Domestic Action: Is the response really "ambitious," or is it more like lip service?

Question

From the Department of State website: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/103028.pdf

"We have a diverse portfolio of policy measures including dozens of mandatory, incentive-based, and voluntary programs for our domestic emissions. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 introduced substantial new mandatory domestic programs to address energy security and climate change. Taken together, these programs will reduce projected GHG emissions by an estimated six billion metric tons by 2030. The policies embodied in this Act and other programs represent a bipartisan consensus in the United States..."

Answer 1

There's some fascinating background behind that act, originally titled the “Ending Subsidies for Big Oil Act of 2007”.

"The bill originally sought to cut subsidies to the petroleum industry in order to promote petroleum independence and different forms of alternative energy. These tax changes were ultimately dropped after opposition in the Senate, and the final bill focused on automobile fuel economy, development of biofuels, and energy efficiency in public buildings and lighting."

Proposals not enacted

Title I of the original bill, the “Ending Subsidies for Big Oil Act of 2007,” denied certain tax deductions to producers of oil, natural gas, or primary products of oil or natural gas, and increased from five to seven years the period during which five major integrated oil companies must write off their expenditures on geological and geophysical studies related to oil exploration.

Title II, the “Royalty Relief for American Consumers Act of 2007,” addressed an oversight that occurred when the Interior Department issued oil and gas leases for off-shore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico in 1998 and 1999. The leases didn’t include price thresholds that require companies to pay royalties to the Federal Government when the price of oil and gas exceeds a certain level. These companies would be required to renegotiate their leases to include price thresholds that are equal or less than thresholds described in the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. Companies who failed to renegotiate their leases or pay the fees would not be allowed to obtain any oil or gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico.

Title II also repealed several provisions of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. One provision suspended royalty fees on oil and gas production in certain waters of the Gulf of Mexico. A provision of the Energy Policy Act that protects drilling permit applicants from additional fees to recover the cost of processing paperwork would also be repealed, and special policies for leases in the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska and royalty relief for specific offshore drilling in Alaska would be discontinued.

Title III of the bill created a Strategic Energy Efficiency and Renewables Reserve, an account to hold additional money received by the Federal Government as a result of the enactment of the act, and to offset the cost of subsequent legislation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Energ...

So we still lose up to $35B per year that our government sends to and on behalf of oil companies while they enjoy record-breaking profits at our expense, then they turn around and ask us to create a new tax of $1.2 trillion, $120B per year, to fund offsetting the damage we help cause by our initial $35B investment.

Answer 2

I rest my case.