A quick comment on Waxman-Markey and logic

Something that visitors here might be interested in reading: Over at good old Blog Meridian, I have a post up on illogical--but sound--reasons for supporting Waxman-Markey (the huge cap-and-trade/renewable energy bill that just passed the House of Representatives. Here's an excerpt:

If you've read this blog for a while, you've probably figured out without my telling you that I'm in favor of the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the complex cap-and-trade, reduction-in-carbon-based energy, investment-in-alternate-energy legislation that just passed the House of Representatives and faces an admittedly uncertain future in the Senate. My reasons for supporting it, though, include one that may surprise many of you, given that a) it's not usually one that comes up in the debates about the bill and b) that its source is John McCain.

I'll talk about (b) first because it will lead inexorably to (a). At some point during last year's campaign (the primaries, I believe), during a debate when the question was about climate change legislation, McCain said something to the effect that even if reducing carbon emissions does little or no good in affecting what may after all be a naturally-occurring phenomenon, there are still-indisputable goods to be obtained by passing such legislation: a cleaner, healthier environment and greater self-sufficiency (political as well as economic) due to reduced dependency on foreign oil. I agreed with very little McCain offered up as reasons to vote for him, but on these points, at least, he was absolutely right (and would be now, if he still felt it expedient to make them). However, it's equally indisputable that one reason these points don't get raised is that, as desirable as these things are, you can't quantify them so as to include them in any of the various cost-benefit analyses being offered up in support of or against Waxman-Markey. Thus, they become inadmissible as evidence.

Just once, I wish someone would come along and say, When clean-water and clean-air legislation were enacted in the '70s, businesses pitched fits about their increased costs and having to pass those costs on to consumers. Well, sure: and as a result we pay more because businesses were forced to change behavior they were very likely not to have changed out of the goodness of their hearts (because there was a time when it cost literally nothing to dump waste as people saw fit, air and soil and water quality be damned--and it showed, I well remember those days). But is anyone opposed to Waxman-Markey, or anyone opposed to "excessive government regulation," seriously going to argue that that our quality of life would be better if not for the creation of the EPA, given the clear road we'd been heading down? The resounding No we'd hear, true, doesn't fit into a strict cost-benefit analysis, but the fact that it shows people prefer--and benefit from--cleaner air and water surely needs to figure into this debate. Or have our cleaner air and water become such givens (the '60s and '70s becoming ever more distant memories for many of us) that they strangely seem negligible as a consideration?

An uneducated argument for a smart(er) gas tax

Image found here.

An anonymous commenter at this post left this comment, which I'll go ahead and post in full:

While I definitely agree with your musings on our consumerism and short attention spans, I do quibble with you on one point.

Are you serious? Put a higher tax on gasoline? I do believe the govt taxes us enough, thank you! And just what exactly would they do with that money? Misappropriation of funds is already at an all-time high. Let the people keep their money! Instead of a 7 whatever billion/trillion dollar bailout, why not give each person who filed a tax return get $500,000? It would have cost much less, and talk about stimulating the economy instead of giving it to banks who mismanaged it in the first place?

Anon., thanks, first of all, for dropping by and commenting.

The usual caveats: I'm by no means an expert on tax policy; although I'm inclined to believe that government on the whole makes our lives better than they would be otherwise, I, like everyone, have my own list of things government spends money on that, shall we say, could be better spent (and monitored)/shouldn't be spent. Recent bailouts included.

Given this blog's focus, though, I'd like to say a few words about the issue of a gas tax and the possible uses a higher--and smartly-applied tax--could be put to. Gas taxes are one of those quid pro quo taxes that, though we'd just as soon not pay them, we can see the purpose of: They usually go toward paying for building and maintaining streets and highways, helping to keep our taxes on income a little lower by taxing, instead, our consumption of something. It's perfectly reasonable to my mind, then, that those of us who drive should contribute a bit, every time we buy gas, toward offsetting the wear and tear our vehicles cause the roads.

But let's face it: owning and driving a car is a relative luxury even in the best of times, which our gasoline prices (dirt-cheap even with the taxes currently levied on it) have, up till this past summer, disguised just how good we have had it here in this country. But more urgently, our collective accommodation of that luxury has enormous costs. Maintaining all those roads is so expensive that much regular maintenance has been deferred (and deferred and . . . ). Providing parking spaces for cars is, frankly, a waste of space that--especially in urban areas--could be put to better use via the providing of more (and more affordable) housing, more (and more diverse) kinds of businesses; meanwhile, broad expanses of pavement increase run-off pollution and the potential for flooding via overtaxed manmade and natural drainage. (Aside: encouraging denser development has the added advantage of increasing tax revenues as well without raising rates of taxation, through increased property and sales tax revenues.) Cheap gas has also historically been a boon for food production (via farm mechanization and transportation); this summer's much-higher gas, though, gave those of us who bought food then a brief glimpse of how illusorily low our food costs are, too. Finally, the burning of carbon fuels is not good for us or for our environment, even if you don't think global warming is a problem. Not only are carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide not good to inhale, we've all gotten pretty flabby in large measure because our first thought when we need to go somewhere, no matter the distance, is to hop in the car rather than walk or ride a bike or, for longer distances, take a bus or carpool.

My commenter decries mindless and/or short-sighted consumerism, and s/he is right to do so. So why not levy a higher tax on this particular form of consumption? And, even better: why not direct the revenues generated toward the funding of mass transit, safer, more accommodating streets, the granting of seed money for manufacturers of cars that use alternate energy sources, for researchers looking for those alternate sources, for bicycle-renting programs, etc., etc., etc. The idea is analogous to how some cigarette-tax monies are used: Use that money to fund programs that ostensibly seek to counterbalance the effects of your consumption choice . . . and if, at some point, you decide that the cost of that consumption becomes higher than you're willing/able to pay, then good for you--and for all of us.

