2007: Dems open campaign to 'Green the Capitol' / Plan seeks to cut House's energy use 50% in 10 years - SFGate
The House will turn to the Chicago Climate Exchange to buy contracts offsetting 24,000 tons of carbon emissions, a move that will cost about $95,000 a year. [Note these offsets are currently selling for about a dime each.] These contracts cover carbon-reducing projects elsewhere in the country of the same size.Green the Capitol | Use Celsias.com - reduce global °Celsius
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced the “Green the Capitol ” initiative in 2007 in order to demonstrate that the House was ready to back its talk on green energy with change. The initiative made plans to make the House carbon-neutral by the end of the 110th Congress, cut overall energy consumption, and transform the Capitol into a model of sustainability for the nation.Letters to the Editor: Offsets Are Crucial in Cap and Trade - WSJ.com
...
The plan initially faced opposition, but the leadership of Dan Beard and Nancy Pelosi has been instrumental in ensuring the plan’s implementation, notes Alison Rogers, Green the Capitol Education and Outreach Coordinator.
As Ted Gayer of the Brookings Institution has pointed out, it was offsets that wrecked Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Green the Capitol initiative, when the supposed emissions reductions purchased from the Chicago Climate Exchange were found to be illusory. The House didn't learn from this experience, of course, and included more provisions for offsets in its cap-and-trade bill because offsets reduce the ruinously high cost of cap and trade, at the expense of lowering any actual reduction in emissions.
With offsets, cap and trade will merely increase energy costs for Americans. Without them, we'll get some real emissions reductions at a price no one is prepared to pay. That, sadly, is what cap and trade for greenhouse gases is really all about.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment