Daily Score Blog

Density is good for many  different  reasons.

But people don’t make choices about where they live based on people per square acre any more than they base them on area median income. The choice of where to live, although influenced by test scores, cost of housing, proximity to work and amenities, is often influenced by qualitative not quantitative data. 

Through the years I have seen my friends and co-workers following a typical pattern: graduate college, get a job, get married, look for a house, and then start having children.

 This post originally appeared June 11, 2009. It was based on the version of the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act (H.R. 2454, or "Waxman-Markey") approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. By June 26, when the bill passed the House and headed to the Senate, it had grown by almost 480 pages. What changed?

Waxman-Markey is 1,428 pages long, so I'd be fibbing to say that I've actually read all of it. But I've pored over key sections and, though I expected to hate the amendments, I don't. Most of the changes are benign or immaterial. Few are nefarious. None are deal breakers. What's more, the tone of much news coverage -- decrying the log-rolling and back-room deal making that brought the bill to passage -- was wrong-headed, I thought. The "special deals" were mostly things like increased funding for job training programs--not exactly a sign of public corruption or parochialism.

My grade?

Overall, I still give Representatives Henry Waxman of California and Edward Markey of Massachusetts a solid “B.”  I’m grading on a curve--the curve of political reality. Straight A’s are hard to come by with oil, coal, and other industries spending almost $80 million lobbying on climate policy in just the past three months (pdf). Under withering fire, Waxman-Markey’s cap-and-trade superstructure remained intact. In fact, the 280-page centerpiece of ACES that covers cap and trade--the part of the bill on which I've focused my attetion--has changed little in months. The bill grew by accretion, like a raft to which ever more planks are lashed.

So I'm rejoicing about the bill's passage, but holding my breath about the US Senate. In particular, I'm hoping that the offset provisions of ACES--already weak in the bill's version I wrote about before and weakened further in the final act--get stronger in the Senate. Even if they don't, we can hope that the administration implements the offset provisions in ways that preserve the law's overall effectiveness. If so, ACES could be the most important piece of energy or environmental legislation in a generation. It’s also much-needed economic policy: clean energy can be the path out of recession.

How do I love ACES? I’ll count the ways as soon as I document its flaws. First, though, a warning: to keep this post short I used some wonk-speak. (An English-language exposition is available in our revised Cap and Trade 101 federal primer.)

6 (+1) things I hate about Waxman-Markey: