Graham: Use of reconciliation for health care will hurt climate effort - The Hill's E2-Wire

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Sunday that Democratic plans to use budget reconciliation to complete heath care legislation will “poison the well” for subsequent initiatives – including the climate and energy plan he’s crafting with Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.)

Economists: Graham-Kerry's Sector-Specific Approach to Carbon Limits is Less Efficient | SolveClimate.com

James K. Boyce, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who recently testified before Congress in support of another bipartisan climate bill, submitted by Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), concurs.

“You want to treat all carbon molecules the same, not distinguish between, say, carbon coming from a coal plant and carbon coming from gasoline,” says Boyce. “If you favor one, you're doing that to please your lobbyists, but there's an efficiency cost in doing so. And that efficiency cost gets passed along to the American public.”

The warning that a sector-specific approach enables industry cronyism is echoed by other economists.

Compass: Sleepless in San Francisco -- My First Day at the Sierra Club

Looking forward, here are a few of the projects we want to complete:

Shut Down Big Coal -- the Sierra Club and a diverse, bottoms-up network of grassroots community groups has stopped the construction of more than 115 coal-fired power plants, and we'll continue to fight the remaining coal plants still on the drawing boards. It's a good start to a much more ambitious project. Over the next twenty years, Sierra Club staff, volunteers, and our allies across the country will work to retire the existing fleet of more than 500 dirty coal plants and replace them with the efficient use of clean, renewable energy resources. Coal is the top source of greenhouse gas emissions and mercury poisoning, and according to Physicians for Social Responsibility contributes to four of the five leading causes of death in the United States. Putting Big Coal in America's rearview mirror will create more jobs, make Americans healthier, and is the single most effective thing we can do to fight global warming. Let's shut down Big Coal in this generation.

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