James Pethokoukis

Over at Edge, a variety of scientists give their take on the Iceland volcano eruption and its impact on air travel. Two really stood out to me. The first also highlights the problem of defensive medicine; the second shows the downside to action dealing with global warming:

DANIEL KAHNEMAN

Psychologist, Princeton; Recipient, 2002 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences

Imagine a public official who considers an action that involves a small and ambiguous risk of disaster. Imagine further that the best expert judgment available is that the expected social benefit of the action is large and that the risks are real but tolerably small. Such situations inevitably create a conflict between the interests of society and those of the officials who are charged to decide on its behalf.

Hindsight and personal accountability are the problem. Decision makers can be certain that if the worst happens their decision to act — however justified it was ex ante — will be perceived ex post as a horrendous mistake. They face the possibility of devastating blame and guilt, as well as career-destroying consequences. The risks are asymmetric because the costs of playing it safe are likely to be negligible.

Even if future analyses of the ash cloud incident conclude that flights could have resumed safely much sooner, it is unlikely that any of the officials involved in delaying the flights will lose their jobs. In this situation and in many others — defensive medicine is an example — the valid anticipation of hindsight combines with social norms of personal accountability to produce overly cautious behavior.

The solution?

Where the social good requires taking risks, we need procedures that will reduce personal accountability and diffuse responsibility, perhaps by assigning some categories of decisions to designated groups of experts rather than to individual functionaries.

MATT RIDLEY
Science Writer; Founding chairman of the International Centre for Life; Author, The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves

The ash cloud reminds us of the risks of risk aversion. Shutting down Europe’s airspace removed the risk of an ash-caused crash, but it also increased all sorts of other risks: the risk of death to a patient because an urgent medical operation might have to be postponed for lack of supplies, the risk of poverty to a Kenyan farm worker because roses could not be flown to European markets, the risk of a collision between ferries on extra night-time sailings in the English Channel. And so on. Risk decisions cannot be taken in isolation. The precautionary principle makes too little allowance for the risks that are run by avoiding risks — the innovations not made, the existing suffering not alleviated. The ash cloud, by reminding us of the risks of not being able to fly planes, is a timely reminder that the risks of global warming must be weighed against the risks of high energy costs — the risks of poverty (cheap energy creates jobs), of hunger (fertiliser costs depend on energy costs), of rainforest destruction and indoor air pollution (expensive electricity makes firewood seem cheaper), of orangutan extinction in subsidised biofuel palm oil plantations.

Oh, and remember the lessons of public choice theory: if you set up a body called the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre, don’t be surprised if it over-reacts the first time it gets a chance the demonstrate that it considers itself — as all public bodies always do — underfunded.

President Barack Obama is now calling the carbon trading scheme that is supposed to heal the planet a “cap-and trade-thing.” That can’t be a good sign for the concept.

Here is the president in New Hampshire yesterday: “”The most controversial aspects of the energy debate that we’ve been having — the House passed an energy bill and people complained about, well, there’s this cap and trade thing. And you just mentioned, let’s do the fun stuff before we do the hard stuff. The only thing I would say about it is this: We may be able to separate these things out. And it’s conceivable that that’s where the Senate ends up.”

Whatever the impact on the environment, the probable demise of President Barack Obama’s cap-and-trade carbon plan would be a much bigger fiscal failure for the White House than the implosion of healthcare reform, at least over the near term. Taxing carbon was the hidden key to funding his administration’s policy agenda while limiting budget deficits. Now the White House is scrambling for a realistic Plan B.

For months, the Capitol Hill consensus has been that a legislative limit on carbon emissions isn’t going anywhere in 2010 or beyond. New job-killing regulations and taxes just aren’t popular when unemployment is in double digits. Now the White House seems to agree on the plan’s political prospects. But there already were hints of this in the new Obama budget proposal. Now Obama’s budget last year assumed auctioning emissions permits would generate $646 billion in revenue over 10 years. Of that amount, a fifth would have gone toward funding clean energy research, and four fifths to funding a worker income tax credit.

The administration’s new budget proposal simply contains an accounting line labeled “allowance for climate policy” followed by, well, nothing. Not a single dime of revenue is assumed for the years 2011 through 2020. The line item looks to be nothing more than a placeholder to keep hope alive for greener Democratic voters.

The near-term impact is that the worker tax credit won’t be renewed after 2011. But longer-term, the proposal’s failure would stymie administration efforts to get closer to balancing the federal budget.

Internal White House estimates predicted cap-and-trade auctions might generate two or three times as much revenue as forecast in last year’s budget, or up to $1.9 trillion. By contrast, proposed tax hikes on upper-income Americans would raise $678 billion. The extra money from cap-and-trade could have taken a big bite out of the $8.5 trillion 10-year deficit projected in the latest budget — just the kind of broad-based, if politically stealthy, tax that Obama’s economic advisers think is necessary to balance the books.

