Week #4 Item #6

One of the biggest challenge that we have found while researching for our blogs is that it is really hard to find current news that concerns the elections and environmental issues. Especially with the General Election coming up, the candidates have put their focuses in other prime areas of the presidential debate. This next article that I am reporting on was published last year in October. Although it is not exactly a current article, I find it important in understanding the cap-and-trade program better. The cap-and-trade program often came up in the discussion of environmental policies, for example in one of the earlier blogs by McCain reporter Stacy Jelke, but it was a program that I was very unfamiliar with.

As I had reported in my earlier blog, the conflicts between oil and foreign affairs are probably one of the biggest challenges that we have as a nation. There are ways to be less dependent on foreign oil, but programs such as the coals-to-liquid program will not help our greenhouse emissions, but can maybe even worsen it. The cap-and-trade program is a system that we can build on domestically to cut greenhouse emissions.

Under a cap-and-trade plan, companies that produce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases receive or buy credits that give them the right to emit a certain amount. Companies that emit less carbon than their credits allow can profit by selling any excess credits on the open market, while those that exceed their emission allowance have to make up the difference or face heavy fines.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/obama-calls-pollution-cap-and-trade-program/story.aspx?guid=%7BE704950B-F8D6-49EB-9C20-BCCECEB72374%7D

To ensure that all violators pay for all the emissions their companies emit, Obama would require that all "credits" be auctioned on the open market. The higher the need for these emissions, then the higher the cost it will be. He hopes that in doing so, companies will find more environmentally friendly ways to operate. The differences in Obama's cap-and-trade program and his rivals is that all businesses will have to pay a price, there will be no one business that will not have follow these rules. There are many opponents to Obama's plan, one is President Bush, he believes that "such a move would hurt the economy and put the United States at a disadvantage to rapidly developing economies."

Under the Obama plan, the government would set annual reduction targets and would require that overall emissions be reduced to 1990 levels by 2020, and would be reduced to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050....Obama's plan would also spend $150 billion over 10 years on the development of climate-friendly supplies and technologies and sets a goal of reducing overall oil consumption by 35%, or 10 million barrels, by 2030. It also calls on the United States to lead a new international partnership to combat global warming.

After reading this article, it made me a lot more hopeful for the outcome of our environment if Obama was to be elected. I agree with him that we need to take action, even if it does mean that it might hurt the economy now, but in the long run it is what's best. If we continue going down the route that we are going now, then we will never be able to fix our past mistakes and show the world that we are forward-thinking in our quest for a better environment-not just for Americans, but for the world. We are the top leaders in so many areas, and I don't think that environmentally friendly issues should be an exception.