RFF seminar: toward a national energy policy

Attended a seminar at RFF yesterday, where scholars presented the results of a study on policy options for climate and energy. Objectives: reducing US oil dependence and domestic energy related CO2 emissions. Options seemed to be somewhat confirming common sense. I was impressed, though, by the eloquence of Jason Grumet, president of Bipartisan Policy Center, who commented on the study. No slides, a coherent story, beautiful sentences. And some insights in catchy phrases, like for example on cap-and-trade: "For cap and trade you basically have to trust two institutions: Washington and Wall Street. Congressmen have to explain to their constituents in the Midwest: listen, we're going to create a new commodity. It's called carbon and it's going to be worth x billion dollars. Those guys at the coast will manage it." He also shared his take on the odds for a climate and energy bill. He said there are elements that enjoy bipartisan support, like electrification of transportation, a shift toward LNG, technology R&D, performance standards, but also a cap on the power sector. About the latter he said: people get it; it's been successfully done before with other pollutants (SO2, NOx). Nevertheless, those elements seem to boil down to the leftovers that define the least common denominator. Besides, they don't include the policies that came out as most effective in the study, i.e. a tax on oil and carbon. Would be better than nothing, though, but enough to trigger the critical mass to save Greenland's ice and the grilling of the Southwest? Hope that the renewed public support for climate and energy legislation in the wake of the oil spill translates into a little more ambition and the opportunity for Obama, with the RFF study in hand, to deliver on his campaign promise prior to Cancún.