Obama Projects Carbon Cap Revenue in 2010 Budget
During President Obama's first address to a joint session of Congress last Tuesday, Obama specifically asked for Congress to send him legislation that puts a cap on carbon, though it was unclear whether it would be this year or in 2010. "To truly transform our economy, to protect our security and save our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to ultimately make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy," Obama said. "So I ask this Congress to send me legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy in America. That's what we need."
Two days later Obama released his proposed budget which includes revenues from a carbon cap system of nearly $650 billion between 2012 and 2019. About $60 billion would go toward Obama's middle class tax cut each year beginning in 2012 and the government would invest $15 billion on "clean" energy technologies annually-including "clean" coal. House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said a carbon cap would increase taxes and raise energy prices, but a White House official said Obama's cap-and-trade system would provide taxpayers with direct payments to help cope with higher prices. The budget also calls for a $19 million increase for the EPA to use on a greenhouse gas emission inventory, which will help identify baseline levels of carbon emissions and set the foundations for a cap-and-trade system.
Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) wasn't ready to say if he would include Obama's funding assumptions for a carbon cap in the nonbinding fiscal 2010 budget resolution. Senator Boxer said she is looking using the budget reconciliation process as an avenue for passing carbon cap legislation. Budget reconciliation bills cannot be filibustered and therefore do not require a 60 vote threshold to bring the legislation to a vote. Using the budget reconciliation process to pass policy items is controversial. "I'm not in favor of using the budget as a backdoor approach to dealing with climate change," argued Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), who is one of 15 moderate Senate Democrats who have teamed up to work on some of the key underlying issues in a carbon cap bill. "And I think these issues are so important that they need to be fully vetted and the place to do that is on the floor." Read more at New York Times
