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declined to run

slug COS? McCullough succeeds Daniel Weiss (Rachel Carson College '85, sociology) for pelosi

9/21 ro k // big tobacco swear not addictive

SAD REV DR SELLOIT

Dirty Dozen: Beware of abusive tax avoidance schemes | Internal Revenue Service

...Syndicated conservation easements

A conservation easement is a restriction on the use of real property. Generally, taxpayers may claim a charitable contribution deduction for the fair market value of a conservation easement transferred to a charity if the transfer meets the requirements of Internal Revenue Code section 170.

Syndicated conservation easements are arrangements that make the Dirty Dozen list again in 2023. In abusive arrangements, promoters are syndicating conservation easement transactions that purport to give an investor the opportunity to claim charitable contribution deductions and corresponding tax savings that significantly exceed the amount the investor invested. These abusive arrangements, which generate high fees for promoters, attempt to game the tax system with grossly inflated tax deductions.

As part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, Congress amended section 170 to curb certain abusive conservation easement transactions. The IRS is committed to ensuring compliance with the conservation easement deduction law as amended in the 2023 legislation and will continue to scrutinize transactions that are "too good to be true."

...

RWEF 2 PPUB

Syndicated Conservation Easements: The Tax Scam That Won’t Die — ProPublica

...

A bipartisan group of influential lawmakers has tried. Democrat Wyden and Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, the finance committee’s ranking Republican, jointly released a 151-page investigative report in 2020 that referred to syndicated easements as a “dollar machine” for wealthy taxpayers. “You simply insert the dollar bill and then watch the Dollar Machine return two dollar bills to you,” the report explained. “But it was not the promoters who gave back the two dollars; it was the Federal government by way of foregone tax revenue, and the only risk involved was whether or not the transaction would lead to an audit.”

Others looking to rein in syndicated deals include Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines, Michigan Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow and House members Mike Thompson, a California Democrat, and Mike Kelly, a Pennsylvania Republican. Together, several of these lawmakers introduced the Charitable Conservation Easement Program Integrity Act of 2017 — and have reintroduced it, in updated form, in one congressional chamber or the other, eight times since, most recently a year ago.

The legislation aims to put an end to syndicated deals by eliminating their profitability, with a bar on taxpayers claiming easement deductions that exceed 2.5 times their investments. Closing this loophole would generate $12 billion in additional tax revenue through 2027, according to the Office of Management and Budget. But the legislation has never gotten far — and lawmakers say that’s no accident.

Since 2017, syndicators have spent $11 million on lobbyists, according to publicly filed lobbying disclosures. P4C has paid for more than $6 million of that. EcoVest Capital, a big promoter based in Atlanta that is now facing a Justice Department civil fraud suit, has spent $3.3 million. (By contrast, the Land Trust Alliance has spent $2.4 million on lobbyists during the same time period.)

While recruiting congressional allies to block the Easement Program Integrity Act, syndication advocates have also gone on the attack, pressing Congress (unsuccessfully, so far) to strip the IRS of funds used to enforce the agency’s 2017 listing notice that flags profit-making syndicated deals as abusive and requires participants to report their involvement.

Syndication promoters have actively courted Democratic support, adding Waxman Strategies, a self-described “progressive-minded public affairs firm” chaired by Henry Waxman, 82, the liberal former California representative, to their lineup of heavyweight lobbyists. In April 2018, P4C founder Frank Schuler, whose Atlanta firm was then one of the most prolific promoters, advised top executives at EcoVest about the move. “P4C is about to get the Waxman group underway to work on the D side of things,” Schuler wrote, in an email disclosed in court filings. “They really believe in what we are doing and that was a condition of Waxman’s to undertake the engagement. This is another $23k per month but we are in the thick of the fight and now is the time.”

Since then, Waxman Strategies has earned $485,000 for representing syndicators, with the former congressional representative working on the issue along with others at the firm. “Partnership style conservation easements are an important tool for conserving land that is under development pressure,” Michael Goo, the firm’s managing director and a former staff director for a House environmental subcommittee, told ProPublica in a written response to questions sent to Henry Waxman. “We believe they can be used to mobilize private capital into conserving land that in fact would be developed sooner or later.” The reform legislation, he added, “would effectively remove the incentive for investors to mobilize private capital into conservation easements.”

Unable to move their Easement Program Integrity Act through a divided Congress, supporters managed late last year to get its language included in the “Build Back Better” provisions passed by the House Ways and Means Committee. This raised hopes that it could get enacted along with the spending measure, which would require just a majority vote in the Senate.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the enigmatic Arizona Democrat, who represented a potentially decisive vote in her 50-50 chamber, put an end to that, telling the White House the syndication-killer language was among the provisions she wanted out of the bill, according to press reports. It was removed. That prompted 13 conservation groups to write Sinema on Dec. 7, pleading with her to “stand with us” to “curb abuse and restore the integrity of this cherished and worthy conservation program.”

Sinema, whose objections to the measure remain unclear, was unmoved. “All efforts to persuade the AZ Senator to reconsider her position have failed,” one advocate for the measure told ProPublica in an email. (Sinema’s staff did not respond to ProPublica’s requests for comment.)

Since then, President Joe Biden, signaling his support, has included the measure in his proposed 2023 budget in a section entitled “close loopholes.” But it remains far from enactment.

...

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https://www.eenews.net/articles/7-years-later-failed-waxman-markey-bill-still-makes-waves/

7 years later, failed Waxman-Markey bill still makes waves

By Amanda Reilly, Kevin Bogardus | 06/27/2016

7 years later, failed Waxman-Markey bill still makes waves

It’s been seven years since the House passed major legislation to create a cap-and-trade system for heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions, and though that legislative attempt ultimately failed, the bill’s sponsors still say it sowed the seeds for other climate change efforts.

As is well-known, the Waxman-Markey bill was not taken up by the full Senate and never became law. But looking back over the last seven years, the bill’s sponsors and their former congressional aides reminisced with E&E Daily in interviews that the unsuccessful fight was worthwhile and that it has had important repercussions.

"It is always worthwhile to fight for what you believe in," former Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman of California said in his office in Washington, D.C., "and if you don’t succeed at first, you keep trying."

Waxman retired at the end of the 113th Congress, and early last year he joined his son’s public affairs and government relations firm, Waxman Strategies. The bill’s other sponsor, Democratic Sen. Ed Markey, has been the junior senator from Massachusetts since 2013.

The two former House lawmakers introduced their bill, formally known as the "American Clean Energy and Security Act," on May 15, 2009. The 1,400-page bill would have established emissions caps through 2050 for several greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, and instituted a system for trading emissions allowances.

Waxman-Markey squeaked by the House seven years ago yesterday on June 26, 2009, by a vote of 219-212.

Phil Barnett, who was the Democratic staff director at the House Energy and Commerce Committee under Waxman at the time, said working on the bill was "demanding" and "challenging."

"We worked intensively on it for six months … seven days a week, long hours. The bill was a top priority for Chairman Waxman," said Barnett, now a consultant, adding, "The entire staff poured their hearts and souls into the effort because they thought it would do something to solve the climate problem as well as create economic opportunities and keep costs low."

Looking back, Markey pointed to work on the health care law, another priority for President Obama, for stymying the cap-and-trade bill’s momentum in the Senate.

"We finished Waxman-Markey in the last week of June of 2009. So we had finished our work," Markey said. "We were ready to go. And the politics of it then got much more complicated than anyone thought they would have."

The political dynamics around health care reform became complex with the death of Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy in August 2009. When Republican Scott Brown won Kennedy’s seat in an upset victory in a special election in January 2010, the politics of passing major legislation became more difficult becauseBrown gave Republicans a 41st seat in the Senate, thereby robbing Democrats of a filibuster-proof majority.

Then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) never brought the climate legislation, which was championed in the upper chamber by then-Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, to a vote on the floor. Many people close to the legislation have since blamed a number of factors, including Republican opposition and concessions to special interests.

"It was a disappointment that we couldn’t get a bill all the way through, but we highlighted the issue," Waxman said. "We gave it our best effort. We tried to accomplish that goal. But I know from my own history as a member of Congress, I have to work sometimes decades before some of the proposals I made eventually became law."

He cited, for example, the 15 years it took for Congress to pass the 2009 Tobacco Control Act, which gave the Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate tobacco products.

Genesis of executive branch efforts

The collapse of the Waxman-Markey bill in the Senate in 2010 spurred the Obama administration to aggressively use the executive branch to issue regulations aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. U.S. EPA issued its final Clean Power Plan for reducing carbon dioxide emissions from power plants last August and helped negotiate the international climate change deal in Paris last December.

In the first term, "the administration really focused on trying to get a big legislative fix to the climate change problem. As you know, that effort fell short," John Podesta, who was a top adviser to Obama and helped drive White House climate policy from 2014 to 2015, said at a recent conference in California. "In the second term, there was more focus on organizing and coordinating the agencies and the White House offices on both the domestic and international side of the equation."

