Hope Springs Eternal at the Climate Leadership Council

Foley Hoag LLP - Environmental Law
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Foley Hoag LLP - Environmental Law

The Carbon Leadership Council, everyone’s favorite group of former grand poohbahs, is still working at building support for its “carbon dividends” plan.  Hope springs eternal.  And I don’t mean to make light of the CLC’s efforts.  We can use all the hope we can get.

The CLC has not make any huge changes to the plan, but they have tweaked it a bit and run numbers again.  Based on a fee starting at $40/ton and increasing each year by 5% above inflation, CLC asserts that U.S. GHG emissions would be 50% below 2005 levels by 2035.

The CLC has also clarified that it is only proposing to eliminate other stationary source GHG regulations.  It is not proposing to eliminate mobile source regulations and is not trying to provide any kind of liability protection against 3rd party claims.  This is interesting in that it kind of suggests that the CLC is more worried about opposition from the left than from the right.  Of course, another reason could be that, in order to get conservative support, they have to let the conservatives win something.  Thus, perhaps, the CLC is waiting for conservatives to say that they will support the carbon dividend program, but only if the regulatory and liability relief is expanded.

In any case, more power to the CLC.  As I’ve said in the past, my advice to my green friends is to leap at this deal.  Take it in a heartbeat and be glad about it.  My advice to those opposed to addressing climate change?  Get on the right side of history.

Hope springs eternal.

DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.

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