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National Climate Change Policy: A Quick Look Back at Waxman-Markey and the Road Ahead

Like any legislation, the Waxman‑Markey bill has its share of flaws, but its cap-and-trade system has medium and long‑term targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions that are sensible, and the cap‑and‑trade system is — for the most part — well designed. With some exceptions, the bill’s cap‑and‑trade system will achieve meaningful reductions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions at minimal cost to the economy.

There has been much lamenting about the corporate give-away in the bill, but this is unfounded, as I explained in detail in my May 27^th post on The Wonderful Politics of Cap-and-Trade: A Closer Look at Waxman-Markey. Concerns have also been expressed — such as by a number of Republican members of Congress during last Friday’s floor debate in the House of Representatives — about negative impacts on the international competitiveness of U.S. firms. The only real solution to the international competitiveness issue in the long term is to bring non‑participating countries within an international climate regime in meaningful ways. (On this, please see the work of the Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements.) But that solution is fundamentally outside of the scope of the domestic policy action of any individual nation, including the United States.

In the meantime, the Waxman‑Markey approach of combining output‑based updating allocations in the short term for select sectors with the option in the long term of a Presidential determination (under stringent conditions) for import allowance requirements for specific countries and sectors was sensible and pragmatic (see my June 18^th post on Worried About International Competitiveness? Another Look at the Waxman-Markey Cap-and-Trade Proposal).

That’s the good news. But the bad news is that last-minute changes in the bill changed what was a Presidential option regarding long-term back-up border adjustments (tariffs) to a requirement that the President put such tariffs in place under specified conditions. This moved the legislation considerably closer to risky protectionism, as President Obama rightly noted in comments to the press on Sunday.

Also, the compromise amendments with the House agriculture committee that provide for generous numbers of potential offsets from the agricultural sector (regulated not by EPA, but by USDA!) are troubling — not in terms of driving up compliance costs, but in terms of reducing the real environmental performance of the system. This is because of the general problem of limited additionality of claimed reductions under offset (or emission-reduction-credit) systems, as opposed to cap-and-trade systems, plus the well-known difficulties of measuring non-point emissions, let alone emissions reductions, from agriculture.

These and other design issues will be important topics when the Senate takes up its own climate legislation, although the debate in that body on some of these issues will likely be quite different. For example, there is likely to be more interest in the Senate in the use of a “price collar,” a mechanism to constrain both the maximum and the minimum market price of allowances over time. This would be a move beyond the safety-valve mechanism that is provided in the House legislation.

When the action moves to the Senate, the greatest attention and the greatest skepticism should be directed not to the cap‑and‑trade mechanism, which is — for the most part — well designed in Waxman‑Markey, but rather to other elements of the legislation, some of which are highly problematic. While the titles of Waxman‑Markey that create the cap‑and‑trade system are ‑‑ on balance ‑‑ sensible, and will result in meaningful emissions reductions cost effectively, the other titles of the bill include a host of conventional standards and subsidies, many of which (under the cap‑and‑trade umbrella) will have minimal or no environmental benefits, but will limit flexibility and thereby have the unintended consequence of driving up compliance costs. That’s the soft under‑belly of this legislation that needs to be selectively, surgically repaired.

It is the fault of economists — myself included — that we have given so much attention to the cap-and-trade system that we have ignored these other important elements of the legislation, elements that unfortunately can degrade significantly the cost-effectiveness of the package while providing little if any incremental benefits to the environment. Even the Congressional Budget Office, in its excellent economic analysis of HR 2454, focused exclusively on the bill’s cap-and-trade program. Going forward, CBO, EPA, and independent analysts need to examine the bill’s other elements, and assess what those elements provide at what incremental cost.

A broader question — also raised by House Republicans in the floor debate — is whether the United States should be moving towards the enactment of a domestic climate policy before a sensible, post‑Kyoto international agreement has been negotiated and ratified. Such an international agreement should include not only the countries of the industrialized world, but also the key, rapidly‑growing economies of the developing world ‑‑ China, India, Brazil, Korea, Mexico, South Africa, and Indonesia ‑‑ which are and will increasingly be major contributors to emissions.

It’s natural for such a question to be raised about the very notion of the U.S. adopting a policy to help address what is fundamentally a global problem. The environmental benefits of any single nation’s reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are spread worldwide, unlike the costs. This means that for any single country, the costs of action will inevitably exceed its direct benefits, despite the fact that the global costs of action will be less than global benefits. This is the nature of a global commons problem, and this is the very reason why international cooperation is required.

