularly when it governed the actions of individual citizens in relationship to each other, such as this sort of regulation is doing.
From a politically conservative viewpoint, you can still suggest environmental legislation. There is common ground that can come from this sort of debate and help us to genuinely protect the environment. But you need to frame it from a conservative viewpoint in terms of stewardship, liability, and responsibility. Cut the emotional garbage out about rising sea levels, rising temperatures, and a fear of the future. If you produce pollution, you need to clean up your own messes and be nice to your neighbors. You also shouldn't be wasteful of those resources that God has given to you, because ultimately you will be held responsible for your actions before HIM. Even if you dismiss God as a human construct, there is still the more vague "being held responsible by humanity as a whole" that still applies on some sort of level. I certainly don't mind government regulation that helps to reduce dependence on foreign energy sources and lowering of a trade deficit.
I also realize that some of this is about legislation that has already been through the meat grinder of Washington D.C., and these states are "merely" asking for those laws to be enforced. A problem here is that the legislation was deliberately vague, and the actual enforcement of these laws left to such broad interpretation, that nearly anything could be suggested in terms of what they really meant or how they can be put together. This lawsuit is a political move to force these national regulations (which arguably may not even be constitutional) to conform to a specific viewpoint that runs counter to the current presidential administration. A U.S. President shouldn't have even had this sort of authority delegated to him in the first place, but of course those pushing in support of this lawsuit already knew that, didn't they? So why should it be moved to the authority of nine men in black robes?
It is poor law and shouldn't have been enacted in the first place, no matter how lofty the goals were made. Going to the courts is just going to make an awful law even worse. It would be far better to go to the national legislature (aka Congress) and get new legislation passed that deals with this issue, if that is the ultimate goal.
Re:One problem with this plan (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One problem with this plan (Score:5, Insightful)
In this glorious deregulated California market you can specify green power, just don't complain about the rolling blackouts (which hit you regardless of where you buy your electricity.) :P In theory power grid deregulation was supposed to allow you to choose where you got your electricity from, but in practice it meant "as long as you bought it from Enron."
OTOH, It's not just about choosing who runs their lines to you. If you install solar panels on your roof, you'll essentially be buying around 50% of your power from yourself (carbon-free), depending on where you live and how much power you use during the day, though the initial cost is still pretty high. Same goes for a ground-loop air-conditioner, good insulation, really any technology that helps keep the energy you buy on your property. THAT stuff is where the big incentives should be.
A major problem I haven't seen mentioned yet (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason why Spitzer and this group are suing the government is that the Feds have established pollution control standards and Spitzer wants them made more restrictive. I am normally in favor of states' rights, but the issue in question here is more of a standards debate for me -- were each state given the ability to mandate their own efficiency requirements for cars, the result would be a broad range of such standards and car companies would have to meet the most efficient denominator, with a drastic (skyward) impact on the price of cars. The federal government sets the national standard, and now you don't have the purchasing power of 4 million Oregonians determining that the rest of us have to pay a premium for a super-efficient hybrid car we can't afford.
The single biggest problem I have with this bogus lawsuit is this: it's the government suing the government, with all the included lawyer fees. Let the tax dollars fly. With a lawsuit at this level, as well, those fees will not be trifling, and who will pay them but the lowly taxpayer. Residents of the states filing suit are taxed twice on this -- first by their states for their legal fees, and second by the federal government for its defense. Those of us living in states who aren't signed on only get to pay for a lawsuit we disagree with once at the federal level.
Residents of these states who support this: the proper way to get the EPA to change its guidelines is to have your federal legislators introduce legislation to change those guidelines. Then, those politicians get to convince a majority of their house of the legislature to sign on, which is absolutely necessary for a change with such a huge impact as changing EPA efficiency requirements. This underhanded lawsuit crap is the same tactic that generates so much scorn for SCO, the MAFIAA and other legal trolls -- why is it now okay?
One of the purposes of the Attorney General's office is to protect the rights of the consumer. The rights of the consumer are NOT being trampled in this situation. Everybody in America has the opportunity to buy a more fuel-efficient vehicle. The government's purpose in the matter should be to establish a baseline of efficiency on which people who can afford it, and innovation by car companies, can improve.
Re:Cars aren't even the majority of emissions (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because a state fighting to improve air quality (and make no mistake, the poor air quality in many states is not controllable by that state, but the one next door) is treason, while the gross abuses of the constitution, like the 55 mph speed limit, national drinking age, and nearly everything controlled as "interstate commerce" is simply ignored. If states fighting for their rights to clean air is treason, I'd hate to see what you'd do to a woman that wanted to vote.
Re:One problem with this plan (Score:4, Insightful)
Looking at the greatest threat to our super power status right now, I would have to say that a severe reduction on fossil fuel reliance would benefit us greatly in the global superpower sense. If we have an renaissance of green tech in America two important things will happen: 1. We will have a new major tech export, reestablishing the strength of the dollar. 2. When oil loses it's supremacy then Middle Eastern countries will be economically and politically powerless until they transform into more globally harmonious cultures.
A little bit teched in the head, eh? (Score:3, Insightful)
- And when we forced the lead to not be in paints or used in gas, that also raised prices.
- Likewise, it raised car prices when we first forced cars to get above 5 mpg.
- Or when we said no dumping of pollutants in the ground (love canal?).
- Or how about when we stopped manufactuering plants from polluting in the air.
