ENERGY/CLIMATE BILL ENDORSED

Flawed energy bill beats current policies
Editorial, May 15, 2010 (Detroit Free Press)

"Congress should tune out the naysayers and skeptics who suggest the timing is all wrong for an energy bill...Continued dithering will do more harm than almost any change in policy...

"...Senate action on the Kerry-Lieberman bill...would end the uncertainty that is delaying decisions in some cases and prompting rash actions in others. The bill attempts both to cut down on global warming gases and to limit the country's dependence on oil, and, with some quickly inserted new safety provisions, even includes offshore drilling in U.S. waters."

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"Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., have come up with a decent framework for ratcheting back on carbon dioxide emissions through a well-regulated cap-and-trade system. Much of the increased costs to utilities for participating would be rebated back to customers, greatly minimizing the impact on everyone's electric bills.

"In other respects, the American Power Act is a sort of feeding frenzy for energy interests, with chum for the nuclear power industry, farmers, natural gas producers, spurious clean-coal development and alternative energy boosters...Americans probably would rebel at anything that smacked of more detailed planning."

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"Americans, at least as Congress perceives the country, also are allergic to anything that threatens access to cheap energy. Hence the costs will be routed through subsidies, research grants and tax credits. This disguises the economic impact without giving consumers the price signals that might actually help them modify behavior -- but it apparently is the best that can be hoped for.

"Flawed as all this may seem, the bill is far superior to the status quo. Enactment of an energy plan, besides giving U.S. industries the certainty they need, would commit the country to serious work on alternative forms of energy -- a realm in which the U.S. has fallen increasingly behind other countries and which is expected to generate a strong wave of new jobs...The energy bill should stay on the Senate's front burner."