It's a strange thing: some become so fixated in their opposition to taxes that, quite apart from the issue of how is government going to do what we expect/need it to do without revenues, they can miss the point that in some instances, increased taxation--that is, the uses to which that increased revenue are put--can end up benefiting us far more than they cost us. Fewer people are smoking now than when I was growing up (I'm old enough to remember seeing cigarette ads on television); and we all benefit as a result, even if only indirectly: cleaner air, a reduced burden on our public health care system via the better health of those not smoking, etc. In a similar way, if higher gas taxes encouraged more people either not to drive or to drive less often, all of us--even those who keep driving--would benefit: less-congested streets and parking lots, cleaner air (again), better overall public health (again), etc. And, there'd be that much more gas available, and at lower prices, for those services which really will require gas for the foreseeable future: transportation and food and energy production.

As a consumer-oriented people who no longer have the means we once did to generate real wealth through manufacturing, our literal and figurative bills for living the way we have are coming due, or they soon will, and it will be harder to pay them as a result of that reduced means. A higher gas tax whose revenues are smartly spent with an eye toward reducing our consumption of gas would be an excellent step in the direction of making those literal and figurative bills a little easier to deal with.

Fruit from The Vine

The Vine is The New Republic's group blog on energy and environmental issues and policy. I thought I'd pass along some links to posts that connect either to cycling or to larger issues of which cycling is, potentially, a part.

In these excerpts from an interview with Joe Klein, Barack Obama demonstrates his grasp of the interconnectedness of issues--for example, how present methods of food production affect, obviously, not only food quality but also energy policy and health care issues.

Here is a brief discussion of how the credit crisis and recently-falling oil prices are affecting alt-energy projects.

This post examines the fact that highway projects have an easier time of receiving approval--and funding--in this country than do mass transit projects. The result: a backlog of transit projects awaiting approval while highway projects get the green light, as it were.

And finally, this post notes that over the past 30 years, California's efficiency regulations have created almost 1.5 million jobs while causing the loss of only 25,000 jobs, and this amazing tidbit:

[E]fficiency measures are far and away the quickest, cheapest way to make massive emissions cuts and curb energy use. In theory, if every state adopted the efficiency measures that California has on the books, we could cut electricity consumption by 40 percent and would never need to build a single new polluting power plant again—all without hiking energy bills. And, while some entities lose money (the electric power industry, say, or developers who have to spend more upfront on green buildings), everyone else ends up better off.

This is informed, thoughtful--and optimistic yet pragmatic--writing about best, smartest practices in environmental and energy policy. Go have a look.

Your trite environmental sentiment for the day

"We can all do something."

My long-time bloggy friend Pam of Tales from the Microbial Laboratory is, in terms of geography, about as far removed from Wichita as one could be: she lives on the South Carolina coast, where she conducts research on microbes that live among coral reef ecosystems. Oh--and she gardens and loves (good) poetry, too. But--the blogosphere being the strange place that it is, she and I have come to know each other, for which I'm glad.

Anyway. The other day, she posted a blurb on behalf of Al Gore's new project, We Can Solve It--and a rejoinder to those whose criticism not just of Gore but of other proposals to reduce our dependence on carbon-generated energy is, in essence, it'll cost too much/we shouldn't do anything until others do, too/What will we have to give up?/etc./etc.:

I think it's alot of baby steps - little changes that globally result in big changes - and old technologies coming back (rain barrels!) and new technologies coming forward.

I love this stuff because it makes sense. We need to get the price of icynene down to where we all can afford it. We need to quit taking our leaves to the landfill - and leaving them on our land. Grow your own lettuce in the winter. I'm tring to build a LEED certified home, and I'm saying 'no' to a paved driveway because...is it really necessary? I could go on, but I need to go back out into my garden and weed before it gets crazy-hot. But I guess how I feel is that we can all do something here - and the things we need to do aren't necessarily big or expensive. Just do something. It becomes contagious.

In response, I forwarded her a link I'd found somewhere--I don't recall now--to something called The PB&J Campaign, a project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs. Their goal is simple:

The PB&J Campaign is working to combat environmental destruction by reducing the amount of animal products people eat. The PB&J Campaign approaches positive change one meal at a time by illuminating the differences one single dining decision can make.

And here are some numbers to contemplate:

Each time you have a plant-based lunch like a PB&J you'll reduce your carbon footprint by the equivalent of 2.5 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions over an average animal-based lunch like a hamburger, a tuna sandwich, grilled cheese, or chicken nuggets. For dinner you save 2.8 pounds and for breakfast 2.0 pounds of emissions.

Those 2.5 pounds of emissions at lunch are about forty percent of the greenhouse gas emissions you'd save driving around for the day in a hybrid instead of a standard sedan.

If you have a PB&J instead of a red-meat lunch like a ham sandwich or a hamburger, you shrink your carbon footprint by almost 3.5 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions.

Full disclosure: I have no interest in becoming even a vegetarian, much less a vegan or some such--I do loves me the occasional rib-eye and pork ribs--but I've been choosing to eat much less meat of late, in large measure because of the sorts of statistics the PB&J Campaign highlights. There's also the not-insignificant matter of simply being mindful--and respectful--of where the vast majority of our beef, pork and chicken comes from and how it's produced: a process invisible to almost all of us these days. To my mind, the PB&J Campaign's great value is in making people more aware of the fact that environmental expenditures also figure into the statement "where our meat comes from."

So, yeah: "We can all do something." And all that little stuff, if done by enough people, adds up. So, go and make yourself the occasional PB&J.

Or, go ride a bike.