Effort to curb global warming may stall

Economic slide alters priorities for lawmakers

By Dina Cappiello, Associated Press  |  October 13, 2008

WASHINGTON - The economic crisis gripping the nation may stall one of the main environmental objectives: capping the greenhouse gases that are blamed for global warming.

Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate, and both presidential candidates, continue to rank tackling global warming as a chief goal next year. But the focus on stabilizing the economy probably will make it more difficult to pass a law to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

At the very least, it could delay when the reductions would have to start.

"Clearly it is somewhere down the totem pole given the economic realities we are facing," said Tom Williams, a spokesman for Duke Energy Corp., an electricity producer that has supported federal mandates on greenhouse gases. Duke is a member of the US Climate Action Partnership, an association of businesses and nonprofit groups that has lobbied Congress to act.

Just months ago, chances for legislation passing in the next Congress and becoming law looked promising. The presidential candidates support mandatory cuts and a Democratic majority is ready to act on the problem after years of the Bush administration resisting federal controls.

But the most popular remedy for slowing global warming, a mechanism know as cap-and-trade, could put further stress on a teetering economy.

Under such a system, the government would establish a market for carbon dioxide by giving or selling credits to companies with operations that emit greenhouse gases. The companies can then choose whether to invest in technologies to reduce emissions to meet targets or instead buy credits from other companies who have already met them.

Representative Rick Boucher, Democrat of Virginia, said that in light of the economic downturn, a bill that would give polluters permits free of charge would be preferable.

"The first way we can control program costs is by not charging industrial emitters," said Boucher, who released a first draft of a bill last week with the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Representative John Dingell, Democrat of Michigan. Giving away right-to-pollute permits was one of the options.

Other Democrats, however, see a cap-and-trade bill - and the government revenues from selling permits - as an engine for economic growth.

"If you see this as a job creation opportunity for the US to develop the products that are then sold around the world, then you should be optimistic about what the impact of passage would mean for the American economy," said Representative Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts.

Conservative Republicans who were never fans of a law to curb greenhouse gases have used the economic downturn as a rallying cry.

Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the senior Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a blog entry this month, that the economic crisis "reinforces the public's wariness about any climate bill that attempts to increase the costs of energy and jeopardizes jobs," Inhofe said.

Senator John Warner, Republican of Virginia, a lead sponsor of a Senate bill to curb greenhouse gases that failed this year, acknowledged that the economy could lag when reductions in carbon dioxide would start. Warner said any bill should allow the president to decide on timing.