Podesta, who is now campaign chairman for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, said that, if elected, the former secretary of State would likely focus on executive actions instead of attempting to pass a "grand climate fix" through Congress, even if the Senate flips to Democratic control.

Obama’s experience was "illustrative," Podesta said.

"A successful climate agenda requires a senior, serious point person in the White House," he said, "who can drive the agencies to do all they can across the whole suite of federal authorities."

But for the Obama administration, starting with a grand climate fix was "absolutely the right thing to do," Waxman said.

And Markey credited the legislation for setting the stage for the Obama administration’s second-term actions by helping to create necessary alliances.

"Much of what the president has done since then, and even if you look at the Clean Power Plan, it’s based largely on what was inside of the Waxman-Markey bill that we passed," Markey said. "So we had worked out the partnerships, the coalitions, that were still there when the president decided to develop the Clean Power Plan. So I think it was actually a very helpful political process to have gone through."

Michael Goo, another former top congressional aide who worked on the bill, agreed with the Massachusetts senator, saying, "Waxman-Markey is still the yardstick by which to measure climate programs."

"It was economywide, it set reduction pathways based on what the science was telling us, and it showed us how, by working together with industry, we could craft an effective climate program consistent with a growing economy," said Goo, now with AJW Inc. "And I think, sooner or later, we will return to something like it. "

Clinton vs. Trump

Markey called a potential Hillary Clinton administration paramount to the United States "continuing to be the world leader" on climate change.

Obama promised the globe in the time before the Paris climate negotiations that the United States would reduce its greenhouse gas emissions between 26 and 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025. In Paris last December, more than 190 nations agreed to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius and to pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5 C. The agreement also commits countries to periodically revisiting their pledged domestic emissions reductions.

Both Waxman and Markey are optimistic that Clinton will become the next president of the United States.

"I think she would be wise to follow the example of President Obama in trying to put this as a high priority to work with the rest of the world to reduce the greenhouse gases that cause climate change," Waxman said. "I believe she’s committed to it."

Markey is harshly critical of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s inconsistent views on climate change. In 2009, before international climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, Trump signed an open letter calling global warming a problem; he’s since claimed that it is a hoax perpetuated by the Chinese to hurt American business.

Trump has more recently vowed to undo the Paris climate pledge, which Obama officials are hopeful will go into force before the beginning of the next administration. Once entered into force, which happens when at least 55 countries representing at least 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions formally adopt it, the withdrawal process for a nation takes four years.

Markey compared Trump’s claim that climate change is a hoax to the businessman’s former claim that Obama was born in Kenya and not the United States.

If Trump is elected, Markey said, "every single promise we made to the rest of the world [on climate change] will be broken."

A campaign issue?

Markey also predicted that climate change would become a more hotly debated issue this presidential election compared with the 2008 race, when both parties’ candidates expressed support for addressing greenhouse gas emissions, and the 2012 race between Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) when climate change was largely a nonissue.

"It’s going to become a larger and larger issue that goes right to [Trump’s] credibility as a leader in our country," Markey said. "So the more he says it, the better for us because suburban swing Republicans and independent voters believe the science of climate change."

Others have said the same.

"The Clinton campaign is going to push these issues, and their allies in the clean energy business sector are going to push these issues forcefully, especially in swing states," said Paul Bledsoe, a former climate adviser for the Bill Clinton administration and an energy consultant. "I think they see it as a profound political vulnerability for Trump and the Republicans generally."

Still, a recent Gallup poll found that, of 17 policy issues, the issue gap for climate change is greatest among voters. The poll found that 72 percent of Democrats say that the issue of climate change is "extremely" or "very" important in how they vote for a presidential candidate. Just 25 percent of Republicans say that the issue is important.

Waxman lamented the hyper-partisan nature of Congress and that "compromise" has become a "dirty word" in D.C. He said he’s surprised that supporters of cap and trade were unable to harness the business community in attracting more Republican support for the legislation.

"It has been a difficult time that we’re going through in getting a more reasonable way to compromise," he said, "because so many of the Republicans that have been elected to office in the last four, six years think that their role is to say no to anything that the Democratic president, Democrats want."

Greg Dotson, who was the chief environmental staffer on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee at the time of Waxman-Markey, said that Republican support did not materialize despite support from companies in the oil and chemical sector.

"The assumption and hope was that if you got businesses on, you got Republicans on," said Dotson, who is now the vice president for energy policy at the Center for American Progress. "So we did a lot of work to address business concerns, and we got a lot of business support, and that did not translate to broad Republican support.

"For an incoming president," Dotson added, "that’s a pretty scary precedent."

At a recent hearing in the Environment and Public Works Committee, Markey said it was ironic that coal-industry allies who are complaining about EPA greenhouse gas regulations’ impact on jobs didn’t support the cap-and-trade legislation.

He complained that the coal industry rejected an offer of billions of dollars for carbon capture and storage technology via the Waxman-Markey bill. Markey argued that the bill attempted to help coal companies stay alive in a way that works "for all the interests."

"We were trying to give them a bridge to the future," he said. "Do you think they wish they could go back to 2009 and grab that money?"

Waxman said that he was hopeful that the dynamic would change in Congress to allow for more collaboration between the parties. He predicted a disaster for Republicans at the polls in November.

"I think it’s going to change because I think they’re going to go down the tubes in this next election, and that’s going to be a lesson to them," Waxman said.

He added: "But I don’t know. I’m giving you my wishful thinking."

‘Oh, My God, What the Hell Is Happening Here?’

The last thing anyone expected from President George W. Bush’s 2007 State of the Union address was a proposal for the largest-ever cut in the nation’s use of gasoline. The president was no climate champion — he had backed out of the Kyoto Protocol shortly after taking office in 2001 — but he did favor what he called “energy independence.” He had declared the United States “addicted” to foreign oil, yet dependence on Middle Eastern fuel continued. Hurricane Katrina, and the lingering damage it did to oil pipelines and refineries, had pushed up gas prices, renewed fears of global warming and kept a firm thumb on the economy.

Now, Bush proposed, homegrown energy could be drawn from the rural places most in need of an economic boost. Clean-coal initiatives would generate the electricity of the future, but it wasbiofuels — in particular ethanol, which is largely distilled from corn, and biodiesel, made with vegetable oil — that would power the vehicles of the future. Within 10 years, the country would replace 35 billion gallons of petroleum, or one-fifth of all the gas and diesel burned, with fuel made from plants. The measure, as he put it, would confront “the serious challenge of global climate change.” Unsaid, but clear to anyone paying attention, was that it would also please America’s agriculture industry, which had been lobbying for ethanol and advanced biofuel research for years. The House chamber erupted in applause.

On the night of the president’s address, Timothy Searchinger sat on his couch in Takoma Park, Md., just a few miles from the Capitol, and watched on television, struck by what seemed to him a glaring lapse in logic. “Oh, my God, what the hell is happening here?” he recalls wondering aloud.

Searchinger wasn’t a scientist; he was a lawyer, working with the Environmental Defense Fund. But he saw a serious flaw in the claim that the president’s proposal would ameliorate climate change. Searchinger knew that cropland had already consumed virtually every arable acre across the Midwest. Quintupling biofuel production would require a huge amount of additional arable land, far more than existed in the United States. Unless Americans planned to eat less, that meant displacing food production to some other country with unused land — and he knew that when forests are cut, or new land is opened for farming, substantial new amounts of carbon can be released into the atmosphere. Forests hold as much as 45 percent of the planet’s carbon stored on land, and old-growth trees in particular hold a great deal of that carbon, typically far more than any of the crops that replace them. When the trees are cut down, most of that carbon is released.

Scientists and lawyers who study environmental impact often deploy “carbon-life-cycle analysis” to determine just how much carbon a given product is removing from, or introducing to, the environment over the course of its production and consumption. When a truck burns biodiesel, the carbon emissions that come from its tailpipe aren’t much different from those of a truck burning petroleum. But a part of the biodiesel emissions aren’t counted, because — in theory — they have been balanced out: Plants absorb carbon from the atmosphere when they grow, and fuel experts subtract that sequestered carbon from the tailpipe emission, completing a transaction that they say balances at zero.

In ideal circumstances — unvegetated land planted for the first time — this balancing out really happens. When corn grows, it soaks up carbon, and when it is consumed (whether as food or fuel), it releases that carbon back into the air. But the analysis breaks down when faced with the reality of land use. Almost everywhere in the world, planting more corn or soy for biofuel would involve creating more farmland, which in turn would involve cutting down whatever was already growing on that land. And that would mean releasing a huge amount of carbon into the air, with nothing to balance the books. As Searchinger watched Bush’s call for an unprecedented increase in biofuel production, his hunch was that the biofuel balance sheet would turn out to be tragically shortsighted.

