AARP Endorses Cantwell-Collins 1
The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) has endorsed the Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal (CLEAR) Act (S. 2877), co-sponsored by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). In a letter sent to the senators, AARP Executive Vice President for Social Impact Nancy LeaMond embraced the CLEAR Act’s program of monthly rebate checks to all Americans paid for by a full auction of crabon credits.
The letter has some logical inconsistencies, claiming that AARP does not “advocate for any specific targets or structure for reducing carbon emissions and allocating emissions credits” but later stating that CLEAR’s “federal auction of 100% of emissions credits” is one of the features “essential to helping residential consumers transition to a clean energy economy.”
AARP has no official position on the existence of man-made climate change (“we do not take positions on the scientific issues underlying the debate on global warming”).
Full text of letter below:
March 9, 2010Dear Senators Cantwell and Collins:
On behalf of AARP and its 39 million members, I want to thank you for introducing S. 2877, the Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal (CLEAR) Act, and for you continuing leadership on behalf of America’s consumers in the Senate debate over energy independence and climate change. Your CLEAR Act legislation offers a thoughtful, bipartisan approach to reducing harmful carbon dioxide emissions while also mitigating potential energy cost increases to consumers.
AARP approaches the issue of climate change from a somewhat unique perspective. As we are not an environmental advocacy organization, we do not take positions on the scientific issues underlying the debate on global warming, nor do we advocate for any specific targets or structure for reducing carbon emissions and allocating emissions credits among power generators and local utilities. Our primary interest is protecting consumers from having to pay a disproportionate or excessive share of the cost of any approach Congress determines will best limit carbon emissions and encourage alternative electric generation.
Our expertise in this area derives from our advocacy on behalf of consumers in state utility regulatory proceedings and our understanding of the complexities of state utilities regulation. For more than 20 years, AARP has been the only national organization consistently working at the federal level and in the states to advance energy affordability and consumer protections from unfair utility policies and rate increases. Last year alone, our national and state office staff engaged in legislative and regulatory efforts in 30 states that resulted in nearly $120 million in documented savings for consumeres.
The CLEAR Act offers a uniquely pro-consumer approach for addressing climate change on an economy-wide basis. It proposes a federal auction of 100% of emissions credits, with the proceeds from 75% of these credits reserved for direct assistance to consumers in monthly cash rebates. It seeks to mitigate indirect costs that are routinely passed on to consumers by imposing a price collar on the price for emission credits to prevent price spikes and promote energy price stability, while also prohibiting trading of emissions credits to avoid what analysts estimate could become a trillion dollar trading market for carbon credits. It establishes an energy efficiency rebate loan program to help consumers finance home energy efficiency improvements. In addition, the CLEAR Act proposes to use part of the proceeds from the remaining 25% of credits for additional assistance to low-income consumers, recognizing that low- and fixed-income households routinely spend a far larger proportion of their monthly incomes on utilities. And it authorizes and funds a Consumer Advocate Office to provide a truly independent voice for consumers in regulatory proceedings before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
AARP strongly supports these features of your legislation as essential to helping residential consumers transition to a clean energy economy, and protecting them from having to bear an unfair share of the cost. We look forward to working with you to highlight the innoveative and important features of your legislation and to ensure that they are included in any final climate change legislation.
Thank you again for your continued leadership on this and other issues that are of critical importance to older Americans. Please feel free to call on me, or have your staff call Marti T. Doneghy, Senior Legislative Representative in our Office of Government Relations and Advocacy at (202) 434-3804 or contact her at mdoneghy@aarp.org if we can provide you with any information or assistance.
Sincerely,
Nancy LeaMond Executive Vice President for Social Impact AARP
WonkLine: March 9, 2010
From the Wonk Room.
Today is the National Call-In Day to stop mountaintop removal mining, as thousands are calling their representatives and asking them to become a cosponsor of H.R. 1310, The Clean Water Protection Act.
Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson “fought back on Monday against Senate attempts to challenge the agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions”: “Supposedly these efforts have been put forward to protect jobs. In reality, they will have serious negative economic effects.”
“Women hit hard by the effects of climate change – drought, floods, sea level rise and crop failure” – “climate witnesses” from the United States, Peru, Senegal, Uganda and other countries “aim to tell their stories to members of Congress on Tuesday in a lobbying effort timed to follow Monday’s International Women’s Day.”
Senate Watch: Baucus, Begich, Brown, Cardin, Graham, Gregg, Landrieu, Lieberman, McCain, Murkowski 1
Mark Begich (D-Alaska)E&E News For this bill [green tax extenders], most of the activity is behind us. This bill reached its stride. We see the finish line ahead on Tuesday or so, and we expect a final push then.
Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio)E&E News I felt I got a lot [from K-G-L] of what I needed, understanding the timetable and the schedule, and what sources will be regulated first, which won’t be.
Ben Cardin (D-Md.)E&E News We want this bill to work for jobs. It’s ultimately an energy independence, jobs and environmental bill together. We don’t have details yet, but we’re making progress.
Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)E&E News There’s the potential for a broader coalition supporting this.
E&E News Offshore drilling and energy independence is essential to any bill I would support. There’s a way to drill for oil and gas offshore that will really lead to energy independence.
E&E News I think he’s [Kerry] trying to approach this in a creative way and I’m listening. It’s better than where they started.
Mary Landrieu (D-La) http://www.eenews.net/EEDaily/2010/03/09/3/ They [Kerry, Graham, Lieberman] are all on the same page as I am that partnership with the states needs to be established. The idea would be to open as much of the coast of the United States as possible and have appropriate revenue sharing levels, and we have to negotiate a lot of that.
Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.)John McCain (R-Ariz.)E&E News We’re going to have to go outside of our comfort zone. That’s how it’s going to get done.
Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)E&E News You know I’m always deeply disturbed about the fact there’s no meaningful nuclear power component.
E&E News I’m saying that you want to have me sit down at the table and talk about what a strong domestic production piece is, you have to be willing to talk to me about ANWR. Pretty simple… It’s kind of like feeling the elephant when you’ve got the blindfold on. The trunk feels entirely different than the tail and the leg. And right now, we’re just feeling maybe the trunk, and I want to know what the leg looks like and what the tail looks like.
WonkLine: March 5, 2010
From the Wonk Room.
“California’s dirty air caused more than $193 million in hospital-based medical care from 2005 to 2007 as people sought help for problems such as asthma and pneumonia that are triggered by elevated pollution levels,” according to a new RAND Corporation study.
In a full-page ad in Variety, a coalition of green groups said “the predatory grab for resources the Oscar-nominated film Avatar portrays on the fictional planet Pandora is similar to methods used in northern Alberta” for tar sands extraction.
A submission by the UK Institute of Physics “to a parliamentary inquiry examining the behavior of climate-change scientists” was drawn from Peter Gill, a consultant for “oil and gas production companies, who “argues that global warming is a religion.”
State Legislatures Work To Deny Regulation of Climate Threat 4
Yesterday, the South Dakota legislature passed a resolution telling public schools to teach “balance” about the “prejudiced” science of climate change by a vote of 37-33. Earlier language that ascribed “astrological” influences to global warming was stripped from the final version.
There are at least fifteen state legislatures attempting to prevent limits on greenhouse gas pollution. The states of Alabama and global warming endangerment finding, with legislators in thirteen more states in tow. Several of these resolutions argue that the scientific consensus on the threat of manmade global warming is actually a conspiracy:KENTUCKY: “WHEREAS, a recent disclosure of communications among scientists associated with the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia has cast serious doubt upon the scientific data that have purportedly supported the finding that manmade carbon dioxide has been a material cause of global warming or global climate change . . .”MARYLAND: “WHEREAS, E–mail and other communications between climate researchers around the globe discovered as part of the recent “climate–gate” controversy indicate that there is a well–organized and ongoing effort to manipulate global temperature data and incorporate tricks to substantiate the theory of climate change . . . “
OKLAHOMA: “WHEREAS, intense public scrutiny has revealed how unsettled the science is on climate change and the unwillingness of many of the world’s climatologists to share data or even entertain opposing viewpoints on the subject . . .”
UTAH: “WHEREAS, emails and other communications between climate researchers around the globe, referred to as ‘Climategate,’ indicate a well organized and ongoing effort to manipulate global temperature data in order to produce a global warming outcome . . .”
Every resolution makes the claim that protecting citizens from hazardous climate pollution would hurt the economy, instead of spurring a green recovery. Missouri, Illinois, Oklahoma, and Alaska lawmakers talk about being “dependent” on their states’ coal and oil industries. Several of the resolutions, drafted early last year, call on Congress to reject the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454), which passed the House of Representatives in June but has languished in the Senate. The Alaska and West Virginia resolutions support Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) effort to rewrite the Clean Air Act (S.J.Res. 26), and Alabama’s resolution calls for the passage of Rep. Earl Pomeroy’s (D-ND) similar effort (H.R. 4396).
Bizarrely, Arizona state senator Sylvia Allen’s (R-AZ) resolution argues that the U.S. Congress does not have the Constitutional authority to regulate greenhouse gas pollution. Allen also believes the Earth is 6000 years old. The other Arizona resolution, along with the Kentucky, Virginia, and Washington resolutions, would attempt to block state enforcement of global warming rules.
These efforts to overturn the Clean Air Act and politicize established science are being supported by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a national organization that brings conservative state lawmakers together with industry. ALEC promotes a resolution opposing the endangerment finding drafted by its Natural Resources Task Force, which includes over 120 lawmakers from around the nation and a similarly sized group of corporate representatives. Although ALEC does not have an official position on the validity of climate science, the organization is “actively involved in helping people get together and share ideas,” a representative told Hill Heat. For example, the spring ALEC task force meeting will feature noted climate conspiracy theorist Paul Driessen, the author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death.
| States With Resolutions Opposing Greenhouse Endangerment Finding | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| State | Bill | Sponsor | Status | Notes |
| AK | HJR 49 | Stoltze ( R) | Pending | Supports Murkowski |
| AL | HJR 218 | Gipson ( R) | Enacted | Supports Pomeroy |
| AZ | HB 2442 SCR 1050 | Burges ( R) Allen ( R) | Pending | Blocks state enforcement Tenther resolution |
| FL | HR 1357 SR 958 | Stephens ( R) Pearson ( R) | Pending | Supports overturn |
| IL | HR 961 SR 666 | Phelps (D) Forby ( D) | Pending | Opposes Waxman-Markey |
| KS | SR 1809 | Natural Resources Committee | Pending | Opposes “administrative fiat” by EPA |
| KY | HJR 20 | Fischer ( R) | Pending | Cites hacked emails to block state enforcement |
| MD | HJR 13 | Jenkins ( R) | Pending | Cites “climate change conspiracy” to oppose EPA |
| MO | HCR 46 HCR 59 | Funderburk ( R) Brown ( R) | Pending | Opposes Waxman-Markey, EPA |
| OK | SCR 41 | Lamb ( R) | Adopted by Senate | Cites “unsettled” science to support overturn |
| UT | EPA withdrawal | |||
| VA | HB1357 | Morefield ( R) | Pending | “Carbon dioxide shall not be considered air pollution” |
| WA | S 6477 | Stevens ( R) | Pending | Blocks state enforcement |
| WV | HCR 34 | Shott ( R) | Pending | Cites “vigorous, legitimate, and substantive” scientific debate to support Murkowski |
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