Global warming is of critical concern to Colorado and our planet. Greenhouse gases from coal-fired power plants that bring electricity to our homes and businesses, gas and oil that heat our homes, and emissions from the cars we drive are leading to increasing average temperatures across the planet.

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S. 2191, The Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act Bill Summary

The Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act (S. 2191) would establish a cap-and-trade program within the United States requiring a 70% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from covered sources, which represent over 80% of total U.S. emissions.  As amended, the bill also includes complementary policies such as a low carbon fuel standard and provisions aimed at enhancing energy efficiency.  Taken together, the bill's sponsors believe these provisions will reduce overall U.S. GHG emissions by roughly 63% to 66% by 2050.

The bill:

• Requires the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish: (1) a GHG registry; and (2) a GHG emission allowance transfer system for covered facilities, including specified facilities within the electric power and industrial sectors and facilities that produce or entities that import petroleum- or coal- based transportation fuel or chemicals.
• Sets forth emission allowances for 2012-2050, with a declining cap on GHGs.
• Provides for selling, exchanging, transferring, submitting, retiring, or borrowing emission allowances.  Establishes: (1) a domestic offset program to sequester GHGs in agriculture and forests; and (2) the Bonus Allowance Account.
• Establishes the Carbon Market Efficiency Board, which shall observe and report on the national GHG emission market and provide cost relief measures if it determines that the market poses significant harm to the U.S. economy.
• Provides for the distribution of emission allowances, including initially giving allowances to: (1) specified owners and operators of covered facilities; (2) states; (3) load-serving entities that deliver electricity to retail consumers; (4) the Secretary of Agriculture to reduce GHG emissions in the agriculture and forestry sectors; (5) international forest protection activities; and (6) the Emission Allowance Account for covered facilities in the electric power and industrial sectors.
• Establishes in the Treasury and provides for allocations from: (1) the Energy Assistance Fund; (2) the Climate Change Worker Training Fund; (3) the Adaptation Fund; and (4) the Climate Change and National Security Fund.
• Establishes the Climate Change Credit Corporation to auction emission allowances.
• Provides for the use of auction proceeds, including for a zero- or low-carbon energy technologies program, an advanced coal and sequestration technologies program, incentives for production of fuel from cellulosic biomass, and an advanced technology vehicles manufacturing incentive program.
• Amends the Energy Policy and Conservation Act to set forth provisions concerning appliance energy efficiency requirements and state building energy efficiency code updates.
• Requires the President to establish an interagency group to determine whether foreign countries have addressed GHGs.
• Directs the Administrator to establish an international reserve allowance program. Requires the proceeds from sales of such allowances to be used to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change on other countries' disadvantaged communities.
• Amends the Safe Drinking Water Act to require the Administrator to permit commercial-scale underground injection of carbon dioxide for purposes of geological sequestration.
• Requires the Secretary of Energy to study the feasibility of the construction of: (1) pipelines for the transportation of carbon dioxide for sequestration or enhanced oil recovery; and (2) geological carbon dioxide sequestration facilities.
• Directs the Administrator to establish a task force to study the cost implications of potential federal assumption of liability with respect to closed geological storage sites.
• Authorizes the President to waive this Act's requirements in a national security emergency.
• Requires the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to direct securities issuers to inform investors of material risks related to climate change.

Full text of S. 2191 can be viewed at: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:S.2191

Necessary Amendments to Strengthen S. 2191
While S. 2191 represents an important first step in the battle against climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf), which clearly links our changing climate to human-generated GHG emissions, has led to calls for reductions of GHG emissions of at least 80% by 2050 (compared to the recommendation of 63% to 66% reduction in S. 2191). The U.S. Senate should strengthen the bill by including additional measures that:

• Reduce emissions by 80% by 2050.  Real reductions of 80% of GHG emissions by 2050 will do more to reduce the potentially catastrophic impacts predicted by the world's leading climate scientists if we fail to act decisively;

• Eliminate provisions that guarantee windfall profits to the private sector by reducing the amount of free allowances going to industry and utilities and increasing the amount going to public purposes.  As reported by the Environment and Public Works Committee, the bill currently allocates 43% of allowances to industry and utilities in 2012; and,

• Ensure that we don't lock in new high GHG emission sources, such as new conventional coal-fired power plants, which would make achieving needed future reductions more difficult and expensive.  Currently, the bill allocates 19% of allowances to fossil fuel-fired power plants in 2012. 

Industry Amendments and Legislation that Would Weaken Emission Reductions Proposed in S. 2191
Industry interests from the coal and mining industry the auto industry and other industries that a significant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions have been aggressively pushing to weaken S. 2191 and to forward alternative legislation that will do little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions interests (link to E&E News Article).  The Senate should resist short-sighted industry efforts to kill or undermine the bill by opposing all weakening amendments, including amendments that would:

• Provide a loophole that would put a ceiling on the price of emission allowances, thus avoiding the necessary real reductions in global warming gases;

• Sacrifice concrete GHG emissions reductions in favor of approaches that rely heavily on tax breaks for industry to help it make investments in new and existing low-carbon energy technologies;

• Distribute billions of dollars worth of emission credits to industry via a mix of auctioning and free allowances to industry;

• Pre-empt existing or future local, state and regional global warming legislation that calls for more aggressive reductions in GHG emission;

• Overturn the Supreme Court's year-old decision in Massachusetts v. EPA that gives the federal government the green light to start regulating on global warming.