Representative Henry A. Waxman, at the time a powerful 16-term Democrat from California who had presided over several failed efforts to pass climate legislation, was also skeptical about Bush’s plan. But he knew that one of the most vexing aspects of global emissions reduction was the question of how to replace transportation fuels. It was hard enough to upgrade several thousand electrical power plants to draw on wind or solar or even nuclear power. That would take years. But transforming the more than 100 million cars and trucks on America’s roads would take far longer, decades even, and in the meantime those vehicles were producing 28 percent of carbon emissions in the United States. Waxman thought a biofuel requirement could be a turning point in climate legislation, a moment when Washington stopped pretending.

Within months of Bush’s speech, the House and the Senate were reconciling a draft of a sprawling omnibus bill that would eventually be called the Energy Independence and Security Act, or EISA. In addition to requiring carmakers to improve fuel standards, a longtime priority for Democrats, the bill updated and expanded renewable-fuel standards, requiring fuel producers to mix in soy, palm and other kinds of vegetable oil with diesel fuel and to use ethanol from corn and sugar in gasoline. The bill also set tough standards for how much cleaner, in terms of carbon, each of those categories of fuel had to become — 50 percent for diesel, 20 percent for gas — and empowered the Environmental Protection Agency to judge what qualified.

The expected gains were enormous. The switch to biofuels, the E.P.A. would later calculate, promised to stop the release of 4.5 billion tons of carbon over three decades, the equivalent of parking every single American automobile for more than seven years. Before the bill passed in December 2007, Speaker Nancy Pelosi called it “the shot heard round the world for energy independence.”

The law had a profound effect. Biodiesel production in the United States would jump from 250 million gallons in 2006 to more than 1.5 billion gallons in 2016. Imports of biodiesel to the United States surged from near zero to more than 100 million gallons a month. As fuel markets snatched up every ounce of domestic soy oil to meet the American fuel mandate, the food industry also replaced the soy it had used with something cheaper and just as good: palm oil, largely from Malaysia and Indonesia, which are the sources of nearly 90 percent of the global supply. Lawmakers never anticipated that their well-intentioned plan — to help the climate by helping American farmers — might instead transform Indonesia and present one of the greatest threats to the planet’s tropical rain forests. But as Indonesian palm oil began to flood Western markets, that is exactly what began to happen.

“We saw great promise,” Waxman told me recently, sitting in a glass conference room at Waxman Strategies, the Washington lobbying firm of which he is chairman. But he is no longer so hopeful. He is now also the chairman of the environmental organization Mighty Earth, which lobbies food and agriculture companies to deploy more climate-friendly production methods. In 2007, he and other lawmakers were focused on the benefits of biofuels and the bridge they promised to even greener technologies. Now the soft-spokenWaxman is far more concerned about the other side of the equation. “We didn’t think we were going to pay such a heavy price,” he said.

‘No One Fights for Their Rights’

Palm-oil producers had been lobbying American lawmakers to introduce biofuel incentives for years, and they were well prepared for the moment when the incentives became law. Wilmar — the colossal Singaporean conglomerate that controls nearly half of the global palm-oil trade — announced in 2007 that it would quadruple its biodiesel production. In Indonesia, officials directed state-owned and regional banks to make loans on more than $8 billion worth of palm-oil-related development projects and pledged to produce 5.9 billion gallons of biofuel within five years. They also announced that Indonesia would convert more than 13 million acres of additional forest to industrialized palm production. It was as if in response to a law in China, the United States undertook a plan to convert every single acre of New Jersey to soybean crops, and then threw in all of Connecticut and New Hampshire....

https://www.desmogblog.com/former-white-house-official-doctored-global-warming-reports-to-undercut-scientific-findings

Philip Cooney, former chief of staffat the White House Council on Environmental Quality, has acknowledged at a House hearing some of the changes he made were “to align these communications with the administration's stated policy” on climate change.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, said “my concern is that there was a concerted White House effort to inject uncertainty into the climate debate.”

Waxman's committee also heard from James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and one of the country's leading climate scientists, who said the White House repeatedly tried to control what government scientists say to the public and media about climate change.

hearing on bush admin sci suppress

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-110hhrg37415/html/CHRG-110hhrg37415.htm

ALLEGATIONS OF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE WITH GOVERNMENT CLIMATE CHANGE 
								SCIENCE
=======================================================================

								HEARING

							   before the

						COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
						AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

						HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

					   ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

							FIRST SESSION

							   \_________\_

							MARCH 19, 2007
...                                                                   Page
Hearing held on March 19, 2007...................................     1
Statement of:
	Connaughton, James L., chairman, White House Council on 
	  Environmental Quality......................................   369
	Cooney, Philip, former chief of staff of the White House 
	  Council on Environmental Quality; James Hansen, Director, 
	  NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies; and George 
	  Deutsch, former NASA Public Affairs Officer................   248
		Cooney, Philip...........................................   248
		Deutsch, George..........................................   318
		Hansen, James............................................   304
	Spencer, Roy, University of Alabama, Huntsville..............   416
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
	Connaughton, James L., chairman, White House Council on 
	  Environmental Quality, prepared statement of...............   372
	Cooney, Philip, former chief of staff of the White House 
	  Council on Environmental Quality, prepared statement of....   251
	Deutsch, George, former NASA Public Affairs Officer, prepared 
	  statement of...............................................   320
	Hansen, James, Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space 
	  Studies, prepared statement of.............................   306
	Issa, Hon. Darrell E., a Representative in Congress from the 
	  State of California, exhibits and supplemental minority 
	  memorandum.................................................   192
	Spencer, Roy, University of Alabama, Huntsville:
		Prepared statement of....................................   418
		Prepared statement of Roger Pielke, Jr...................   437
	Waxman, Chairman Henry A., a Representative in Congress from 
	  the State of California, prepared statement of.............     4

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/20/magazine/palm-oil-borneo-climate-catastrophe.html

no lnx

The remains of an Indonesian rain forest that was cleared to make way for oil palms.

The remains of an Indonesian rain forest that was cleared to make way for oil palms.Credit...Ashley Gilbertson/VII, for The New York Times

FEATURE

Palm Oil Was Supposed to Help Save the Planet. Instead It Unleashed a Catastrophe.

A decade ago, the U.S. mandated the use of vegetable oil in biofuels, leading to industrial-scale deforestation — and a huge spike in carbon emissions.

The remains of an Indonesian rain forest that was cleared to make way for oil palms. Credit...Ashley Gilbertson/VII, for The New York Times

By Abrahm Lustgarten

Nov. 20, 2018

This article is a partnership between ProPublica, where Abrahm Lustgarten is a senior reporter, and The New York Times Magazine.

The fields outside Kotawaringin village in Central Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo, looked as if they had just been cleared by armies. None of the old growth remained — only charred stumps poking up from murky, dark pools of water. In places, smoke still curled from land that days ago had been covered with lush jungle. Villagers had burned it all down, clearing the way for a lucrative crop whose cultivation now dominates the entire island: the oil-palm tree.

The dirt road was ruler straight, but deep holes and errant boulders tossed our tiny Toyota back and forth. Trucks coughed out black smoke, their beds brimming over with seven-ton loads of palm fruit rocking back and forth on tires as tall as people. Clear-cut expanses soon gave way to a uniform crop of oil-palm groves: orderly trees, a sign that we had crossed into an industrial palm plantation. Oil-palm trees look like the coconut-palm trees you see on postcards from Florida — they grow to more than 60 feet tall and flourish on the peaty wetland soil common in lowland tropics. But they are significantly more valuable. Every two weeks or so, each tree produces a 50-pound bunch of walnut-size fruit, bursting with a red, viscous oil that is more versatile than almost any other plant-based oil of its kind. Indonesia is rich in timber and coal, but palm oil is its biggest export. Around the world, the oil from its meat and seeds has long been an indispensable ingredient in everything from soap to ice cream. But it has now become a key ingredient of something else: biodiesel, fuel for diesel engines that has been wholly or partly made from vegetable oil.

Finally we emerged, and as we crested a hill, the plantations fell into an endless repetition of tidy bunches stretching for miles, looking almost like the rag of a Berber carpet. Occasionally, a shard of an old ironwood tree shot into the air, a remnant of the primordial canopy of dense rain forest that dominated the land until very recently.

Our driver, a 44-year-old island native and whistle-blower named Gusti Gelambong, had brought us here to show us the incredible destruction wrought by the growing demand for palm oil. The oldest male among nine siblings, he was modestly built but exuded a wiry strength. His father, he told us, was a king of one of Borneo’s dozens of Dayak tribes, the sixth descendant of the sultan of Old Kotawaringin, and his mother came from a line of warriors who served in the Indonesian special forces. In 2001, he said, he took part in a brutal ethnic cleansing of Indonesians who had moved in from the nearby island of Madura. He macheted his way through the nearby town of Pangkalan Bun, slaughtering dozens of people. He felt no remorse about the violence. But the palm-oil companies, Gelambong said, were much stronger than the Madurese. As we approached an intersection, we could see two plantation guards lying back in a shack, rifles propped against their knees. He sped past the guards, averting his eyes.

