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  • Waxman-Markey Secrets Revealed!

    By G. Rendell June 4, 2009 4:34 pm

    Is it the road map to a brave new world? The end of Western civilization as we know it? Both? Neither?

    HR 2454, the so-called "Waxman-Markey bill," is the subject of a lot of rhetoric that's generating more heat than light. Major firms in fossil-fuel-dependent industries are spending mega-bucks to convince Congress that the current economic situation (which many of these same firms helped create) is just too risky for any such major course change. Green groups (and yours truly) find it better than no bill at all, but can be optimistic only by considering it as the first step down a long road which the previous administration wasn't willing to consider at all.

    Now Grist, a leading online magazine with a significant emphasis on sustainability issues, has come out with the best summary I've seen of just what the 900+ page legislation contains. It's still kind of long, but both easier to digest than the legislative language and more informative than the rantings of cave-dwellers like me.

    If you live in the USA, you owe it to yourself to learn more. If you work on a campus, the implications of Waxman-Markey (or whatever related bill finally gets enacted) will factor into your climate action plan, energy conservation plan, campus master plan and (in the not too distant future) annual budget.

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Comments on Waxman-Markey Secrets Revealed!

  • W/M may be most important bill ever
  • Posted by Dr. Mary Landon Darden , Consultant at Darden Consulting on June 5, 2009 at 11:15am EDT

  • Waxman-Markey is certainly the most important bill of our lifetime. Unfortunately, it has been profoundly weakened by a few legislators who have placed the interest of big-business polluters ahead of the concerns of public health and the future of our world.

    For those people who care about the future of the planet, the quality of our air and water, and the kind of world that our children will inherit -- but at the same time are busy and have little time or money to give to the cause -- the single most powerful thing that you can do to impact the future in a positive way is to contact your representatives of Congress and tell them that you want this Bill to be strengthened to the maximum and passed. Find your represetnatives at: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/

    I believe it is our one shot at rapidly developing a widespread green environment and economy and, perhaps, our only shot for the U.S. to significantly impact global warming.

  • Kill the Bill with the Poison Pill
  • Posted by John , Citizen at PSU on June 25, 2009 at 9:45am EDT

  • Call your congressman and tell them to kill the bill, before it kills most of what's left of our industrial base. Not the whole thing mind you, just the companies that the administration does not favor.

    What will be created is a system of favoritism. Large politically connected companies will receive all the free pollution permits they require, while small firms will get nothing. This is the same as the government choosing to tax one company, but not another in the same industry. The free market will be crippled by government favoritism.

    Does it even matter that both Kyoto's and the EU's carbon credit schemes have already collapsed as unmanagable? Who will be the Carbon Police, and what new authoritarian powers will they have over our lives?

    Everyone would support this bill if it were only about renewable energy and energy savings, but the carbon credit scheme is a poison pill which ruins the bill. Call your Congressman and tell him to kill the bill with the poison pill.

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