President-elect Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats might bypass major congressional debate and begin to construct a national cap-and-trade mechanism through regulation at the Environmental Protection Agency.
Background is here.
A transition official said that the idea is under consideration. A second transition official calls the idea "absurd."
Phil Schiliro, appointed to be Obama's legislative director and a long-time former chief of staff to Rep. Henry Waxman, fought for a full decade to put the Clean Air Act into law. His chief nemesis for most of that decade was Rep. John Dingell, who used his perch as on the House Energy and Natural Resources Commerce committee to water down climate change legislation. Schiliro's former boss, Waxman, is now the chairman of that committee, having ousted Dingell in a floor vote.
Schiliro declined to comment.
Using the EPA to knit together various state emission credit regimes would be the first step towards a national cap-and-trade system. Obama promised during his campaign to use the proceeds the government earns from auctioning off the pollution credits to invest in green jobs. Without a new government auction, Obama would have to find a new source for the money, because states currently profit from the auctions. Also: a national cap-n-trade program would theoretically be more efficient and cost-effective than several systems.
Putting billions into the first stimulus package might be a downpayment, allowing Obama to postpone Congressional legislation, but not at the expense of the cap-and-trade system itself.
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