Most of the plantations around us were new, their rise a direct consequence of policy decisions made half a world away. In the mid-2000s, Western nations, led by the United States, began drafting environmental laws that encouraged the use of vegetable oil in fuels — an ambitious move to reduce carbon dioxide and curb global warming. But these laws were drawn up based on an incomplete accounting of the true environmental costs. Despite warnings that the policies could have the opposite of their intended effect, they were implemented anyway, producing what now appears to be a calamity with global consequences.

The tropical rain forests of Indonesia, and in particular the peatland regions of Borneo, have large amounts of carbon trapped within their trees and soil. Slashing and burning the existing forests to make way for oil-palm cultivation had a perverse effect: It released more carbon. A lot more carbon. NASA researchers say the accelerated destruction of Borneo’s forests contributed to the largest single-year global increase in carbon emissions in two millenniums, an explosion that transformed Indonesia into the world’s fourth-largest source of such emissions. Instead of creating a clever technocratic fix to reduce American’s carbon footprint, lawmakers had lit the fuse on a powerful carbon bomb that, as the forests were cleared and burned, produced more carbon than the entire continent of Europe. The unprecedented palm-oil boom, meanwhile, has enriched and emboldened many of the region’s largest corporations, which have begun using their newfound power and wealth to suppress critics, abuse workers and acquire more land to produce oil.

ImageA worker on an oil-palm plantation on Borneo.

A worker on an oil-palm plantation on Borneo.Credit...Ashley Gilbertson/VII, for The New York Times]

We arrived at another plantation and stopped near where a stream coursed through the bog. People still lived here: A mother bathed two children beneath a culvert, and a shirtless young boy ran through row after row of identical young palms in the distance, surrounded by dragonflies and sparrows. The uniformity of the world he was growing up in was striking, like the endless plains of drilling rigs in an East Texas oil field. It was, in a way, an astounding achievement, the ruthless culmination of mankind’s long effort to extract every last remaining bit of the earth’s seemingly boundless natural wealth. But it was also frightening. This was what an American effort to save the planet looked like. It was startlingly efficient, extremely profitable and utterly disastrous.

‘Oh, My God, What the Hell Is Happening Here?’

Searchinger wasn’t a scientist; he was a lawyer, working with the Environmental Defense Fund. But he saw a serious flaw in the claim that the president’s proposal would ameliorate climate change. Searchinger knew that cropland had already consumed virtually every arable acre across the Midwest.Quintupling biofuel production would require a huge amount of additional arable land, far more than existed in the United States. Unless Americans planned to eat less, that meant displacing food production to some other country with unused land — and he knew that when forests are cut, or new land is opened for farming, substantial new amounts of carbon can be released into the atmosphere. Forests hold as much as 45 percent of the planet’s carbon stored on land, and old-growth trees in particular hold a great deal of that carbon, typically far more than any of the crops that replace them. When the trees are cut down, most of that carbon is released.

Representative Henry A. Waxman, at the time a powerful 16-term Democrat from California who had presided over several failed efforts to pass climate legislation, was also skeptical about Bush’s plan. But he knew that one of the most vexing aspects of global emissions reduction was the question of how to replace transportation fuels. It was hard enough to upgrade several thousand electrical power plants to draw on wind or solar or even nuclear power. That would take years. But transforming the more than 100 million cars and trucks on America’s roads would take far longer, decades even, and in the meantime those vehicles were producing 28 percent of carbon emissions in the United States. Waxman thought a biofuel requirement could be a turning point in climate legislation, a moment when Washington stopped pretending.

‘No One Fights for Their Rights’

https://www.c-span.org/video/?442049-2/the-class-74

MARCH 3, 2018

The Class of '74

John Lawrence, former chief of staff to Representative Nancy Pelosi, recalled the 1974 congressional elections, which followed the Watergate scandal, and ushered in many new office holders, dubbed the “Watergate Babies.”

http://forward.com/opinion/309916/henry-waxman-lobbyists-nightmare-becomes-a-lobbyist/

When n Henry Waxman announced in January of 2014 that he would retire from Congress after 40 years of service, he was rightly hailed as one of the most influential liberals, and one of the most skilled legislators, of his generation. Waxman’s list of accomplishments is astonishing – expanding Medicaid, strengthening of the Clean Air Act, regulating the tobacco industry, funding AIDS research, investigating steroid use, instituting, passing healthcare reform, and much more.

It was the sort of career that made for a good rebuttal to the moaning one hears about “career politicians” who spend so long in office that they acquire such pernicious traits as experience, savvy, and a general ability to govern effectively.

Waxman was as effective as they came. His famous hearing where he grilled tobacco executives broke the back of the industry’s political power. After one particularly brutal budget negotiation with Waxman, Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson declared that Waxman was “tougher than a boiled owl.” The assessment stuck, no doubt in part because Waxman actually does look like a boiled owl.

But of course there is a legitimate side to the concerns about politicians who spend so long in Washington – namely, that they “go native” and adapt themselves to its corrupt and cozy ecosystem, using all that experience and savvy to turn a wealth of political connections into just plain wealth.

And now comes the news that Waxman has registered as a lobbyist for telecommunications giant T-Mobile, as well as four groups that focus on healthcare and service employees. This was, as the Washington Examiner noted, a bit of a turnaround for the man that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution once called a “Lobbyist’s Nightmare.”

Waxman’s rather pathetic sell-out is made even sadder by the fact that he’s actually been trying to sell out for a few months now but had trouble finding takers. In February, the National Law Journal reported that Waxman had shopped himself around to major DC law and lobbying firms without success, and had instead decided to join his son Michael’s firm, Waxman Strategies. (The fact that Michael Waxman founded a political communications and strategy firm in Washington while his father was a powerful congressman is undoubtedly just one of those funny coincidences. Henry’s daughter, Shai Waxman Abramson, also works for the firm, making it a real family business.)

Waxman has also announced plans to teach at Johns Hopkins University and UCLA.

In the introduction to his 2009 memoir, The Waxman Report, Waxman suggested that the public is so cynical about Congress because they don’t understand how the institution works.

Perhaps that’s true for some of them. And perhaps some of them are cynical because they understand how it works all too well.

So long, Henry. Don’t let the revolving door hit you on the way out.

Read more: http://forward.com/opinion/309916/henry-waxman-lobbyists-nightmare-becomes-a-lobbyist/

2/15

bs yeatman cooler heads:

http://www.globalwarming.org/2015/02/25/did-prickly-waxman-settle-for-m-st-after-being-spurned-by-k-st/

This blog venerates former Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Beverly Hills), despite the fact that his position was opposite of ours on pretty much every energy/environmental policy ever. Though I disagree with him on everything, I admire Waxman because he is so damned smart and effective.

Here’s the Waxman I know through observation. For starters, he showed up to every Energy & Commerce Committee hearing. If you occasion these sorts of things, you’d know that congressional attendance is terrible, yet Waxman would show up even to hearings convened by E&C subcommittees on which he wasn’t a member. (The only other Members of Congress I know of who do this are Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Darrell Issa). And wherever Waxman showed up, he was supremely effective. He’d ask the toughest questions, blunt the opposition with procedural mechanisms, and generally control the proceeding–even if he was in the minority.

To my knowledge, Waxman was the finest practitioner of parliamentary hand-to-hand combat (although I’m too young to have witnessed Rep. John Dingell in his prime, and I understand he was something to behold). Unfortunately, environmental policy was Waxman’s bailiwick, and no one benefited more so from his acumen than the green movement.

So when I heard that Waxman, upon retiring at the close of the 113^th Congress, wrote and circulated a business plan to all the top lobbyist outfits in D.C., I would have thought that he’d have immediately fielded a number of offers at an annual salary that K St. normally reserves for just-retired Senators ($1 million). I thought this for two reasons: (1) Waxman is a master of congressional process; (2) the green movement, his closest ally, is spending evermore on elections and lobbying.

However, after a month of lobbying on behalf his own employment, Waxman chose to work with his son at Waxman Strategies, which is a much smaller firm whose offices are on M St, rather than the more prestigious K St. location. According to media accounts, Waxman himself rebuffed other opportunities, because he didn’t want to deal with the “morass” of big time lobbying.

But I wonder whether Waxman really rejected K St., or whether K St. rejected him.

I’m given to such second-guessing based on a paragraph from an excellent article on Waxman’s transition by Katelyn Polantz in Legal Times, in which a prominent lobbyists seems (to me, at least) to suggest that the former Representative’s “prickliness” may have made him a poor fit for the business. According to Polantz,

Lobbyists at large firms said they’d known for weeks that Waxman was on the job market but were unsure how he could fit into a corporate-defense environment. Former Rep. Jim Walsh, now a leader within K&L Gates’ lobbying department, called his former colleague “a prickly guy for everybody.”

