Ben Buckman.net

An anonymous citizen-journalist is following and reporting on the ongoing debate in Congress over ACES (the American Clean Energy and Securities bill, aka Cap&Trade, aka Climate bill) on a blog and twitter.

The Republican plan is to stall the bill with hundreds of bullshit amendments.

They're arguing that Cap & Trade, the cornerstone of the bill, will hurt the economy, have no positive economic impact, and that CO2 isn't really a pollutant after all. (We need it to live! after all. We need water to live too but wouldn't like our beach houses to be under it!)

Cap & Trade is inherently murky. No one really understands how it'll work. It's incredibly prone to political games that can undermine its whole purpose, even make it counterproductive. But the essence is simple and sound: to internalize the costs of unsustainable energy use into the market. Discourage CO2-emitting/dirty energy, encourage alternative/sustainable/clean energy, by harnessing market forces (and more than a healthy dose of subsidies, tax breaks, and so forth) to change the trends (of energy and the economy) in positive directions.

Will it create millions of "green collar" jobs overnight? Obviously not. But neither will it kill millions of jobs either: contrary to popular belief, we're a very innovative society, especially when forced to be, and there's nothing like a good incentive. Will cap&trade reverse global warming, bring pack the polar ice caps, and keep Boca Raton above sea level in 100 years? Probably not, either. But worst case scenario is, we end up with an economy based on cleaner, more sustainable energy, fewer systemic market failures from externalities, and an innovative edge over the rest of the world. Definitely a bill worth killing!

Why the Republicans haven't seized cap&trade as the greatest thing since sliced bread, I really don't understand. Rather than try to destroy the concept, they should have co-opted it and worked to make it leaner, smarter, less pork-infested. Cap&Trade done right should be the free-market-meets-21st-century-reality silver bullet policy. But they're not reality based. Human-caused warming is a "theory," not a "fact." Like evolution. The party of free markets, whose candidate couldn't admit we had an economic crisis because our workers are so smart, is promising doom and gloom if the status quo gets jolted. What a damn shame, for them. And hopefully a big step forward for the rest of us.