Bush, Kyoto, and the Environment

In addition to that, I seem to remember that at least here in Germany, a large fraction of the cost of building a nuclear power plant arose because every plant was treated as unique. Hence, each plant needed an expensive certification process to make sure it complied with the relevant regulations. The French solved this problem by having one standardized reactor type (or very few), certifying it once, and building copies of the standard over and over again. All those standardized plants were built with the blessing of the original certification. The costs thus saved allowed France to satisfy a huge part of its electrical energy needs with nuclear power . (I think 80%.) I'm not sure how much of a problem this was in the USA, and how much of the cost the French solution would save here. But I guess it could be pretty substantial.

The Energy Department took an unusually active role in drawing up the proposed new-source review changes. In November 2001, D.O.E. officials circulated their proposed changes among the E.P.A. staff for feedback. Officials at the E.P.A.'s air-enforcement division were appalled. ''The current draft report is highly biased and loaded with emotionally charged code words,'' E.P.A. officials wrote in an internal memo. ''It is drafted as a prelude to recommendations to vitiate the N.S.R. program.'' The agency's memo noted that the report ''contains only comments by industry and ignores the comments of all other stakeholders.''


In January 2002, the White House suffered a setback. The Justice Department delivered its report on the legality of the E.P.A.'s lawsuit against the Southern Company and other N.S.R. violators. The department found that contrary to the administration's hopes, all of the lawsuits were legal and warranted. In fact, Justice's lawyers said they intended to prosecute the cases ''vigorously.''


Shortly thereafter, White House officials decided it was time to try the Congressional track. On Feb. 14, 2002, President Bush unveiled his Clear Skies Initiative. The president declared that his proposed legislation ''sets tough new standards to dramatically reduce the three most significant forms of pollution from power plants -- sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury.''


It was true that the new standards, if enforced, would reduce emissions from their current rate -- but the president's formulation was somewhat misleading. Clear Skies was to replace Clean Air Act regulations with a cap-and-trade market system. On its face, that was not an unreasonable proposition. Many Republicans and some moderate Democrats embrace the general concept of cap-and-trade, in which Washington sets pollution standards for the entire country (the ''cap'') and then allows companies that manage to reduce their emissions below the standard to sell their extra pollution ''allowance'' to companies that haven't met the standard (the ''trade''). The key to cap-and-trade lies in the standard -- how low it is set and how quickly it shrinks. And when President Bush announced Clear Skies, the E.P.A. was already on track to require deeper reductions in air pollution than his cap-and-trade proposal would produce. So the air would actually be dirtier under Clear Skies than if the president allowed the E.P.A. to enforce the existing law. Clear Skies allowed 50 percent more sulfur dioxide, nearly 40 percent more nitrogen oxides and three times as much mercury as the Clean Air Act -- rigorously enforced -- called for.


Because of this discrepancy, the legislation was not greeted with much enthusiasm in Congress. Clear Skies wasn't helped by the fact that a former top E.P.A. official went on ABC's ''This Week'' to denounce the proposal two weeks after it was introduced. ''We can do better under current law than what they're putting on the table,'' Eric Schaeffer told George Stephanopoulos. Schaeffer, the E.P.A.'s head of civil enforcement from 1997 to 2002, had worked on the new-source review lawsuits since their inception. He left the E.P.A. in early 2002, tired, as he said in his letter of resignation, of ''fighting a White House that seems determined to weaken the rules we are trying to enforce.''

The key to cap-and-trade lies in the standard -- how low it is set and how quickly it shrinks. And when President Bush announced Clear Skies, the E.P.A. was already on track to require deeper reductions in air pollution than his cap-and-trade proposal would produce. So the air would actually be dirtier under Clear Skies than if the president allowed the E.P.A. to enforce the existing law. Clear Skies allowed 50 percent more sulfur dioxide, nearly 40 percent more nitrogen oxides and three times as much mercury as the Clean Air Act -- rigorously enforced -- called for.

George,

since you are clearly better informed about nuclear energy than I am, could you perhaps enlighten me on the following point? When I discuss nuclear power with environmentalists, one inevitable conversation pattern that emerges goes like this: I say that "nuclear power plants don't emit any pollutants during normal operation, so that's an environmental reason to support them". The environmentalist replies: "Maybe so, but you have to look at the whole process of building the plant and tearing it down after it reached the end of its life. These processes are not emission free, so your point doesn't hold." My response: "Maybe not, but are you sure these emissions are larger than when you build and tear down coal, oil, and gas plants? But even if they are, I'd be surprised if this changed the whole-life balance between the different types of power plant." At this point, we usually change the subject because neither side has the data to tell either way. Do you? And if so, can you tell me how total lifetime emissions compare between the different types of power plant?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall a Scientific American piece a few years ago which stated that the burning of Coal in America as a fuel source releases something like 4 million tons of uranium and other radioactives (which are found in coal, just in very low levels) into the atmosphere each year.

Scary stuff, coal. I've been a proponent of nuclear for a long time.

Cycloptichorn

Forgive me if I went on too long.

I can spit this stuff out almost as well as you do economics. (Reminds me - please go back to the Friedman avatar!)

Part of the way the Europeans snookered Al Gore at Kyoto was that they set the reference year against which reductions would be measured back to just before they had wholesale replacement of old coal fired plants with newer, more efficient gas fired ones. They, in effect, had already met their committment.

georgeob1 wrote:

Thank you, and healp is awn the way about the avatar. I decided to change to a more libertarian thinker as soon as George W. Bush is voted out of office. (Probably Madison or Jefferson. I'm currently reading up on the American revolution, and these are two men I find enormously impressive.) So hang in there, it's only four more weeks!

Can't help but put your finger in my eye can you!

Don't wait four more years to make the change!

When you do, think hard about Madison. Jefferson fades a bit when you get closer to him in the historical record. Madison, on the other hand grows in stature. (Well he should - he was a very short man). Historians also often overlook Washington. I think men of letters tend to value like contributions more highly than those done in the real world by men of action. At the end of the revolutionary war Washington could easily have made himself a dictator, the Articles of Confederation and the new Constitution notwithstanding. Instead he cultivated the Congress and the Court, in effect lending his hard-won prestige to the new institutions making a reality out of what until then was just words on paper. He also took on Virginia and other states in the first issues that arose between them and the new Federal Government.

Germany is no more adept or inclined to fake achievements than any other country, the U.S. included. (If Al Gore wasn't so shallow and preoccupied with himself we would have gladly snookered Europe in the negotiations.) In fact, in comparison to France, I overflow with affection for Germany.