An Examination of the Non-Cap-And-Trade Provisions

The Other Half of Waxman-Markey

By Institute for Energy Research
Wednesday, October 14, 2009

On June 26, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2454, the Waxman-Markey bill. Generally, Waxman-Markey bill is thought of as a cap-and-trade bill, but it is far more than that. Of the bill’s 1,428 pages, merely half are dedicated to cap-and-trade. Dr. Robert Michaels, a Senior Fellow with IER, examined the non-cap-and-trade provisions of the Waxman-Markey bill. He found that the rest of the bill is packed with regulations that would completely alter the United States’ economy. He argues that even without cap-and-trade, Waxman-Markey is the most repressive package of new taxes, wealth transfers and obstacles to economic activity that a Congress has ever assembled.

Dr. Michael’s full study is available here.
The following is a fact sheet to accompany Dr. Michaels’ study (PDF version here).
Notable Provisions in Waxman-Markey:
Mandate that utilities provide 20 percent of electricity from qualified renewables by 2020, up from about 2.8 percent today[1] (Sec. 101): The bill requires utilities to obtain at least 6 percent of their electricity from sources defined as renewable by 2012, 9.5 percent by 2014 and 20 percent by 2020 (some portion may come from efficiency-related savings).And if those mandates aren’t strict enough, Waxman-Markey also:
Defines wood and plant waste from federal lands as non renewable, while the same material, if found on certain non-federal lands, is renewable. (Sec.126)
States that new hydroelectric power from the U.S. is renewable; hydroelectric power from Canada is not.[2]
Establish a new $1 billion annual tax on electricity from coal and natural gas-fired power plants (Sec. 114): These tax proceeds are given to a nonprofit corporation to “accelerate the commercial availability of carbon dioxide capture and storage.â€