Or we can accept minimal controls, and keep your prices real low.If you are looking for really low costs, consider moving to one of these lovely places:
* Linfen, China;
* Haina, Dominican Republic;
* Ranipet, India;
* Mailuu-Suu, Kyrgyzstan;
* La Oroya, Peru;
* Dzerzinsk, Russia;
* Norilsk, Russia;
* Rudnaya Pristan, Russia;
* Chernobyl, Ukraine; and
* Kabwe, Zambia.
Re:One problem with this plan (Score:3, Insightful)
Something I don't think your considering is that electricity is a regulated utility, not a commodity. Well, it is considered a commodity within the market itself but not as far as people outside the market is concerned. and as being a utility, there is a general need for it above and beyond a desire. Firefighters and police are utilities too, you might like to go without them but you can't get around paying for them and not having them.
With electricity, for the average person, it is a necessity. I know people who have had the state take their children away because the electric was turned off more then 2 days. So acting like anyone could do without it similar to how they did it in the old days is a bit absurd. When there is a need like this, there cannot be a free market at all. There can be the resemblance of a free market, but on average, it is only a portion of the mechanics that would be free. Not the entire market anyways.
Now I have to question the intents of raising fees on a utility like this when they very same people imposing the fees know full well how people are dependent on it. It is like spending 10 years to convince the public that smoking is addictive and bad then funding new projects on tobacco taxes because it offends very little people at once but they know the addictive nature will keep revenue coming in. If they were going to take the money collected and develop cleaner, more efficient production processes and then use it to equipt the power companies, I would see it another way. But just like the tobacco taxes, this will go to other projects and never see anything close to cleaner air if it is allowed to go through.
The majority of people are taxed to death. It isn't really that taxes are so high, it is more the the costs of everything else is high and people are nickeled and dimes to death by every pet project and unneeded item the state has. If any and all fees are allowed to be passed on to the consumers separated from the normal fees on the bills, I'm willing to be that anyone approving this won't be in office long after the first year when people realize how bad it will effect them.
It used to be that we said In russia, the communist tell you how much of something you can do or use. Now russia is free and it is going to be on the east coast, they tell you how much you can use. And of course this only benefits the rich who can afford to pay the extra where the poor are stuck with no options. Well, there is a saying. Something about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Maybe it is time for more poor people.
Re:One problem with this plan (Score:2, Insightful)
Nice idea but wrong approach. (Score:3, Insightful)
The second problem is there is *no* real solution to the emission situation unless we change the fuel source we use to power our vehicles. No solution at all. Why? Because improving emissions on vehicles results in either: A) a reduction in performance by a vehicle, which results in higher fuel consumption, which makes the majority of the changes moot. Or B) Improving fuel efficiency, which results in people driving more often because it's cheaper. Again making the majority of the changes moot.
Quite frankly, outside of a massive investment by this country on the scale of projects like the interstate system and electrifying everyone's homes, or a sudden and surprising leap forward in technology, nothing is going to change significantly for some time to come. Money spent on improving emissions in the short term would be better spent on educating the populace so they make more informed decisions/alter their habits, and serious investment in long term alternatives like Fuel Cell technology.
I'd STILL shut off the power to New York (Score:3, Insightful)
Were that true, I would agree with you, but you don't understand the people up there. If New York wanted clean power, they could build plenty of it. The state is mountainous and windy, there's ample tidal and offshore power, and plenty of rivers and oceans to build nukes on. The Northeastern USA has plenty of places to site solar, water, wind, and nuclear, all of which have no carbon impact.
But, no one there wants any power plant of any kind built near them, so, rather than retire older, inefficient infrastructure, they just raise taxes (either legislative, or via lawsuit) to make it look like they are doing something, but nothing changes, except that the taxpayer gets screwed.
The classic example is off the coast of Massachussetts. None other than the likes of Ted Kennedy and Walter Conkrite and the braintrust of the Democratic Party are fighting tooth and nail to keep a windmill project being built in the water a few miles away from them. Mind you, this could power the whole area they are living in. But, they don't want it near them.
Seriously. Just look at the power grid. The northeastern USA is a bunch of old coal plants, a bunch of gas turbines, a smattering of nukes and a couple of hydro facilities, and very little of it is newer than 1970. All the coal plants were built in the 1950s and OLDER. The hydro stuff dates back to the 1920s, although, they did drop in more efficient blades into one to make it better - but only after using the existing set for almost 80 years!
As soon as you try and build something in the northeastern USA, you get a bunch of people suing you, saying, not in my back yard. Then, they bitch about not have electricity. It has to come from somewhere, and they just want to -steal it-, and make somebody else do the dirty work of having the solar fields and windmills and what not. It's imperialism, pure and simple.
Re:One problem with this plan (Score:3, Insightful)
We are *NOT* a mob rule nation and we should not endow the federal government with the power and habit of punishing us to 'solve our problems'. Later on in the end it, with regards to our civil liberties, it will bite us in the butt. This is not a 'tax incentive' this is a tax punishment! This is like calling income taxes 'revenue' or 'investment' its a nice play on words but its not accurate. We need to invest more in education, its for the kids means 'The 10K per kid per year were spending is not enough so were going to take more of youre money and hope, for once, well do better with it this time'
Im all for regulation in regards to the environment and real fines for breaking regulations.. It may seem like semantics today but the long term differences are significant.