The Legislature is poised to pass LD 845, An Act to Provide Leadership in Addressing the Threat of Climate Change. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Ted Koffman, D-Bar Harbor, would implement the New England governors-eastern Canadian premiers Climate Change Agreement (CCA). The legislation will put Maine on the path of regulating and controlling carbon dioxide and possibly other greenhouse gas emissions.

The emissions reductions “goals” in the CCA are updated versions of those found in the unratified and rejected by President Bush’s Kyoto Protocol. Under the CCA, Maine will reduce carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2010, and 10 percent below that by 2020. This will be accomplished with yet to be written rules, regulations, standards, subsidies and taxes. This mode of implementation is usually called “command and control.” There is also a hope to use the carbon trading “market” approach championed by Enron.

What will implementing Kyoto get Maine?

Higher energy prices

Two bucks a gallon for gasoline and heating oil wasn’t so bad was it? How about $.20 a kilowatt-hour?

Seven one-hundredths of a degree in averted global warming.

That’s what the models say, if everyone implements Kyoto.

A weaker economy

One recent study predicted it would cost Maine almost a half billion in lost revenue due to slower growth. But hey, the governor says the paper industry is not in decline, and flat funding isn’t so bad is it?

More grant money for climate change research.

Remember what James Carville said about dragging $100 bills through trailer parks…

Litigation

New England’s governors violated Article 1, section 10 of the U.S. Constitution prohibiting agreements with foreign powers and other states without the consent of Congress when they signed the Climate Change Agreement.

A chance to bash President Bush on environmental policy

Has a certain appeal to some constituencies in Maine.

A sense of moral superiority about our energy and environmental choices

Priceless.

Environmental policy is increasingly becoming a matter of faith as much as reason. Environmentalism is Maine’s de facto state religion. The religious element of the debate is obvious to any objective observer and every heretic. How would Jesus vote on implementing Kyoto – and are you immoral if you don’t agree with the Sierra Club and Maine’s Interfaith Climate Change initiative on the matter?

Jon Reisman teaches environmental policy at the University of Maine at Machias. His views do not necessarily represent those of the university.