Don't Forget Waxman-Markey

The country will judge Obama’s first-term success based on the fate of health-care reform. Everyone knows it, and the national debate reflects this reality. However, the craze has pushed a second reality into the shadows: that the grand arc of history will evaluate Obama’s success as much based on his administration’s actions to combat climate change as on its health-care reforms.

Obama has acknowledged that he is not the first president to try to reform health care, but he plans to be the last. This will not be the case. Regardless of what Obama is able to achieve today, the U.S. will undergo more health-care reform in the future, when evolving circumstances will require policies that we cannot predict now. As a result, there must be reform in the future in order to keep up with changes in how we receive health care. You cannot say the same for climate-change policy. If we fail to act now, there is substantial scientific evidence that we may not get another chance. Estimates suggest that if we surpass the two-degree Centigrade limit adapted by the G-8 this summer, 20-30 percent of species could go extinct and more than 1.5 billion people worldwide could face major water shortages. While health care is important, it cannot be the only priority of the Obama administration. A superb health-care system counts for little if the world is no longer livable because of dramatic environmental effects brought on by climate change.

The Waxman-Markey Bill, which the House passed in July, is a strong step in the right direction. But much of the public momentum behind the bill stalled after it was sent to the Senate and health-care debates took over. This is not to suggest that people have completely forgotten Waxman-Markey. Power companies and other opponents of the bill have quietly continued to lobby for lower restrictions and decreased stringency in the proposed cap-and-trade system. An op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer over Labor Day lambasted the bill for the supposed job losses it would cause in Pennsylvania. The day after, the editor of Fabricating and Metalworking criticized congress for Waxman-Markey’s hidden taxes. In the face of this opposition—and opponents’ misconceptions—advocates of the bill have offered no response. The White House has remained remarkably silent on the issue, and the congressional supporters of the bill have done nothing to correct misinformation surrounding it.

Instead, that task has fallen to small, independent think tanks and policy institutes. Their efforts to counter the claims of opponents of the bill have produced eye-opening reports. The most important of these, issued last week by the Institute for Policy Integrity, conducts a cost-benefit analysis of the Waxman-Markey program and finds, counter to objections, that the bill would have a net benefit of as much as $5.2 trillion. The report included a median projection for net benefits of $1.2 trillion and found that even more stringency could actually be more beneficial. Their estimations also ignore all the indirect benefits, such as improved health due to reduced pollution that will accrue from the bill.

At the same time that the IPI published its findings, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy published a report that found the Waxman-Markey bill would generate 7,700 jobs in Colorado alone. And the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office found that Waxman-Markey would have a net positive impact on government finances to the tune of $25 billion.

The benefits of comprehensive climate-change legislation are undeniable, no matter what its detractors say. Unfortunately, the policy institutes that conduct research demonstrating the benefits of Waxman-Markey do not have a voice that can match the public claims of naysayers. In the din over the health-care debate, it is difficult for their reports to reach the public or the ears of policymakers, while opponents continue to work through lobbyists to weaken the bill. If the U.S. is to have a meaningful climate-change policy, policymakers cannot weaken the House bill any further. The Obama administration must take a leadership role in moving public debate beyond just health care and revitalize the discussion of Waxman-Markey.

Health care is a vital issue, but climate change is just as important. It does not behoove us to focus on one to the detriment of the other. Opponents of the bill have focused on the costs that Waxman-Markey will impose on them and not on its potential to move the United States into a truly advanced energy economy that would generate trillions of dollars in benefits. If we want a world that it is worth having health care in, then we must not let opponents of the bill take control of this issue. Evidence suggests that the benefits of this legislation exceed the costs by up to a nine-to-one ratio. Now we must turn that evidence into action.


A. Patrick Behrer ’10 is an economics concentrator in Eliot House. His column appears on alternate Thursdays.