Perhaps I’m reading too much inbetween the lines, but I take former Rep. Walsh’s quote to mean that Waxman’s business plan met with a tepid response from K St. In fact, there’s a logic here: K St. is built on backslapping, which is usually how politicians get things done. But Waxman got things done with his big brain, so he eschewed networking. Ergo, he is a poor fit for lobbying.

In any case, it will be VERY interesting to see whether Waxman Strategies on M St. becomes the go-to lobby shop for the greens. Based on Waxman Strategies’ website, former Rep. Waxman will take up a newfound passion for online gambling. Perhaps he’ll soon get to renew his passion for terrible environmental policy.

For more on Rep. Henry Waxman, see

raj patel commonwealth 2010 oversight greenspan flaw in the model of how world works

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4oLqOGnSMs 14 min

safe climte caucus:

6. H.AMDT.67to H.R.3 Amendment sought to add a finding that the reliance on oil sands crudes for transportation fuels would likely result in an increase in incremental greenhouse gas emissions in the United States equivalent to approximately that of 4.3 million passenger vehicles. The amendment also sought to provide that the bill would not go into effect unless the President found that TransCanada or tar sands producers could fully offset the additional greenhouse gas emissions produced annually.

Sponsor: Rep Waxman, Henry A. [CA-33] (introduced 5/22/2013) Cosponsors (None)

Latest Major Action: 5/22/2013 House amendment not agreed to. Status: On agreeing to the Waxman amendment (A002) Failed by recorded vote: 146 - 269 (Roll no. 170).

7. H.AMDT.415to H.R.2218 Amendment sought to provide that state permit programs would be protective of human health and the environment.

Sponsor: Rep Waxman, Henry A. [CA-33] (introduced 7/25/2013) Cosponsors (None)

Latest Major Action: 7/25/2013 House amendment not agreed to. Status: On agreeing to the Waxman amendment (A002) Failed by recorded vote: 185 - 231 (Roll no. 415).

8. H.AMDT.444to H.R.1582 Amendment sought to strike section 2 of the bill which allows DOE to effectively veto EPA rules.

Sponsor: Rep Waxman, Henry A. [CA-33] (introduced 7/31/2013) Cosponsors (None)

Latest Major Action: 8/1/2013 House amendment not agreed to. Status: On agreeing to the Waxman amendment (A001) Failed by recorded vote: 183 - 230 (Roll no. 428).

waxman takes over from dingell

waxman bo plan reduce 2.5% gnp in 40 yrs, 15% less jobs coal and oil but no effect elsewhere 553

carbon tax win polls, esp when expl vs cap coll

Solyndra

Waxman, as the ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, oversaw the case of Solyndra, a solar company that filed for bankruptcy after receiving a $535 million loan guarantee from the DOE. Waxman recounted meeting with Solyndra's CEO two months before they filed for bankruptcy, who assured him that "Solyndra’s future was bright with sales and production booming."^[14] Waxman was accused of being involved with the Solyndra loan by Darrell Issa. In a response, Waxman said "I had no involvement in the selection of the Solyndra loan...In fact, the first time I met with representatives from Solyndra was in July 2011, when the compnay's CEO, Brian Harrison, informed me -- erroneously, it turned out -- that the company's prospects were bright."^[15][16]

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif., a.k.a. the Mustache of Justice) wants to subpoena Koch Industries executives to force them to testify about the company's connection to Keystone XL. 1/27

----

Henry Arnold Waxman (born September 12, 1939) is the U.S. Representative for California's 30th congressional district, serving since 1975. He is a member of the Democratic Party. He is considered to be one of the most influential liberal members of Congress. His district includes much of the western part of the city of Los Angeles, as well as West Hollywood, Santa Monica and Beverly Hills. Before his election to Congress, he served six years in the California State Assembly.

With the Democrats' victory in the 2006 midterm elections, Waxman became chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the principal investigative committee of the House. He was the committee's ranking Democrat from 1997 to 2007. In 2009, he began serving as the Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee after defeating Chairman John Dingell in a 137-122 secret vote of House Democrats on November 20, 2008.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act

American Clean Energy and Security Act

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This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. The talk page may contain suggestions. (June 2009)

It has been suggested that *United States Carbon Cap and Trade Program* be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009| |

Full title	A bill to create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, reduce global warming pollution and transition to a clean energy economy.
Acronym	ACES, Waxman-Markey Bill
Citations	Citations
Codification	Codification
Legislative history	Legislative history
Introduced in the House of Representatives as H.R. 2454 by Henry Waxman (D-CA) on May 15, 2009 Committee consideration by: Energy and Commerce, Foreign Affairs, Financial Services, Education and Labor, Science and Technology, Transportation and Infrastructure, Natural Resources, Agriculture, and Ways and Means Passed the House on June 26, 2009 (219-212)	Introduced in the House of Representatives as H.R. 2454 by Henry Waxman (D-CA) on May 15, 2009 Committee consideration by: Energy and Commerce, Foreign Affairs, Financial Services, Education and Labor, Science and Technology, Transportation and Infrastructure, Natural Resources, Agriculture, and Ways and Means Passed the House on June 26, 2009 (219-212)
Major amendments	Major amendments

Relevant Supreme Court cases	Relevant Supreme Court cases
None	None

The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES) is an energy bill in the 111th United States Congress (H.R. 2454) that would establish a variant of an emissions trading plan similar to the European Union Emission Trading Scheme. The bill was approved by the House of Representatives on June 26, 2009 by a vote of 219-212, and is still in consideration in the Senate.^{[^^1]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-0)

This vote was the "first time either house of Congress had approved a bill meant to curb the heat-trapping gases scientists have linked to climate change."^{[^^2]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-nyt-1)

The bill is also known as the Waxman-Markey Bill, after its authors, Representatives Henry A. Waxman of California and Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, both Democrats. Waxman is the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Markey is the chairman of that committee's Energy and Environment Subcommittee.

Internationally, the House's passage of the ACES bill "established a marker for the United States when international negotiations on a new climate change treaty begin later this year."^{[^^2]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-nyt-1) Hearings on the draft of the legislation took place the week of April 20, 2009 and the bill was passed by the House on June 26, 2009. However, in July 2010 it was reported that the Senate would not consider climate change legislation before the end of the legislative term.^{[^^3]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-2)

Contents[hide]

[edit] Summary of the bill

The bill proposes a cap and trade system, under which the government sets a limit (cap) on the total amount of greenhouse gases that can be emitted nationally. Companies then buy or sell permits to emit these gases, primarily carbon dioxide (CO₂₎. The cap is reduced over time to reduce total carbon emissions. The legislation would set a cap on total emissions over the 2012–2050 period and would require regulated entities to hold rights, or allowances, to emit greenhouse gases. After allowances were initially distributed, entities would be free to buy and sell them (the trade part of the program). Those entities that emit more gases face a higher cost, which provides an economic incentive to reduce emissions. Key elements of the bill include:^{[^^4]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-3)

Requires electric utilities to meet 20% of their electricity demand through renewable energy sources and energy efficiency by 2020.
Subsidizes new clean energy technologies and energy efficiency, including renewable energy ($90 billion in new subsidies by 2025), carbon capture and sequestration ($60 billion), electric and other advanced technology vehicles ($20 billion), and basic scientific research and development ($20 billion).
Protects consumers from energy price increases. According to estimates from the Environmental Protection Agency, the reductions in carbon pollution required by the legislation will cost American families less than a postage stamp per day.
It sets a slightly higher target for reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases than that proposed by President Barack Obama. The bill requires a 17-percent emissions reduction from 2005 levels by 2020; Obama has proposed a 14 percent reduction by 2020. Both plans would reduce United States' emissions by about 80 percent by 2050. Complementary measures in the legislation, such as efforts to prevent tropical deforestation, will achieve significant additional reductions in carbon emissions.
It includes a renewable electricity standard (almost identical to a renewable portfolio standard, but narrowly tailored to electrical energy) requiring each electricity provider who supplies over 4 million MWh to produce 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources (such as wind, solar, and geothermal) by 2020. There is a provision whereby 5% of this standard can be met through energy efficiency savings, as well as an additional 3% with certification of the Governor of the state in which the provider operates.

Alternative compliance payments are $25/MWh in violation of the standard, adjusted for inflation beginning in 2010.

It provides for modernization of the electrical grid
It provides for expanded production of electric vehicles and other advanced automobile technology.
It mandates significant increases in energy efficiency in buildings, home appliances, and electricity generation.

