Why can’t we get it right on Climate Change: SB 5735?

We must break our dependence on foreign oil and reduce green house gases.  However, we must do it in a thoughtful and deliberative manner that does not leave our state exposed to another Enron, our businesses downsizing due to uncertainty, or our citizens with excessive utility, food, and gas costs.

You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.     ---Lyndon Johnson

•    The Governor’s Office led a valiant effort to try and craft a final regional Climate Change bill for 2009, but the product leaves even the most basic questions unanswered.  Who is covered by the legislation, how will market manipulation be prevented, why has no detailed state economic analysis been conducted --- none of these questions are answered.  Delays in the negotiations at the regional level have resulted in a bill that delegates all the key decisions to unelected bureaucrats at the Department of Ecology. 

•    The original legislation not only requires utilities and large businesses to pay the cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but would permit taxing the remaining emissions --- no cap and trade here, this is pay and pay!  Proponents want an auction for all remaining emission credits to fund still more government programs. 

•    If similar legislation passed there is no question that to stay competitive many businesses would move their jobs to other areas without such uncertainties --- Texas or India anyone?  What business is going to expand when they have no idea what energy will cost them in three years.

We need to do it right, conduct a detailed economic analysis, compare the results with other options, and then draft real legislation.  Fortunately, this is the direction the State Legislature appears to be taking --- unfortunately, they are adding new problematic issues.  One thing is clear, any solution will work better at the national level.

In my 15 years in the Legislature, this is probably the biggest piece of

legislation I have ever seen. Its impact on you and your family would be

enormous. Unfortunately, a lot of the key questions regarding how the

program will be run and how much it will cost the taxpayers have either

been left unanswered or delegated to the Department of Ecology. This bill

is bad for electricity consumers, bad for workers and disastrous for our overall
economy. --- Senator Jim Honeyford

For more details see here.