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Climate Bills Face a Setback

By Daniel Stouffer

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 30Jun2010 Word count: 552 Viewed: 384 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

Score one in the corner of the environmentalists, but just add additional complications for those trying to push through climate bills to finally bring the United States into the 21st century. The massive oil spill created by the collapse of BP's oil rig created immediate ecological and environmental concerns, but the repercussions were sure to reverberate throughout industry and government for some time.

Should the weather not cooperate and the massive oil spill reach the shores of Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida and other coastal states, the hangover will certainly last for a long time. Prior to the failure of the oil rig, passage of climate bills in 2010 was by no means a certainty. Politics and economic issues weighed heavily on the minds of legislators as they considered the Senate options. Progress was slow indeed.

Score one in the corner of the environmentalists, but just add additional complications for those trying to push through climate bills to finally bring the United States into the 21st century. The massive oil spill created by the collapse of BP's oil rig created immediate ecological and environmental concerns, but the repercussions were sure to reverberate throughout industry and government for some time.

Republicans tend to favor an increase in offshore oil drilling. They look at it as a way of achieving energy independence, even when every barrel of oil created in such a way is automatically floated on the open market pool anyway. It's not as if purchasers have the option of selecting oil from a particular location or source. As such, the notion of oil independence is something of a misnomer.

Advocates of alternative energy are seizing on the issues created by the BP oil spill and calling for climate bills to be tough and, to include additional capital for wind farms and solar projects. As a means of trying to push climate bills through, some suggest that funding should be diverted toward nuclear power projects and "clean coal" to try and entice enough politicians from both sides of the debate to sign up.

Climate bills being considered by Senate committees in 2010 are a far shadow of the really extensive legislation proposed by the other House. The ACES Act, as passed in 2009, suggests a comprehensive "cap and trade" option, to force down carbon emissions across the country.

The BP disaster could not have come at a worse time for proponents of climate change legislation. Pres. Obama has said that climate bills are the cornerstone of his administration's policy. Internationally, countries are calling for some kind of action from the United States, still one of the worst contributors to the overall issue of global warming and climate change.

The Kyoto protocol, ratified by the majority of countries around the world, agreed that climate change could not be controlled comprehensively unless some form of stringent action was taken by each country. While the European Union is far ahead of the majority of other countries, the United States of course fails to ratify Kyoto.

It seems that climate bills are not likely to emerge from the United States Congress until 2011, after the midterm elections. Meanwhile, the BP disaster is just another example of how fragile our energy infrastructure is and how each organization should ensure that it is not overly dependent on expensive forms of energy for its ongoing existence.

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