The administration’s healthcare plan was supposed to knock another $132 billion off the 10-year deficit, according to the Congressional Budget Office. With that on the back burner too, Democrat deficit hawks are left hoping Obama’s proposed fiscal commission can somehow create a menu of spending cuts and tax increases that could actually win congressional approval in 2011. Sadly for Obama, that’s about as likely as that “cap-and-trade thing” passing.

I have been saying for some time that I do not think Congress is going to pass cap-and-trade in 2010, or probably ever. (I think the threat of EPA action is empty given the flurry of litigation that would surely follow.) My Reuters news pals seem to agree somewhat and paint an alternate scenario:

1) But the Copenhagen Accord did not include emissions targets. This will make it difficult for lawmakers to argue that the United States should have a cap while China, the world’s top emitter of greenhouse gases, and other big polluters are not legally required to act on climate. “We were previously of the view that cap and trade was becoming an increasingly hard sell in the U.S.,” said Paul McConnell, an energy markets analyst at Wood Mackenzie. “But I think the events in Copenhagen have probably made that even more difficult.”

2) Alternatives to cap and trade will emerge, such as mandates and incentives for increasing levels of energy from low-carbon sources like solar, wind and nuclear.

3) The healthcare debate has delayed U.S. Senate action on climate, and financial industry reform legislation will likely push back the cap-and-trade debate into early next year, analysts said. The longer the delay, the harder it will be to convince undecided Democratic senators to vote for a cap-and-trade plan. “For a lot of moderate Democrats who are up for reelection, they don’t want to be seen as closely attached to this because of the concerns about job losses and higher energy prices,” said Divya Reddy, an analyst at the Eurasia Group in Washington.

4) Kerry said in Copenhagen last week that the Senate bill may not contain cap and trade, and other options are being discussed. So-called “Plan B” alternatives to cap and trade could include carbon taxes and national mandates for power generators to produce higher levelof cleaner energy sources, Reddy said. A new climate strategy could also include elements of a “cap and dividend” plan recently introduced by two senators. That aims to cut Wall Street’s role in emissions markets by auctioning permits to polluters and delivering most of the proceeds to the general public. But Kevin Book, an analyst at Clearview Energy Partners, LLC, said many senators and many companies, like oil major ConocoPhillips and power generator Duke Energy Corp, are already sold on cap and trade. Some power companies that have invested in low-carbon electricity generation feel they could compete better against companies that burn mostly coal under a cap-and-trade regime.

The words of #42 (RWR) came back to me when I read this in the NYT:

China, which last month for the first time publicly announced a target for reducing the rate of growth of its greenhouse gas emissions, is refusing to accept any kind of international monitoring of its emissions levels, according to negotiators and observers here. The United States is insisting that without stringent verification of China’s actions, it cannot support any deal

I actually agree with this greenie op-ed the UK’s Guardian, though the author and I are on different sides:

Humanity is no longer split between conservatives and liberals, reactionaries and progressives, though both sides are informed by the older politics. Today the battle lines are drawn between expanders and restrainers; those who believe that there should be no impediments and those who believe that we must live within limits.

The cap-and-trade approach to limiting climate emissions does not seem to be going anywhere in the Senate. But a more-populist bill introduced by Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) might be another option. Its goal is to cut emissions 20 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050. Key difference with the existing cap-and-trade approach (via The Hill):

1) Wall Street may be particularly disappointed in the new bill. The Cantwell-Collins bill, known as the Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal (CLEAR) act, would restrict trading in a new carbon market to entities regulated by the act, a move that may have more populist appeal. … Banks like Goldman Sachs that looked forward to new profits under the giant secondary trading market created under economy-wide cap-and-trade legislation are unlikely to get on board, however.

2)  It would require fuel producers, rather than fuel users like electric utilities, to hold credits. The credits all would be sold at an auction. The cap-and-trade bills Congress has considered would distribute emissions allowances for free during the initial phase of the program in order to keep energy prices from rising too quickly.

3) Under Cantwell-Collins, revenues from the auction would largely go back to low- and middle-income households to offset higher energy costs the new carbon regulations are intended to cause. An average family of four would receive $1,100 annually in rebates, according to Cantwell’s office. In total, 75 percent of the auction proceeds would be returned to low- and middle-income households. The remainder would be distributed to a clean energy investment trust fund.

Me:  This cap-and-dividend approach has been called “100-75-25-0” policy: 100 percent of the permits are auctioned, 75 percent of the revenue is returned as dividends, 25 percent of the revenue is invested and zero offsets are allowed.

Joel Kotkin thinks he knows:

Today’s environmental movement reflects the values of a large portion of the post-industrial upper class. The big money behind the warming industry includes many powerful corporate interests that would benefit from a super-regulated environment that would all but eliminate potential upstarts.

These people generally also do not fear the loss of millions of factory, truck, construction and agriculture-related jobs slated to be “de-developed.” These tasks can shift to China, India or Vietnam–where the net emissions would no doubt be higher–at little immediate cost to tenured professors, nonprofit executives or investment bankers. The endowments and the investment funds can just as happily mint their profits in Chongqing as in Chicago.