The U.S. is now engaged in international negotiations, and the credibility of the U.S. as a participant, let alone as a leader, in shaping the international regime is dependent upon our demonstrated willingness to take actions at home.

Europe has put its climate policy in place, and Australia, New Zealand, and Japan are moving to have their policies in place within a year. If the United States is to play a leadership role in international negotiations for a sensible post‑Kyoto international climate regime, the country must begin to move towards an effective domestic policy ‑ with legislation that is timed and structured to coordinate with the emerging post‑Kyoto climate regime.

Without evidence of serious action by the U.S., there will be no meaningful international agreement, and certainly not one that includes the key, rapidly‑growing developing countries. U.S. policy developments can and should move in parallel with international negotiations.

So, the Waxman‑Markey bill has its share of flaws, but it represents a reasonable starting point for Senate deliberation on what can become a national climate policy that will place the United States where it ought to be -‑ in a position of international leadership to help develop a global climate agreement that is scientifically sound, economically rational, and politically acceptable to the key nations of the world.

The Wonderful Politics of Cap-and-Trade: A Closer Look at Waxman-Markey

The headline of this post is not meant to be ironic. Despite all the hand-wringing in the press and the blogosphere about a political “give-away” of allowances for the cap-and-trade system in the Waxman-Markey bill voted out of committee last week, the politics of cap-and-trade systems are truly quite wonderful, which is why these systems have been used, and used successfully.

The Waxman-Markey allocation of allowances has its problems, which I will get to, but before noting those problems it is exceptionally important to keep in mind what is probably the key attribute of cap-and-trade systems: the allocation of allowances – whether the allowances are auctioned or given out freely, and how they are freely allocated – has no impact on the equilibrium distribution of allowances (after trading), and therefore no impact on the allocation of emissions (or emissions abatement), the total magnitude of emissions, or the aggregate social costs. (Well, there are some relatively minor, but significant caveats – those “problems” I mentioned — about which more below.) By the way, this independence of a cap-and-trade system’s performance from the initial allowance allocation was established as far back as 1972 by David Montgomery in a path-breaking article in the Journal of Economic Theory (based upon his 1971 Harvard economics Ph.D. dissertation). It has been validated with empirical evidence repeatedly over the years.

Generally speaking, the choice between auctioning and freely allocating allowances does not influence firms’ production and emission reduction decisions. Firms face the same emissions cost regardless of the allocation method. When using an allowance, whether it was received for free or purchased, a firm loses the opportunity to sell that allowance, and thereby recognizes this “opportunity cost” in deciding whether to use the allowance. Consequently, the allocation choice will not influence a cap’s overall costs.

Manifest political pressures lead to different initial allocations of allowances, which affect distribution, but not environmental effectiveness, and not cost-effectiveness. This means that ordinary political pressures need not get in the way of developing and implementing a scientifically sound, economically rational, and politically pragmatic policy. Contrast this with what would happen when political pressures are brought to bear on a carbon tax proposal, for example. Here the result will most likely be exemptions of sectors and firms, which reduces environmental effectiveness and drives up costs (as some low-cost emission reduction opportunities are left off the table). Furthermore, the hypothetical carbon tax example is the norm, not the exception. Across the board, political pressures often reduce the effectiveness and increase the cost of well-intentioned public policies. Cap-and-trade provides natural protection from this. Distributional battles over the allowance allocation in a cap-and-trade system do not raise the overall cost of the program nor affect its environmental impacts.

In fact, the political process of states, districts, sectors, firms, and interest groups fighting for their share of the pie (free allowance allocations) serves as the mechanism whereby a political constituency in support of the system is developed, but without detrimental effects to the system’s environmental or economic performance. That’s the good news, and it should never be forgotten.

But, depending upon the specific allocation mechanisms employed, there are several ways that the choice to freely distribute allowances can affect a system’s cost. Here’s where the “caveats” and “problems” come in.

First, auction revenue may be used in ways that reduce the costs of the existing tax system or fund other socially beneficial policies. Free allocations to the private sector forego such opportunities. Below I will estimate the actual share of allowance value that accrues to the private sector.

Second, some proposals to freely allocate allowances to electric utilities may affect electricity prices, and thereby affect the extent to which reduced electricity demand contributes to limiting emissions cost-effectively. Waxman-Markey allocates allowances to local distribution companies, which are subject to cost-of-service regulation even in regions with restructured wholesale electricity markets. So, electricity prices would likely be affected by these allocations under existing state regulatory regimes. The Waxman-Markey legislation seeks to address this problem by specifying that the economic value of the allowances given to electricity and natural gas local distribution companies should be passed on to consumers through lump-sum rebates, not through a reduction in electricity rates, thereby compensating consumers for increases in electricity prices, but without reducing incentives for energy conservation.

