Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish — Doing Better on Climate Change

4 Comments

The Boxer-Lieberman-Warner (S 2191) cap-and-trade bill died a death Friday when it couldn’t get past a Republican filibuster.The bill would have created a carbon cap and trade emissions market that would have required power plants, refineries and factories to pay for the privileges of polluting the environment and contributing to global warming. This bill aims to cap and reduce emissions roughly 19 percent below today’s levels by 2020 and 70 percent by 2050.

But this bill has many fatal flaws including:

  • Pollution reduction goals that don’t go far enough. The current best science (as detailed in the IPCC) would require a reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by covered sectors by 85 percent by 2050. (This reduction is to keep temperatures from rising another 3.5 degrees) The Senate legislation does not achieve all the reductions that will likely be needed, and certainly as fast as climate change science is evolving, it seems reasonable to expect the ability to accommodate quicker or greater reductions in the future.

SEU Oversight Board Authority Expired

30 Comments

There was some question around here last week about whether or not the SEU was acting within the law that created them. There was an allegation that their term had expired per statute. Here is the pertinent part of the law:

There is hereby created the SEU Oversight Board which shall, from passage of this Act until January 31, 2008, consist of all members of the Sustainable Energy Utility Task Force (“Task Force”) appointed pursuant to Senate Concurrent Resolution 45 from the 143rd General Assembly and Senate Concurrent Resolution 6 from the 144th General Assembly. By December 31, 2007 the Task Force shall recommend to the General Assembly the composition of the Board to serve after January 31, 2008.

So according to this, their term expired on January 31st, three and a half months ago. I spoke to an assistant to Senator McDowell and confirmed that, indeed, the authority was not renewed. On the recommendation of counsel, they have continued to operate as if they were still a legal entity. This may explain why they were unable to answer whether of not they were a public body in their last meeting. According to my source, they are continuing to meet in order to solicit input on how to structure the permanent SEU oversight board.

I contacted Tyler Nixon for comment (note to self, never ask a lawyer for a comment without specifying a maximum number of words). Mr. Nixon’s full comment is below the fold.

Senator Harris McDowell, and any other person knowingly and/or wilfully disregarding Del C. 29 Sec. 8059(e)(1), is unlawfully operating a rogue quasi-agency by purporting to hold meetings and make decisions dispositive of the Sustainable Energy Utility’s future, months after the former SEU Oversight Board’s authority expired.

Report from the SEU Meeting

30 Comments

Things are quiet here at work this week, so I had some time to make it out to the SEU meeting at the Buena Vista Conference Center. I have never been to one of these sorts of meetings before, so I was a bit tentative. Luckily, there were some pretty smart and experienced people on hand to challenge the board.

John Kowalko was in attendance as an interested observer, as was John Flaherty. Both of them asked questions, but we all left a little disappointed. It should be noted that Copeland was the last to arrive (sorry about your dog, Charlie) at 10:29 and gave the board quorum. At 10:39, Patty Blevins had to leave, breaking quorum. So there were really only 10 minutes of official business. Half of that time was spent approving a letter written by the board’s attorney to address conflict of interest concerns. The other half was spent approving the minutes from the last meeting.