So who benefits from this collective ritual seppuku? Hegemony-seeking communist capitalists in China might fancy seeing America and the West decline to the point that they can no longer compete or fund their militaries. A weakened European Union or U.S. also won’t be able provide a model of a more democratic version of capitalism to counter China’s ultra-authoritarian version.

Yet most people in the developing world will not benefit from the suicide of the West. The warmists’ vision is not one of growing prosperity, but of capping wealth at a comparatively low level. De-industrialization means the West falls back while emerging economies grow a bit. The “prosperity gap” may close, but ultimately everyone is left with less prosperity.

Here’s the theory about the new U.S. position on greenhouse gases. The official finding by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that the emissions endanger human health sets the stage for permit requirements on power plants, factories and automobiles. It also supplies President Barack Obama with more evidence at the Copenhagen summit of a “new normal” in America when it comes to climate policy. And back home, it supposedly gives a nudge to the Senate where cap-and-trade legislation is stuck on the back burner.

But in practice, the only thing certain about the EPA ruling is more regulatory uncertainty leading to less economic growth and fewer jobs. Bad news, to be sure, for American businesses already flummoxed by the mercurial state of healthcare, financial and tax reform. Call it Obama’s Uncertainty Tax.

While a cap-and-trade bill has already passed the House of Representatives, few Capitol Hill observers expected the Senate to approve one, even by the end of 2010 thanks to the anemic economy and political risks for incumbent Democrats facing midterm elections. What’s more, expectations of a more Republican-leaning congress after 2010 made it seem like economy-wide carbon caps were sliding off the Obama agenda for the foreseeable future.

But now it’s conceivable carbon restrictions would be implemented as early as next year – even though the EPA itself admits its efforts would be more disruptive and less efficient than congressional action. Such an optimistic timetable assumes no legal challenges. But there will be plenty of those. Already, business groups are preparing to file suit against the EPA. It could fall to U.S. courts to determine the future of the nation’s approach to climate policy. This is a nightmare scenario for the private sector when it comes to planning for new expansion or hiring. Note that the big problem with the job market at the moment is not so much job losses and zippo new jobs being created. It will take a year of 4 percent growth adding 250,000 jobs a month to lower the unemployment rate to 9 percent.

Of course, about the only thing worse than regulatory uncertainty would be for the EPA to follow through with its top-down, command-and-control approach to dealing with perceived climate change.

One solution would be for Congress itself to act. GOP strategists would love to disrupt reeling Democrats with another controversial proposal – which is precisely why it won’t happen. Dems in the Senate are well aware of the shellacking their House colleagues have taken on their cap-and-trade vote.

Another option would be for the White House to devise a plan that would generate some bipartisan support. One idea might be a carbon tax whose revenue could be distributed back to citizens as a dividend, or used to offset payroll taxes. Such a refund could be progressive and popular.

But the most likely scenario is no cap-and-trade and no carbon tax, just more government “investment” in clean energy. But for now, workers and business are left to keep paying the Uncertainty Tax.

Call it the Uncertainty Tax. I mean, it is not enough that the American private sector has to deal with the mercurial state of healthcare, financial and tax reform, now it has to calculate the likelihood and impact of  the Obama administration unilaterally imposing draconian carbon rules? Even the EPA calls such efforts inefficient and economically disruptive. A few other thoughts:

1) Expect loads of litigation.

2) Don’t expect this to nudge Congress into passing cap-and-trade in 2010.

3)  Did I mention loads of litigation?

4)  It this looks likely, Congress would probably strip the EPA of its authority to do so.

5)  If Congress does not act, this could be the beginning of a multi-year effort  to regulate climate emissions. So more uncertainty.

James Pethokoukis is the money and politics columnist/blogger for Reuters Breakingviews. Previously, he was the economics columnist for U.S. News & World Report where he wrote the monthly Capital Commerce magazine column. Pethokoukis was also the managing editor of the magazine’s Money & Business section. He has written for many publications including the New York Times, the American, USA Today, Investor’s Business Daily, and TCS Daily. Pethokoukis is also an official CNBC contributor and appears frequently on that network’s Kudlow & Company, Power Lunch, and The Call shows. In addition, he has appeared numerous times on MSNBC, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, CNN, and Nightly Business Report on PBS. A 1989 graduate of Northwestern University where he double majored in Soviet politics and American history and a 1991 graduate of the Medill School of Journalism, Pethokoukis is a 2002 Jeopardy! champion.james.pethokoukis@thomsonreuters.com

This is one piece of non-Hugh Jackman news that is resonating in Washington:

CANBERRA (Reuters) – Australia’s parliament rejected laws to set up a carbon trading scheme on Wednesday, scuttling a key climate change policy of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and providing a potential trigger for an early 2010 election.

Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the government would re-introduce the carbon trade bills in February to give the opposition Liberal Party one more chance to support the scheme, adding the government was not looking at an early election.