Third, and of most concern in the context of the Waxman-Markey legislation, “output-based updating allocations” provide perverse incentives and drive up costs of achieving a cap. This merits some explanation. If allowances are freely allocated, the allocation should be on the basis of some historical measures, such as output or emissions in a (previous) base year, not on the basis of measures which firms can affect, such as output or emissions in the current year. Updating allocations, which involve periodically adjusting allocations over time to reflect changes in firms’ operations, contrast with this.

An output-based updating allocation ties the quantity of allowances that a firm receives to its output (production). Such an allocation is essentially a production subsidy. This distorts firms’ pricing and production decisions in ways that can introduce unintended consequences and may significantly increase the cost of meeting an emissions target. Updating therefore has the potential to create perverse, undesirable incentives.

In Waxman-Markey, updating allocations are used for specific sectors with high CO₂ emissions intensity and unusual sensitivity to international competition, in an effort to preserve international competitiveness and reduce emissions leakage. It’s an open question whether this approach is superior to an import allowance requirement, whereby imports of a small set of specific commodities must carry with them CO₂ allowances. The problem with import allowance requirements is that they can damage international trade relations. The only real solution to the competitiveness issue is to bring non-participating countries within an international climate regime in meaningful ways. (On this, please see the work of the Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements.)

Also, output-based allocations are used in Waxman-Markey for merchant coal generators, thereby discouraging reductions in coal-fired electricity generation, another significant and costly distortion.

Now, let’s go back to the hand-wringing in the press and blogosphere about the so-called massive political “give-away” of allowances. Perhaps unintentionally, there has been some misleading press coverage, suggesting that up to 75% or 80% of the allowances are given away to private industry as a windfall over the life of the program, 2012-2050 (in contrast with the 100% auction originally favored by President Obama).

Given the nature of the allowance allocation in the Waxman-Markey legislation, the best way to assess its implications is not as “free allocation” versus “auction,” but rather in terms of who is the ultimate beneficiary of each element of the allocation and auction, that is, how the value of the allowances is allocated. On closer inspection, it turns out that many of the elements of the apparently free allocation accrue to consumers and public purposes, not private industry.

First of all, let’s looks at the elements which will accrue to consumers and public purposes. Next to each allocation element is the respective share of allowances over the period 2012-2050 (measured as share of the cap, after the removal – sale — of allowances to private industry from a “strategic reserve,” which functions as a cost-containment measure.):

a. Electricity and natural gas local distribution companies (22.2%), minus share (6%) that benefits industry as consumers of electricity (note: there is a consequent 3% reduction in the allocation to energy-intensive trade-exposed industries, below, which is then dedicated to broad-based consumer rebates, below), 22.2 – 6 = 16.2%

b. Home heating oil/propane, 0.9%

c. Protection for low- and moderate-income households, 15.0%

d. Worker assistance and job training, 0.8%

e. States for renewable energy, efficiency, and building codes, 5.8%

f. Clean energy innovation centers, 1.0%

g. International deforestation, clean technology, and adaptation, 8.7%

h. Domestic adaptation, 5.0%

The following elements will accrue to private industry, again with average (2012-2050) shares of allowances:

i. Merchant coal generators, 3.0%

j. Energy-intensive, trade-exposed industries (minus reduction in allocation due to EITE benefits from LDC allocation above) 8.0% – 3% = 5%

k. Carbon-capture and storage incentives, 4.1%

l. Clean vehicle technology standards, 1.0%

m. Oil refiners, 1.0%

n. Net benefits to industry as consumers of lower-priced electricity from allocation to LDCs, 6.0%

The split over the entire period from 2012 to 2050 is 53.4% for consumers and public purposes, and 20.1% for private industry. This 20% is drastically different from the suggestions that 70%, 80%, or more of the allowances will be given freely to private industry in a “massive corporate give-away.”

All categories – (a) through (n), above – sum to 73.5% of the total quantity of allowances over the period 2012-2050. The remaining allowances — 26.5% over 2012 to 2050 — are scheduled in Waxman-Markey to be used almost entirely for consumer rebates, with the share of available allowances for this purpose rising from approximately 10% in 2025 to more than 50% by 2050. Thus, the totals become 79.9% for consumers and public purposes versus 20.1% for private industry, or approximately 80% versus 20% — the opposite of the “80% free allowance corporate give-away” featured in many press and blogosphere accounts. Moreover, because some of the allocations to private industry are – for better or for worse – conditional on recipients undertaking specific costly investments, such as investments in carbon capture and storage, part of the 20% free allocation to private industry should not be viewed as a windfall.

Speaking of the conditional allocations, I should also note that some observers (who are skeptical about government programs) may reasonably question some of the dedicated public purposes of the allowance distribution, but such questioning is equivalent to questioning dedicated uses of auction revenues. The fundamental reality remains: the appropriate characterization of the Waxman-Markey allocation is that 80% of the value of allowances go to consumers and public purposes, and 20% to private industry.

Finally, it should be noted that this 80-20 split is roughly consistent with empirical economic analyses of the share that would be required – on average — to fully compensate (but no more) private industry for equity losses due to the policy’s implementation. In a series of analyses that considered the share of allowances that would be required in perpetuity for full compensation, Bovenberg and Goulder (2003) found that 13 percent would be sufficient for compensation of the fossil fuel extraction sectors, and Smith, Ross, and Montgomery (2002) found that 21 percent would be needed to compensate primary energy producers and electricity generators.

In my work for the Hamilton Project in 2007, I recommended beginning with a 50-50 auction-free-allocation split, moving to 100% auction over 25 years, because that time-path of numerical division between the share of allowances that is freely allocated to regulated firms and the share that is auctioned is equivalent (in terms of present discounted value) to perpetual allocations of 15 percent, 19 percent, and 22 percent, at real interest rates of 3, 4, and 5 percent, respectively. My recommended allocation was designed to be consistent with the principal of targeting free allocations to burdened sectors in proportion to their relative burdens, while being politically pragmatic with more generous allocations in the early years of the program.

So, the Waxman-Markey 80/20 allowance split turns out to be consistent — on average, i.e. economy-wide — with independent economic analysis of the share that would be required to fully compensate (but no more) the private sector for equity losses due to the imposition of the cap, and consistent with my Hamilton Project recommendation of a 50/50 split phased out to 100% auction over 25 years.

Going forward, many observers and participants in the policy process may continue to question the wisdom of some elements of the Waxman-Markey allowance allocation. There’s nothing wrong with that.

But let’s be clear that, first, for the most part, the allocation of allowances affects neither the environmental performance of the cap-and-trade system nor its aggregate social cost.

Second, questioning should continue about the output-based allocation elements, because of the perverse incentives they put in place.

Third, we should be honest that the legislation, for all its flaws, is by no means the “massive corporate give-away” that it has been labeled. On the contrary, 80% of the value of allowances accrue to consumers and public purposes, and some 20% accrue to covered, private industry. This split is roughly consistent with the recommendations of independent economic research.

Fourth and finally, it should not be forgotten that the much-lamented deal-making that took place in the House committee last week for shares of the allowances for various purposes was a good example of the useful, important, and fundamentally benign mechanism through which a cap-and-trade system provides the means for a political constituency of support and action to be assembled (without reducing the policy’s effectiveness or driving up its cost).

Although there has surely been some insightful press coverage and intelligent public debate (including in the blogosphere) about the pros and cons of cap-and-trade, the Waxman-Markey legislation, and many of its design elements, it is remarkable (and unfortunate) how misleading so much of the coverage has been of the issues and the numbers surrounding the proposed allowance allocation.

The New Auto Fuel-Efficiency Standards — Going Beyond the Headlines

On My 19^th, 2009, President Obama announced new Federal fuel-efficiency standards for motor-vehicles that would make the current standards — known as Corporate Average Fuel Economy — or CAFE — standards significantly more stringent. These CAFE standards measure compliance as the average of a company’s entire fleet of cars, and so are more flexible and less costly than model-by-model standards, better matching consumer preferences and lowering production costs.

Other good news is that the administration’s proposal will yield a single standard nationwide, rather than two fuel efficiency standards, one for California and the 13 other states that chose to follow its more stringent Pavley standards, and another standard for the rest of the country under the existing CAFE program. The result would have been that the states adopting the more stringent California standard would have brought about little incremental benefit for the environment beyond the national CAFE program, because auto manufacturers and importers would have largely undone the effects of the more stringent state-level fuel-efficiency requirements by selling more of the less fuel-efficient models in their fleets in the non-Pavley states. This has been validated in an interesting research paper by Lawrence Goulder (Stanford University), Mark Jacobsen (University of California, San Diego), and Arthur van Benthem (Stanford University). Thus, dual standards would have increased costs, but with little or no additional benefit to the environment.

These new Federal standards proposed by the Obama administration can therefore be one small step along the path to meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. That’s the good news. But it’s also true that the new standards are inferior to other possible approaches.

First of all, CAFE affects only the cars we buy, not how much we drive them, and so CAFE standards are less cost-effective than gasoline prices at reducing gasoline consumption, because gas prices (whether reflecting market conditions or government taxes) affect both which cars we buy and our choices about driving.

Some people may think that CAFE standards — unlike gas taxes — are costless for consumers. But according to the administration, the increases in CAFE standards (including both scheduled increases already on the books and the new Obama proposal) will add — on average — $1,300 to the cost of producing a new car.

Because CAFE standards increase the price of new cars, the standards have the unintentional effect of keeping older — dirtier and less fuel-efficient — cars on the road longer. This counterproductive effect is typical of any vintage-differentiated-regulation, a topic which I have addressed in a previous post. There is abundant empirical research on this issue.

Also, by decreasing the cost per mile of driving, CAFE standards — like any energy-efficiency technology standard — exhibit a “rebound effect,” namely, people have an incentive to drive more, not less, thereby lessening the anticipated reduction in gasoline usage. This has also been documented empirically.

The bottom line is that gasoline prices are a much more effective – and more cost-effective – means of cutting gasoline demand, both in the short term and the long term. But if increasing gasoline prices through gas taxes is politically impossible – which certainly appears to be the case in the current political climate – why raise all of these objections? Am I allowing the (infeasible) perfect to be the enemy of the good? Not at all, as I will explain.

There is, in fact, another policy instrument available that has the same desirable impacts as gas taxes on gasoline prices (and, more importantly, on all other fossil fuel prices, as well), but inspires dramatically less political opposition. And this instrument is not only politically feasible, but is right now achieving remarkable, broad-based political support in Washington. I’m talking about the economy-wide CO₂ cap-and-trade system in Congressmen Waxman and Markey’s legislation in the House of Representatives. Their cap-and-trade system will serve to increase the price of gasoline, cut demand, and reduce emissions. But, in addition, its impacts will go far beyond automobiles and trucks, and beyond the transportation sector, as well.

To seriously and cost-effectively address climate change, it is essential to put in place a single carbon price that affects all fossil fuels and all uses throughout the economy — not only in the transportation sector, but also electric power, and the manufacturing, commercial, and residential sectors. This is precisely what cap-and-trade does. A meaningful, upstream, economy-wide cap-and-trade system will serve to increase the price of gasoline, as well as other fuels, electricity, and all goods and services in proportion to their carbon-intensity in production, and it does this (as would a carbon tax) in the right proportions for each fuel, energy source, and product, so that the overall cap is achieved at the least possible cost. The real bottom line is that cap-and-trade is the cheapest, best, and only politically feasible approach that can achieve the significant reductions in CO₂ emissions that will be necessary to meet President Obama’s ambitious climate goals.

Back to the Obama administration’s CAFE proposal, a separate and distinct question is what will the effects be on the U.S. automobile industry? Will this be “good for the auto industry,” as the White House press release claimed? Doesn’t the presence of so many leading auto executives on the podium with the President clearly indicate that this regulatory change is good for the U.S. auto industry?

First, it is surely the case that a single national standard is better for the auto industry – and society more broadly – than the dual system that would have been brought about by the 14 Pavley states going forward with more stringent standards. There’s nothing new about the U.S. auto industry wanting a single national standard. Indeed, for this reason, the industry supported the enactment of Federal clean air legislation in the 1970s. We all prefer bad news to worse news, but that does not mean we welcome the bad news or that’s it good for us.

It’s also true that the U.S. auto industry has vastly less political clout now than it has had in decades, plus a much smaller share of the U.S. automobile market. The industry is in severe economic decline, indeed on the verge of bankruptcy, and it is depending now on massive government handouts. In this climate, it is hardly surprising that the U.S. auto industry is being exceptionally cooperative with the Federal government.

But is this policy in the long-term interest of the U.S. auto industry; is this “good for the U.S. auto industry?” The answer to that question is unknown. Keep in mind that for decades the U.S. auto manufacturers have just barely complied with CAFE standards each year, while Japanese manufacturers and importers have exceeded the standards. So, at first blush, it would appear that it may be easier — less costly — for Japanese companies than U.S. companies to meet the heightened fuel-efficiency standards. I’m not saying that the new standards will put the U.S. companies out of business, but simply that we don’t know at this point what the long-term impacts will be. In my view, one should be skeptical about claims to the contrary. As I’ve suggested in previous posts, the best reason to carry out environmental policies is that they are expected to be good for the environment.