Editorials say climate’s ripe for climate bill

The landmark climate-change bill approved by a key House committee may be a whipping boy for Fox News and Rush Limbaugh But the legislation won strongly favorable reviews last week on U.S. newspaper editorial pages.

If anything, the most searing (certainly the most cogent) criticism of the Waxman-Markey carbon “cap-and-trade” bill came from editorial writers who believe it doesn’t go far enough. Among those was Boston Globe:

[I]n an attempt to build broad support for the measure, sponsors Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Henry Waxman of California have given away too many allowances, reducing pressure on firms to curb their emissions. …

The bill’s supporters say auctioning off all allowances would put too many industries, such as steel, at a competitive disadvantage with foreign rivals. But a strong US climate-change bill would give US negotiators the clout they need in upcoming global climate talks to insist on similar reductions in other nations, leveling the economic playing field.

Favorable editorial treatment during just one step toward passage is just a snapshot. The legislation still hasn’t passed the full House, and in July, the Senate’s expected to become the real battleground over passage. Surely by then the Wall Street Journal will weigh in, as will other papers.

Still, the snapshot provides a hint that — despite hardening skepticism over global warming in some quarters — support for action reaches from the far left to moderate conservatives. At least, that’s the case again and again when a reasonably impartial editorial board weighs the facts.

Yes. Yes. Everyone knew the New York Times would arrive at that conclusion. But at least two Texas newspapers endorsed the legislation, including the usually conservative Houston Chronicle:

Like sausage making, the process has been messy, but the potential results hold promise: the first serious national effort to combat global warming.
A spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute complained that refiners were getting shortchanged with just 2 percent of the free permits because they generate 4 percent of carbon emissions and will incur additional costs as a result. …
One indication of a good compromise is that it achieves a consensus but no one is completely satisfied. That appears to be what is happening with the Waxman-Markey bill.
With overwhelming scientific evidence that the threat of global climate change is real and accelerating, it’s imperative that the United States, the second-biggest producer of carbon dioxide, take a leading role in crafting solutions. This bill offers an opportunity to begin exercising that leadership.

The Waco Tribune said:

While the do-nothing crowd stews on the sidelines, those committed to doing something about climate change are fully engaged.
They include consensus-seekers in Congress. They include automakers. They include a coalition of businesses and industries. All have been prodded and nudged onto the playing field by a skilled president. …
So, it’s not just tree-hugging environmentalists. It’s not just Democrats. It’s not just climatologists. It’s leaders of many stripes answering the call on the biggest issue facing our planet.

In fact, newspapers from every region of the country voiced support for the bill. Among them were Kansas City Star:

A carbon tax would be the most effective way to change the behavior of industries that belch large amounts of greenhouse gases into America’s air.
The tax would cause coal-fired power plants and many other large polluters to invest in modern equipment that would reduce emissions. The tax would make it more expensive to produce power the old-fashioned way, which would encourage investment in cleaner and renewable energies such as wind and solar.
But there is, admittedly, a large problem with a carbon tax: Congress doesn’t have the spine to pass it, given the immense opposition from a wide variety of U.S. industries.
So President Barack Obama and many politicians, environmentalists and even some industry groups are coalescing around the next best idea.

The Seattle Times pointed to separate actions by Washington state and the Environmental Protection Agency, in addition to the Waxman-Markey bill, to conclude: “After years of debate, three tracks of activity — EPA, Congress and the governor’s office — [are] all moving in the same direction to confront a recognized hazard.”

The Salt Lake Tribune said the bill “marks a much-needed shift away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy … Anything less than this far-reaching legislation would not mitigate the global-warming crisis that could displace millions with rising sea levels, and bring drought, more wildfire, shrunken snowpack, severe weather and economic hardship to the West.

Even the little Bristol Herald Courier in Tennessee’s tri-cities region — not far from coal country — got into the act:

The Waxman-Markey bill is a plan the Congress should accept. The measure appropriately encourages alternative fuels and burning coal more cleanly, while reducing carbon in the atmosphere.
Opponents will aim to scare the public with overblown cost estimates, while greenies will downplay what citizens might pay or affects on industry.

As best I could tell from an Internet search, arguments that the bill would go too far were relegated to the movement-right Washington Times and a couple of smaller papers. According to the Washington Times:

Respected scientists are far from united on the issue. Reports in August from the International Geology Congress — and from other conferences or major scientific organizations in Canada, Japan, Australia and elsewhere — indicate majorities disagreeing with climate-change dogma. Republicans on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works have compiled a list of more than 700 well-credentialed scientists, including many who once believed in warming, who argue against the warming theory.

The Chattanooga Times/Free-Press repeated a Republican congressional refrain that the bill amounts to “the biggest tax increase in history” and attributed fears of global warming not to scientists but to “activists”:

When you breathe, you exhale carbon dioxide. When fuels such as coal, gas and oil are burned, carbon dioxide is released. The anti-greenhouse-gas activists fear that the result of too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will be entrapment of more of the sun’s heat, raising the temperature. Others note there are natural cycles of “global warming” and “ice ages,” apart from man’s activities.”

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