It would have been naive to hope energy bills passed by the House and Senate might die because no one got around to reconciling them. Still, open deliberation shouldn’t be too much to ask. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) instead will take the legislation into shadows so no one can see how politicians make decisions about who profits and who pays when they tinker with energy.
For Pelosi, energy is “a flagship issue” that comes down to “energy security and reversing global warming.” Never mind the erosion of support for a conference to address differences among bills passed under those banners. “With or without a conference,” she says, “we will proceed.”
Raising prices
In case anyone needs reminding, the bills would, among other things, raise taxes on oil companies, fortify subsidies for renewable fuels, force holders of federal offshore leases bungled by the government to renegotiate on government terms, expand the mandate for ethanol in vehicle fuel, undermine efforts to streamline drilling approvals, and outlaw “unconscionably excessive” oil prices in supply emergencies. They would, in other words, crimp supply of commercial energy and raise prices of energy overall.
While security and global warming are legitimate concerns, they too easily become tools of extremism. To Pelosi, energy security means replacing oil with costlier alternatives. And the speaker doesn’t want simply to moderate warming influences by limiting emissions of greenhouse gases. She wants to reverse global warming. If human activity really accounts for most of the warming observed in the past century, reversing the trend would require emission cuts far greater than anyone has proposed. To pretend that the costs of such a response can be made bearable is disingenuous.
Pelosi might want mostly to produce a bill President Bush will have to veto. Then she can complain that the Democrats tried to act on energy only to meet Republican obstructionism.
But even veto bait needs a veneer of legitimacy. There’s nothing legitimate about forcing people to render economic sacrifice to hopeless targets. Replacing cheap with costly energy does not yield security; it creates hardship. And trying to reverse global warming is a sure way to dissipate human welfare in a quest that might be futile.
Alas, Congress is in no mood to ponder hard energy questions. Most lawmakers will see no political advantage in resisting Pelosi’s worst lurches. Energy consumers can only hope Bush is in no mood to split differences with lunacy.
Pelosi has improbable ways to tether her ambitions, however tenuously, to physical and economic reality. On energy security, she could call for more federal oil and gas leasing. Reversing her longstanding position on this issue would acknowledge that the fastest and most economical route to improved US energy security is increased US production of oil and gas. It would acknowledge, in fact, that anyone who claims to support energy security while resisting leasing or otherwise limiting domestic oil and gas production is trapped in hopeless contradiction.
Escape contingency
With global warming, Pelosi could give energy consumers an escape contingency. Some scientists think the world might be approaching the peak of a mostly natural warming cycle. Some even expect cooling to become evident within the next 5-10 years. The activists who inform Pelosi will hear none of that. But what if the trend in global average temperature flattens in the next few years? It wouldn’t necessarily signal the end of observed warming. But it would be enough to throw doubt on the need for costly precautions that only then would be taking effect.
Would Pelosi support a provision in global warming legislation that promised to relax emission controls-and relieve consumers of the costs-if temperature data raised questions about the need? Well, no, she wouldn’t. Such a provision, like leasing support in a security initiative, would clash with Pelosi’s apparent commitment to senseless cost. But measures like these would be signs now missing from US energy discussions of concern for consumer effects, which relate inevitably to seriousness of intent.
