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TODAY Wednesday 16 July 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
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TODAY Wednesday 16 July 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
TODAY IN THE WORLD: A Muggy Day on The Hill
Poor Tim Wirth. It is astonishingly hot and humid for anyone in Washington during these days, but there are special burdens on the Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs. Yesterday he had to go his office in one of the warmest, muggiest sections of a city that, until recently, was sensibly abandoned by the national government for the months of July and August. Then he had to travel two miles or so up to Capitol Hill, where members of a House Commerce subcommittee lectured him about the unacceptably high costs of doing anything meaningful about climate change.
The occasion for the undersecretary's appearance was the release of an interagency study organized by the Commerce Department. The study tried to forecast the economic impacts of various strategies to meet various commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Particular attention was paid to the possible consequences of reducing emissions by the year 2010 to their levels of 1990. According to an article by John Fialka in this morning's Wall Street Journal, a "mid-range estimate" in the study predicted increases of 26 cents per gallon of gasoline, $53 per ton of coal, and two cents per kilowatt hour of electricity.
That doesn't sound so bad to me, actually, but the Members of Congress professed astonishment and dismay and the Administration representatives danced away from the numbers as nimbly as they could. Janet Yellen, head of the Council of Economic Advisors (who gave Carol Browner such a hard time over the recent Clean Air regs), told the subcommittee that the figures seemed high because they didn't reflect the savings to be realized by the Administration's plan for an international system of emission trading permits (explained in the Climate Change portion of our In The Trenches section). Moreover, she said, deft implementation of overall goals could convert a problem into an opportunity: "If we do it dumb, it could cost a lot, but if we do it smart, it will cost much less, and indeed could produce net benefits in the long run." That could be the mantra of the Clinton Administration.
The subcommittee members were skeptical of Ms. Yellen's confidence in the potential for clever tweaking and vigilant in defense of the industries that would be most affected by a real program to reduce emissions. Republicans were joined by powerful Democrat and ranking minority member John Dingell, whose district covers most of the Detroit-area automobile factories. According to John Cushman in this morning's New York Times, the influential Michigander subjected Ms. Yellen and Undersecretary Wirth to "sometimes blistering questioning."
For Mr. Wirth, the discomfort must have been particularly acute because he couldn't tell the subcommittee exactly what the Administration wanted. One year ago he surprised nearly everybody by announcing that the United States government would support an international climate treaty that enumerated specific emissions goals along a specific timetable. Since then, though, the Administration has refused to get specific about "specific." Yesterday the Undersecretary testified that precise targets would not be forthcoming until after a White House conference in October.
One problem with that scenario is that the final text of the climate treaty is supposed to be approved at a conference in Kyoto in December. No treaty is ever negotiated at a big conference, and the real wheeling and dealing and horsetrading will take place in sessions well underway by October. Will the Americans have an off-the-record position in these early talks? Will we let the Europeans push for tough standards so that we can then propose numbers that will appear to represent a reasonable compromise between North and South?
One thing for sure. We enviros need to crank out more studies between now and that conference in October. Willy-nilly, politicians and op-ed writers have already started to employ the reliable introductory clause of "According to a study by..." to demonstrate and ratify what they want to say. The American Petroleum Institute retained Charles River Associates to paint a doomsday picture of what would result from emission caps, and it's already being quoted widely. It would be no hard thing to paint a rosy picture. As Robert Repetto and Duncan Austin wittily detail in their new study ("The Costs of Climate Protection: A Guide for the Perplexed," available from the World Resources Institute), it's all a question of where you start and what you presume. Repetto and Austin identified "seven key assumptions that together account for more than 80 percent of the differences in economic predictions across sixteen models." When Undersecretary Wirth makes the Administration's post-October case, he should come armed with muscular studies of misleading exactitude, just like everybody else.
TODAY ON THE SITE
One of our High Five personalities hit the big time yesterday. Chuck Hassebrook, author of one of one of the Liberty Tree guides to agriculture, published a discerning piece on the New York Times Op-Ed page on the effects of inheritance taxes on intergenerational family farms. Congratulations to Chuck, his colleagues at the Center for Rural Affairs, and his good neighbors in Walthill, Nebraska.
Recent "Today" columns:
7/15: Plug for Planet Ark
7/14: Follow Me
7/11: Blood Sports
7/10: Oil and Taxes
7/09: Mexico
7/08: By the Sea, By the Sea
7/07: Huddled Masses
7/03: Three-Dot Environmentalism...
7/02: Bothersome Science
7/01: Forest for the Trees
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