The bill's cap-and-trade program allocates 85% of allowances to industry for free, auctioning the remainder.^{[^^5]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-ForbesStone-4) The revenue from these allowances will be used to finance conservation of tropical forests abroad and to support low-income households.^{[^^6]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-RFFStevenson-5) 30% of the allowances will be allocated directly to local distribution companies (LDCs) who are mandated to use them exclusively for the benefit of customers. 5% will go to merchant coal generators and others with long-term power purchase agreements.

[edit] CBO analysis of the bill

A study in June 2009 by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) indicated that the bill would be roughly deficit-neutral for the government over the next decade:^{[^^7]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-6)

"...enacting the legislation would increase revenues by $873 billion over the 2010-2019 period and would increase direct spending by $864 billion over that 10-year period. In total, CBO and JCT estimate that enacting the legislation would reduce future budget deficits by about $4 billion over the 2010-2014 period and by about $9 billion over the 2010-2019 period..."

The study also indicated that the tax burden on individual households would be limited:^{[^^8]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-7)

"...the net annual economy-wide cost of the cap-and-trade program in 2020 would be $22 billion—or about $175 per household...households in the lowest income quintile would see an average net benefit of about $40 in 2020, while households in the highest income quintile would see a net cost of $245. Added costs for households in the second lowest quintile would be about $40 that year; in the middle quintile, about $235; and in the fourth quintile, about $340. Overall net costs would average 0.2 percent of households’ after-tax income."

The analysis did not attempt to quantify the environmental benefits of reduced greenhouse gas emissions. The report also stated that the "net financial impact of the program on households in different income brackets would depend in large part on how many allowances were sold (versus given away), how the free allowances were allocated, and how any proceeds from selling allowances were used. That net impact would reflect both the added costs that households experienced because of higher prices and the share of the allowance value that they received in the form of benefit payments, rebates, tax decreases or credits, wages, and returns on their investments." In other words, while a cap and trade system imposes costs on high emitters, it can generate revenues for low emitters that sell permits to them. While the government sets the bar on emission levels, the market determines who gains and loses.

[edit] Public debate about the bill

[edit] Supporters of and arguments for the bill

The bill is supported by a number of environmental organizations including, the Defenders of Wildlife,^{[^^9]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-8) the Alliance for Climate Protection,^{[^^10]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-9) the Environmental Defense Fund,^{[^^11]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-10)^{[^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-Committee2454-11)^{12]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-Committee2454-11)^{[^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-EDF9854-12)^{13]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-EDF9854-12) the National Wildlife Federation,^{[^^14]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-13) The Nature Conservancy,^{[^^15]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-14)^{[^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-15)^{16]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-15) the Audubon Society,^{[^^17]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-16) the Natural Resources Defense Council^{[^^18]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-17) and the Sierra Club.^{[^^19]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-18) The League of Conservation Voters has threatened to withhold endorsements from any Representative who votes against the bill.^{[^^20]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-19) In addition to environmental organizations the Energy and Commerce Committee received letters of support from a broad range of organizations, including the United Auto Workers, Exelon, General Electric, Dow Chemical Company, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, and DuPont^{[^^12]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-Committee2454-11) The New York Times noted that "industry officials were split, with the United States Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers opposing the bill and some of the nation’s biggest corporations, including Dow Chemical and Ford, backing it."^{[^^2]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-nyt-1)

The Republicans for Environmental Protection (REP), a national grassroots organization, issued a press release after the vote stating "House passage today of the American Clean Energy and Security Act is a step in the right direction in the fight against dangerous climate change and for developing cleaner, more secure energy resources."^{[^^21]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-REP626-20) David Jenkins, REP vice president for government and political affairs, noted that "Doing nothing is not an option. The costs and risks of failing to limit greenhouse gas emissions are too high. We owe it to our country and to our country's future citizens to take action. Today, the House looked to the future and did the right thing for our economy, security, and environment."^{[^^21]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-REP626-20)

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated the discussion draft version of the bill to cost average households $98–$140 per year. A preliminary update of this study says that the changes "would likely result in lower allowance prices, a smaller impact on energy bills, and a smaller impact on household consumption."^{[^^22]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-21)

Economist Paul Krugman argued for the bill in September 2009, while attacking the bill's opponents: "It’s important, then, to understand that claims of immense economic damage from climate legislation are as bogus, in their own way, as climate change denial. Saving the planet won’t come free (although the early stages of conservation actually might). But it won’t cost all that much either."^{[^^23]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-22) During May 2009, he argued that a cap and trade system is better than a carbon tax. He explained how the incentives work:"Even when polluters get free permits, they still have an incentive to reduce their emissions, so that they can sell their excess permits to someone else. That’s not just theory: allowances for sulfur dioxide emissions are allocated to electric utilities free of charge, yet the cap-and-trade system for SO2 has been highly successful at controlling acid rain."^{[^^24]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-23)

[edit] Arguments against the bill

Criticism has focused on ultimate costs and benefits of the plan. A report written for the Heritage Foundation on the discussion draft of the bill claims that the economy would react to this cap-and-trade system like it would to an energy crisis.^{[^^25]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-24) This same report also claimed that the impact on global temperature by the end of the 21st century would amount to a reduction of no more than 0.2° celsius.

Economist Arnold Kling said the bill "maximizes rent-seeking (favoritism toward particular businesses) and minimizes carbon reduction".^{[^^26]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-25) Other economists have argued that the bill will create significant financial costs. *The Wall Street Journal* accused the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) of significantly underestimating the bill's ultimate costs, pointing out supposed flaws in its calculations. The Wall Street Journal also suggested that the bill's costs would disproportionately affect lower-income households, for which the CBO estimates did not account.^{[^^27]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-26) *The New York Times* reported that the bill's provisions to levy tariffs on Chinese imports due to carbon emissions could provoke a trade war.^{[^^28]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-27) The Competitive Enterprise Institute argued that the bill was essentially the "largest tax hike in world history".^{[^^29]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-28) The American Petroleum Institute, which represents the petroleum and natural gas industry, said the bill would place "disproportionate burden on all consumers of gasoline, diesel fuel, heating oil, jet fuel, propane and other petroleum products", and by 2035, it would cause gasoline prices in excess of $4.00 per gallon by today's standards.^{[^^30]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-29)

Nuclear power plants generate minimal greenhouse gases, yet one critic wrote that the bill does not sufficiently advocate this clean power source. In response to this criticism, House of Representatives staff members wrote that the electricity generated by nuclear power requires the purchase of far fewer allowances than other forms of electricity generation; that the bill provides various types of financial support to build clean energy generating sources, including nuclear; and that an EPA study indicated that twice as many nuclear plants would be built if the law is passed versus the status quo.^{[^^31]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-30)

There is criticism that unless China and India adopt similar emissions standards, the impact on global climate will be insubstantial. This is largely an argument based on the leading role these two countries have obtained in carbon dioxide emissions which could reach 34% of the global total by 2030.^{[^^32]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-31)

Critics also note that the bill would create the largest market in carbon in the world. It would also "open up the so-called 'sub-prime carbon' market in carbon offsets, whereby industries can claim emissions reductions by investing in various projects around the world that theoretically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) claims it's virtually impossible to verify whether carbon offsets represent real emissions reductions.^{[^^33]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-32)"

On June 26, 2009, Reuters reported that "[s]tates that have set the U.S. agenda on addressing greenhouse gas emissions are lining up behind a federal climate bill, fearing signs of dissent would weaken a plan that still faces hurdles"^{[^^34]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-gardner-33) The article noted that representatives from members of the Eastern U.S. 10-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord, which joins six U.S. states with Canada's Manitoba, and the 11-state-and-four Canadian province Western Climate Initiative were supporting the legislation, even though the Eastern market member states, which have already been operating under a cap-and-trade system, "would lose a direct revenue stream of hundreds of millions of dollars if the federal plan were passed."^{[^^34]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-gardner-33) The three existing regional carbon cap and trade programs, which are in varying states of development, would likely be merged into the national plan, since "the federal 'cap-and-trade' plan pre-empts any similar state scheme from 2012 to 2017."^{[^^34]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-gardner-33) However, ACES leaves states the option of resuming trade of pollution credits after 2017 and "would allow holders of RGGI allowances to convert them into federal allowances, which means the states will likely hold auctions until the federal plan begins.^{[^^34]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-gardner-33)

Citizens Against Government Waste named both Reps. Waxman and Markey the May 2009 Porkers of the month for "adding and altering provisions to placate special interests and buy the votes of appropriately skeptical members of Congress".^{[^^35]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-34)

[edit] Debate among environmental organizations and scientists

While the Environmental Defense Fund^{[^^13]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-EDF9854-12) and many other environmental organizations strongly support the bill, other environmentalists have sharply criticized the legislation in its present form as too weak and have called urgently for it to be amended so as to include additional and more vigorous measures to protect climate and natural resources.

Some environmentalists have criticized the fuel efficiency standards in the "cash for clunkers" provision of the bill, because new cars would only need to get 22 MPG to be considered fuel efficient.^{[^^36]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-35)^{[^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-36)^{37]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-36) New SUVs and pickup trucks would only need to get 18 MPG to be considered fuel efficient.^{[^^38]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-37) Vehicles older than 25 years are not eligible for the program. CNN reported that "One of the biggest criticisms is that it's not very environmentally friendly."^{[^^39]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-38)

The New York Times has noted that "while some environmentalists enthusiastically supported the legislation, others, including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, opposed it."^{[^^2]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-nyt-1) Friends of the Earth, an international environmental organization, announced its opposition to ACES believing the bill to be too weak and cited support from Shell Oil Company and Duke Energy as evidence of the bill's shortcomings.^{[^^40]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-39) Environmental organizations critical of the bill say the bill falls short by allowing for 85 percent or more of pollution permits to be given away free of cost to the electricity sector. A coalition of environmental groups released a statement saying that "to craft a bill that allows for 2 billion tons of offsets per year — roughly equivalent to 27 percent of 2007 U.S. greenhouse gas emissions — is to allow for continued and dangerous delay in real action by our country at a time when the world is looking to the U.S. for leadership on climate change."^{[^^41]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-40) Critics of the bill about it not going far enough, claim that there were too many concessions made in rewriting the bill and that they gave into special interests.^{[^^42]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-41) Thus, making the bill weak and potentially harmful to the economy and environment.^{[^^43]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-42)

Dr. James E. Hansen, one of the first to warn about the risks of climate change and an advocate of taking related action, also has argued strongly against the bill: 1) It restricts the EPA's ability to regulate CO₂ emissions from power plants; 2) it sets "meager" targets for emission reductions, with only a 13% reduction by 2020; 3) it lacks certain controls important to the trading of allowances to emit carbon; and 4) fails to set predictable prices for carbon, making it harder for businesses and households to make investment decisions. Dr. Hansen advocates a carbon tax rather than a cap and trade system.^{[^^44]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-43) Alternatively, Senators Maria Cantwell and Susan Collins have introduced the Carbon Limits and Energy for Americas Renewal (CLEAR) Act. This bill proposes a Cap and Dividend approach in which 75% of the revenue to tax payers and the rest to development of renewable energy. ^{[^^45]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-44)

[edit] Media Response

News agencies Reuters & Agence France-Presse and United Kingdom newspaper The Guardian reported the narrow passage of the 'historic'^{[^^46]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-afphistoric-45)^{[^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-Guardian27-46)^{47]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-Guardian27-46) legislation in the House, regarding the vote to be a 'major'^{[^^46]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-afphistoric-45)^{[^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-47)^{48]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-47) and 'hard-fought'^{[^^46]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-afphistoric-45) victory for President Obama, while an Associated Press article, carried by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, reported the vote to be "a triumph for [the] U.S. President."^{[^^49]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-48)

The New York Times commented that "the House legislation reflects a series of concessions necessary to attract the support of Democrats from different regions and with different ideologies. In the months of horse-trading before the vote Friday, the bill’s targets for emissions of heat-trapping gases were weakened, its mandate for renewable electricity was scaled back, and incentives for industries were sweetened."^{[^^2]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-nyt-1) Business Week emphasized its perceived significance of the legislation and its passage in the House, declaring "June 26, 2009, will go down as an historic moment in world’s efforts to tackle climate change. For the first time, a Congressional body passed legislation that would place mandatory limits on the emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming."^{[^^50]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-49)

[edit] Impact on Copenhagen Climate Change Conference

It was reported that the passage of ACES in Congress would increase the likelihood that a successor to the Kyoto Protocol would be adopted at the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 in Copenhagen. The Guardian US environment correspondent noted that ACES passing the US House of Representatives "delivers an important boost to the prospects of reaching an agreement for international action on climate change at Copenhagen this year."^{[^^47]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-Guardian27-46) The NYTimes noted that "the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, who was in Washington on Friday to meet with Mr. Obama, strongly endorsed the bill even though it fell short of European goals for reducing the emissions of heat-trapping gases."^{[^^2]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-nyt-1)

[edit] Legislative History

It was offered as a "discussion draft" in the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on March 31, 2009.^{[^^51]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-50) A final version of the legislation was introduced on May 15, 2009 by the same title, assigned bill number H.R. 2454.^{[^^52]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-51)

On May 21, 2009, the bill passed out of the Energy and Commerce Committee by a vote of 33-25, largely falling along political party lines.^[citation ^needed]

[edit] Energy and Commerce Committee Markup

Republicans proposed over 400 amendments to the bill, the majority of which many think were proposed to delay passage.^{[^^53]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-52) Some of the more prominent from both parties are listed below:

[edit] 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.
Henry Waxman (D-CA) offered an amendment creating a classification of "central procurement state" that allows existing renewable energy legislation passed by states before January 1, 2009 to supersede some provisions of the bill.

[edit] Defeated

Mike Rogers (R-MI) offered an amendment that would have cancelled the Act unless China and India adopt similar standards.
Roy Blunt (R-MO) offered an amendment that would have cancelled the Act if the average price of electricity in a residential sector increases by 10% or more. After defeat, he offered a second amendment that would have cancelled only Title III (the cap-and-trade plan) of the Act if residential electricity prices rise by 20%. After defeat of this measure, George Radanovich (R-CA) offered a similar amendment that would have cancelled 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 would have cancelled the Act if average gas prices reach $5 per gallon.
Fred Upton (R-MI) offered an amendment that would have suspended the Act if the nation's unemployment rate for the prior year reaches 15% as a result of the Act.
Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) offered an amendment that would have required 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 that would have removed existing nuclear power from the baseline of the Renewable Electricity Standard. (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).^{[^^54]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-53)

By the end of May 20, 2009, 2 Republican and 24 Democratic amendments had been adopted. 15 Republican amendments had been defeated. No amendment sponsored by a Democrat had yet been defeated.

[edit] Rules Committee Resolution

At 3:47 AM on June 26, 2009, H.Res. 587 was reported to the house,^{[^^55]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-54) which amended H.R. 2454, adding to the bill. This resolution was passed by the house just hours later at 11:21 AM. Republicans complained that neither the public nor the Representatives were given adequate time to study the 310-page amendment.^{[^^56]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-55) Markey refuted Rush Limbaugh's assertion that the bill was not available at all, saying the bill was available to read on the internet and at the reading clerk's desk since the 3:47 AM reporting.^{[^^57]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-politifact-56)

[edit] Final debate and floor vote

Speaker Nancy Pelosi scheduled the vote for June 26, 2009.^{[^^58]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-57) The week leading up to the vote was marked by courting moderate Republicans and on-the-fence Democrats from rural and coal districts to support the legislation in what was expected to be a close vote.^{[^^59]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-politico32-58) On the day of the vote, Democrats were still working to ensure they had the votes needed to pass the bill. Republicans tried to pull back their proposed amendments, realizing they were giving the Democrats more time to corral votes, however, they were unable to pull their proposed amendments off the floor.^{[^^59]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-politico32-58) Shortly before the vote, John Boehner read aloud to the House from most of the 300 page amendment that was filed at 3:09AM on the day of the vote.^{[^^60]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-cqpolitics-59)^{[^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-60)^{61]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-60) His concern was that the House was going to vote on the bill before the members of the House had been able to read the amendment. Patrick J. Kennedy (D-RI) returned from rehab to cast an 'Yes' vote, and Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) delayed resigning the House to vote for the legislation as well.^{[^^60]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-cqpolitics-59)

The bill was approved by the House by a vote of 219-212, with 8 Republicans supporting, and 44 Democrats voting against, and 3 members not voting.^{[^^62]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-House_vote-61) All Representatives present at the time of the vote had cast votes. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Alcee Hastings (D-FL), and John Sullivan (R-OK) missed the vote due to 'a family conflict,' travel abroad in Albania, and 'alcohol addiction treatment,' respectively.^{[^^63]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-62)

Democratic votes against largely came from freshman in Republican-leaning seats, conservative "blue dog" democrats, as well as Democrats from areas dependent on coal for electricity or areas with large numbers manufacturing jobs.^{[^^2]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-nyt-1)^{[^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-House_vote-61)^{62]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-House_vote-61)^{[^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-63)^{64]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-63) However, some Democrats from liberal districts, like Pete Stark (CA) voted against the bill because he considered the bill 'watered-down.'^{[^^65]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-64) Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) voted against the bill because he considered the bill 'too-weak' and opposed offsets, among other similar criticisms.^{[^^66]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-65)

Republicans supporting the bill included Army Secretary nominee John M. McHugh and moderate Republican Main Street Partnership caucus members Mary Bono Mack (R-CA), Mike Castle (R-DE), Dave Reichert (R-WA), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Leonard Lance (R-NJ), Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ).^{[^^62]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-House_vote-61) Kirk and Castle are also members of the Republicans for Environmental Protection caucus.

