License To Pollute, or Why I'm Not Voting for Barack — Oct 10th 2007

By Alexia Prichard

The "cap-and-trade" solution to climate change is my new favorite thing. Recently hawked by presidential candidate Barack Obama, such legislation would charge companies for their greenhouse gas emissions. It would also put a cap on how much they could vent into the air. "If you're going to pollute," the proposal seems to say with a wagging finger, "well then, by God, we're going to make you pay for it!"

Wow. That's harsh. It's as if you're telling a bully to go ahead and beat up some smaller kid on the recess field every day as long as s/he does some community service for it later. I wonder how many parents would agree to that as school policy?

The proposal is being called a "100% auction," meaning that for every measurable amount of CO2 vented, the company will have to pay a 100% tax. The CO2 and tax amounts, I'm sure, would be very carefully determined by Congress--whose own track record on climate change has been, you know, patchy-like-the-ozone-layer. Meanwhile Congress will continue to field "suggestions" from coal lobbies for support on the Coal-to-Liquid Fuel Energy Act of 2007, an act sponsored by... wait for it... presidential candidate Barack Obama.


The Coal-to-Liquid (CTL) process produces diesel fuel instead of petroleum. Diesel is seen as an improvement because it burns a bit cleaner than regular gas, even though it still produces a destructive amount of CO2--as does the CTL process itself.

(For more detailed information on CTL, please read the earlier NewsQuake article here).

I know. At this point you're saying to yourself: "Wait.... WHAT?" But there's more. The "solution" that's being put forth as to why CTL is "better" than regular coal processing is carbon sequestration, an untried method of "hiding" the carbon underground. This option is perfectly suited to the La-La-Land of our current Congress, where a Band-Aid approach is usually preferred to the "Let's just design it better" approach. Additionally, instead of saving taxpayers money and reversing the tide on global warming, CTL would cost more than alternative solutions--$3 billion for each plant converted from coal to CTL production.

While I can understand that transitioning our energy focus from coal to environmentally saner alternative solutions is like trying to get a battleship to turn on a dime, it still makes more sense to start that process than to pursue CTL. And Obama knows it. But he's a senator from one of the top coal-producing states in the country and is, for that reason, possibly choosing this harebrained path. That, or he's just straight-up power-hungry and thinks he needs the backing of Big Energy in order to win. If that's the case, it only reaffirms my decision not to vote for him. We don't need another puppet with a God complex. We need a leader.

So, Obama for President? No (cough) thanks.

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