boston globe oped on energy, mentions Kerry and Markey

[MBS]

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/06/18/back_to_the_future_on_energy/
Scott Lehigh (regular Globe columnist). Markey and Kerry make a good tag team, IMHO -- complementary styles
Excerpts:

The House has passed such a bill, and legislation by Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman would establish a cap-and-trade system for utilities and heavy industry and require oil producers to buy emissions permits, though those would not be traded. Households, meanwhile, would receive rebates to offset increased energy prices.

However, with climate change now a deeply politicized issue, cap-and-trade has become a bete noire to Republicans. “It is a huge irony,’’ said Kerry. “George Herbert Walker Bush did this with John Sununu as his chief of staff . . . It was done in order to respect the marketplace and not have command-and-control’’ system.

Despite Tuesday’s determined tone, some worry Obama’s own resolution has faltered. After all, the president didn’t refer explicitly to cap-and-trade, noting instead that the House had passed “a strong and comprehensive energy and climate bill’’ that embraced the principles he laid out in 2008. Continuing with his mixed signals, Obama acknowledged the cost concerns, but then contended we couldn’t afford not to change the way we produce and use energy, before concluding that he was “happy to look at’’ other ideas and approaches.

Here’s the political reality, courtesy of an optimistic US Representative Ed Markey, co-author of the House bill: “The president will have to make the case for this legislation again and again for it to become law.’’ So will Obama be a full-throated advocate?

Like Markey, Kerry is hopeful, saying the president called on Wednesday and “reaffirmed his desire to get it done, to go full-court press’’ on putting a price on carbon emissions.

And if we don’t send a strong market signal that the time has come to begin a serious transition from carbon-based fuels? Well, count on this: A future president, in the wake of another catastrophe or another price shock or increasing evidence of climate change, will again tell the nation that we must seize the moment.

The only difference will be that we’ll have lost years in the meantime.