Wednesday, May 9, 2007
About the Author
Roy Lenardson, a political consultant, is president of Strategic Advocacy in Scarborough.
Unless you've been overcome by heat exhaustion, you've heard of the climate-change crisis facing the planet.
Just about every media outlet in the country has heralded the imminent demise of our current temperate climate -- to be quickly followed by storms, disease and the collapse of all we know and love about our planet.
I disagree that humans are solely responsible for global warming, or that whatever happens will be as bad as we are now being told. History will prove that out in much the same way that global cooling in the 1970s melted away.
However, the public debate seemingly has set aside questions about the severity and the cause(s) of climate change.
As a result, the question facing policy makers in Augusta and Washington isn't whether we have a problem, but instead what can we do to fix it. Failing that, what can we do to make things less terrible than the dire predictions circulating daily? (Apologies to the readers who see the absurdity of it all.)
So let's focus on that.
First, let's begin with the easy stuff, like energy conservation. It would be tough to find many folks here in Maine who don't agree with the idea that using less energy saves money, and that saving money is a good thing. So using energy more efficiently is common ground.
After that, things get harder. Using energy sources that don't produce carbon seems like an easy solution, but we've seen adamant opposition to zero carbon sources like windmills and hydroelectric dams. And requiring customers to buy power from "alternative" power sources often costs more -- and that can make folks upset too.
This brings us to "RGGI," the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Maine has signed up with other northeastern states to tax carbon emissions from large electric power plants, and then use the money from the taxes to invest in energy efficiency and conservation.
Once the system is up and running, supporters of RGGI promise that we'll see lower energy costs in Maine, despite the new tax on electricity.
That's right -- the scheme is a polite term for "new taxes on your electric bill." It's probably worth noting that Mainers already pay some of the highest energy costs in the country.
The bill to implement RGGI in Maine is now before lawmakers. And in theory, RGGI's approach might make some sense. After all, the proposal contains an auction of emission allowances, a trading market for carbon credits, and a cap on total Maine emissions that ratchets down over time.
If the efficiency projects funded by RGGI work, maybe we can all save some money and reduce carbon emissions at the same time.
But wait a minute -- haven't we heard something a lot like this before? Just a few years ago Gov. Baldacci decided to tax health care insurance premiums and use the money to expand insurance coverage in Maine.
The tax was supposed to be offset by savings in the health care system, bringing lower insurance costs to us all.
But you'll have to search long and hard (outside the Baldacci administration and its close friends) to find anyone who still thinks that Dirigo Health Care is anything but a costly failed experiment. Certainly our health insurance costs aren't coming down, but the tax remains. And if we knew then what we know now, Dirigo never would have seen the light of day.
So let's look before we leap this time. Lawmakers can make big mistakes in the energy policy field. Perhaps you remember the stranded costs imposed on Maine ratepayers by bad decisions in the 1980s that wound up forcing us all to pay more than $1 billion in extra electric bills?
RGGI may work, or it may not. But before lawmakers implement new carbon taxes, they have an obligation to make certain that the promises that this new tax will lower our electric bills are really true, and not just an optimistic guess or a cynical sales pitch.
Maybe we should let some other states lead the way and prove RGGI's effectiveness before we subject Maine people to another tax experiment.
In truth, any tax that winds up costing us less than we pay now will be a first -- one for the record books.
In the meantime, could someone tell us exactly how much lower the temperature will be here in Maine in 2017 once this program has been in place for 10 years? That is the point of RGGI -- isn't it?
- Special to the Press Herald
Reader comments
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...don't bother replying since the answer to this rhetorical question is NONE, and worse yet, none expected for the forseeable future.
Carbon trading schemes are getting a lot of bad press lately, and smack of indulgences for the rich and powerful. Progressive environmentalists are now backing off on them, in favor of tighter emissions regulation....just the CAPS s.v.p.!
Linking energy efficiency with carbon trading was a stroke of political genius; but now that trading is in widespread us, we can more properly evaluate it's impact and decide is it best for Maine.
And for the record, Jim since you posit yourself as a climate expert, will you seperate out the human causes of global warming from the natural ones like increased solar radiation and reveal your connections with the NRCM, carbon trading companies, etc. report abuse
Notice the implication that the author is being paid off by big energy companies. This is straight out of the Global Warming Alarmist Handbook.
Nobody wants to discuss the science. They'd rather indict all those who don't believe the Global Warming cock and bull story forwarded by a disgraced and completely insane Al Gore.
Speaking of money, does anyone ever wonder about where the money comes from to pay the "climate scientists"? Hmmmm I smell a rat!
report abuse
Or perhaps you would notice that industrial scale users of electricity are on board with RGGI, people who would have the potentially highest new electric bills in this proposal. I say potentially, because the energy efficiency re-investment would result in dramatically lower energy use, and therefore cost. A win-win, that the industrial users can see.
The only people opposed are the power companies, I wonder why? Perhaps more efficiency equals less electric use, and less profit for the companies?
Does Mr. Lenardson do any work for them or aligned interests? I notice his lobbying form only says "telecommunications", but that he is also more broadly engaged as a grassroots consultant, something that doesn't necessarily get reported under Maine ethics law. Who are your clients, sir? If you work for the power companies at all, it should be disclosed.
If you don't work for the power companies, then your editorial is uninformed and weak at best, informed and deliberately misleading at worst.report abuse
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