[edit] Required annual reductions in GHG emissions

The table below summarizes the required GHG emission reductions (benchmark is 2005 emission levels)^{[^^67]^}(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act#cite_note-66):

Year	Required Annual Percentage
2012	3.0
2020	17.0
2030	42.0
2050	83.0

[edit] See also

[edit] References

**^** http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h2454/actions_votes
^ ***^a*** ***^b*** ***^c*** ***^d*** ***^e*** ***^f*** ***^g*** Broder, John (2009-06-26). "House Passes Bill to Address Threat of Climate Change". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/27/us/politics/27climate.html?_r=1&hp. Retrieved 2009-06-27.
**^** Hulse, Carl; Herszenhorn, David M. (2010-07-22). "Democrats Call Off Climate Bill Effort". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/23/us/politics/23cong.html.:{ }:
**^** Summary-House of Representatives-July 2009
**^** Stone, Andy (2009-06-24). "A Winner In The New Climate Legislation". *Forbes*. http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/24/climate-carbon-cap-and-trade-business-energy-carbon.html. Retrieved 2009-07-04.
**^** "Tropical Forest Conservation in Waxman Markey". Stevenson, Andrew. June 9, 2009. Retrieved August 28, 2009.
**^** CBO Analysis of Waxman-Markey June 2009
**^** CBO-Analysis of Waxman-Markey-June 2009
**^** Defenders of Wildlife Action Center
**^** 3cdn.net
**^** Climate 411 » Why This Is the Pivotal Climate Vote of Our Lives, Environmental Defense Fund
^ ***^a*** ***^b*** energycommerce.house.gov
^ ***^a*** ***^b*** Key Features of the American Clean Energy and Security Act, - Environmental Defense Fund
**^** NWF View National Wildlife Federation
**^** Climate Change - Climate Change: Climate Change Bill Heads to the House Floor The Nature Conservancy
**^** Carbon Cap: Who Supports It?, Environmental Defense Fund
**^** Audubon: Issues & Actions, Audubon Society
**^** Switchboard, from NRDC :: Michael Oko's Blog :: Climate and Energy Legislation: "Now is the Time to Act", Natural Resources Defense Council
**^** The Economist-Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop-September 2009
**^** LCV: No endorsement for climate bill foes - Glenn Thrush, POLITICO.com
^ ***^a*** ***^b*** Press Releases, Republicans for Environmental Protection (REP America)
**^** Samuelsohn, Darren (2009-05-19). "Revised House climate bill carries smaller price tag, EPA report says". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/05/19/19greenwire-revised-house-climate-bill-carries-smaller-pri-19116.html. Retrieved 2009-05-20.
**^** NYT-Paul Krugman-It's Easy Being Green-September 24,2009
**^** NYT-Paul Krugman-The Perfect, The Good, The Planet
**^** "The Economic Impacts of Waxman-Markey". The Heritage Foundation. 2009-05-13. http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/wm2438.cfm. Retrieved 2009-05-14.
**^** The Obama Pattern, *The Atlantic*, June 26, 2009.
**^** The Cap and Tax Fiction, *The Wall Street Journal*, June 26, 2009.
**^** Possible Plan for Tariffs on Imports From China Remains Alive in House Climate Bill, *The New York Times*, June 24, 2009.
**^** Trojan Hearse, *The New York Post*, June 25, 2009.
**^** Letter to Congress, American Petroleum Institute, June 23, 2009.
**^** Huffington Post-Steve Kirsch-Waxman-Markey: Three Unanswered Questions
**^** "International Energy Outlook, Chapter 7". Energy Information Administration. June 2008. http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/pdf/emissions.pdf. Retrieved 2009-05-20.
**^** Good News, There's a Climate Bill — Bad News, It Stinks, The Institute for Policy Studies, May 19, 2009
^ ***^a*** ***^b*** ***^c*** ***^d*** Gardner, Timothy; Henderson, Peter (2009-06-26). "Green states lining up behind U.S. climate change bill". Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE55P6KF20090627. Retrieved 2009-06-27.
**^** "Reps. Henry Waxman and Edward Markey CAGW’s May Porkers of the Month". Citizens Against Government Waste. May 2009. http://www.cagw.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=11276. Retrieved 2009-07-11. ^[dead ^link]
**^** Belson, Ken (May 6, 2009). "Congress Close on ‘Cash for Clunkers’". The New York Times. http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/06/congress-close-on-cash-for-clunkers/?hp. Retrieved April 23, 2010.
**^** "Dems Finally Stop Pretending Cash-for-Clunkers Is an Environmental Bill". *Washington Independent*. May 19, 2009. http://washingtonindependent.com/43628/dems-finally-stop-pretending-cash-for-clunkers-is-an-environmental-bill.
**^** Crawley, John (June 2, 2009). "Senate set to consider plan to boost auto sales". Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE5515YB20090602?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews.:{ }:
**^** Willis, Gerri; Finance, Personal (June 10, 2009). "Money for your gas guzzler". CNN. http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/10/pf/saving/cash_for_clunkers.
**^** Friends of the Earth U.S.
**^** redd-monitor.org^[unreliable ^source?]
**^** Power, Stephen (2009-06-27). "Impact of 'Offsets' to Limit Emissions Is Uncertain". Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124605745731563541.html. Retrieved 2009-06-27.
**^** http://theclean.org^[unreliable ^source?]
**^** Hansen, James (2009-07-09). "G-8 Failure Reflects U.S. Failure on Climate Change". The Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-james-hansen/g-8-failure-reflects-us-f_b_228597.html. Retrieved 2010-01-10.
**^** Eilperin, Juliet (2010-04-12). "CLEAR Act delivers, study says". The Washington Post. http://views.washingtonpost.com/climate-change/post-carbon/2010/04/clear_act_delivers_study_says.html. Retrieved 2010-05-05.
^ ***^a*** ***^b*** ***^c*** AFP: US House passes historic climate change bill:
^ ***^a*** ***^b*** Goldenberg, Suzanne (2009-06-27). "Barack Obama's US climate change bill passes key Congress vote". London: The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jun/27/barack-obama-climate-change-bill. Retrieved 2009-07-07.
**^** House passes landmark climate change bill, Reuters
**^** U.S. House passes climate change bill, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
**^** House Passes Carbon Cap-and-Trade Bill - BusinessWeek
**^** "Chairmen Waxman, Markey Release Discussion Draft of New Clean Energy Legislation". Committee on Energy and Commerce. 2009-03-31. http://energycommerce.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1560&Itemid=1. Retrieved 2009-04-04.
**^** "Chairmen Waxman and Markey Introduce "The American Clean Energy and Security Act"". Committee on Energy and Commerce. 2009-05-15. http://energycommerce.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1622:chairmen-waxman-and-markey-introduce-the-american-clean-energy-and-security-act&catid=155:statements&Itemid=55. Retrieved 2009-05-19.
**^** "Waxman Seeks Bipartisan Help in Passing Climate Bill". Bloomberg. 2009-05-18. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=aCOW1G1GFgAQ&refer=energy. Retrieved 2009-05-20.
**^** "U.S. Electricity Generation Fuel Shares". Nuclear Energy Institute. April 2009. http://www.nei.org/resourcesandstats/documentlibrary/reliableandaffordableenergy/graphicsandcharts/uselectricitygenerationfuelshares. Retrieved 2009-05-21.
**^** "House actions on H.R. 2454". http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:HR02454:@@@S.:{ }:
**^** "EPW Republicans to Majority: American Public Deserves to Know What Is In the Global Warming Bill". 2009-07-07. http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=567bcb03-802a-23ad-43b2-c9ad4c60bf02.
**^** Richert, Catharine. "Limbaugh claims the climate bill wasn't written when it came up for a vote". Politifact, St. Petersburg Times.. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/jul/09/rush-limbaugh/limbaugh-claims-climate-bill-wasnt-written-when-it. Retrieved June 29, 2009.
**^** O'Connor, Patrick (June 23, 2009). "Nancy Pelosi to bring climate change bill to floor". Politico. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/24068.html. Retrieved 2009-07-02.
^ ***^a*** ***^b*** http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/24232.html
^ ***^a*** ***^b*** http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docid=news-000003154783
**^** http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2009/06/26/house_gop_leader_boehner_filibusters_cap-and-trade_bill.html
^ ***^a*** ***^b*** ***^c*** Roll call vote 477, via Clerk.House.govl
**^** http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/rep.-kennedy-returns-for-climate-vote-2009-06-26.html
**^** http://www.swingstateproject.com/
**^** The Online Office of Congressman Pete Stark - STATEMENT OPPOSING WATERED-DOWN GLOBAL WARMING LEGISLATION:
**^** Dennis Kucinich Lays Out Why He Voted Against Clean Energy Act, Cleveland Leader
Summary of Clean Energy and Security Act http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:HR02454:@@@D&summ2=m&