Environmentalists tend to be the kind of people who hang on to things.  Keenly aware of the impact of constantly buying new things – whether it be cars, appliances or other “hard goods” – the kind of folks who are CLF members (and are likely reading this) tend to avoid buying new things.  This is especially true where buying something new, like a new car, simply means shifting the use of the old item to someone else.  Driving a new efficient hybrid car is not a satisfying experience if you are aware that your older, less efficient car, will end up back on the road.

However, if you own an older car and want to move to a newer more efficient model while being sure that your old car will be scrapped and taken off the road the Federal Government has a deal for you.

Here are the basic rules for the program, as presented by the Feds:

• Your vehicle must be less than 25 years old on the trade-in date
• Only purchase or lease of new vehicles qualify
• Generally, trade-in vehicles must get 18 or less MPG (some very large pick-up trucks and cargo vans have different requirements)
• Trade-in vehicles must be registered and insured continuously for the full year preceding the trade-in
• You don’t need a voucher, dealers will apply a credit at purchase
• Program runs through Nov 1, 2009 or when the funds are exhausted, whichever comes first.
• The program requires the scrapping of your eligible trade-in vehicle, and that the dealer disclose to you an estimate of the scrap value of your trade-in. The scrap value, however minimal, will be in addition to the rebate, and not in place of the rebate.

Fortunately, the supply of cleaner and more efficient cars available for sale continues to expand, thanks in large part to the rules requiring a shift in the new car fleet mandated by the rules adopted by the Northeastern states (following the lead of California).   We are proud to note that CLF played a key role in defending those rules in court.

Update (August 6, 2009):

Unless you have been living in a cave you will have heard that the program is on the verge of running out of money and efforts are being made to “refuel it”.

Attempts at looking at the potential environmental benefits of the program range from the skeptical to the mildly positive to the fiercely negative.  A good middle ground was the comment of a leading environmental lawyer reported by CNET News:

“It’s not that it’s a bad idea; just don’t sell it as a cost-effective energy savings method,” Michael Gerrard, director of the Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University said in an academic journal. “From an economic standpoint it seems to be a roaring success. From an environment and energy perspective, it’s not where you would put your first dollar.”

The critiques of the program have some serious validity.  Would it be better for this money to be spent on public transit operations ?  Would a fundamental change in the funding paradigm that would shift money from roads to transit (as CLF has called for in our Five Steps for the Next Five Years climate vision document) be much better? Absolutely yes.

But my pragmatic bottom line is that this program has far more environmental benefit than so many other things the Federal government does and pays for that it is hard to get worked up about this one.

Once upon a time Conservation Law Foundation and our allies in Maine waged a long and ardous battle to prevent the development of Sears Island, the largest undeveloped island in Maine, as a bulk cargo facility.   Many local citizens supported this effort both because of the environmental impact of the project but also because of the fact that such ports rapaciously consume land while generating very little high quality economic activity.

The nearby historic port city of Searsport is now experiencing a much more positive kind of shipping boom – the importation of wind turbines to build the new clean energy infrastructure needed to tackle global warming and build a safe and stable economy for Maine, New England and the nation.  A recent New York Times article detail the difficulty of moving these large structures on land from the port to wind farm sites and a followup blog entry describes the ironic problem of handling these structures when it is windy.

These are the kind of practical problems that need to be overcome if we are to build a new economy based on clean energy.   They are good problems to have – because as we overcome them we are really building for the future and moving beyond short sighted “economic development” that sacrificed the environment and the future for a project only of immediate and dubious benefit.

In her post here Lesley Bunnell, CLF’s Rhode Island office manager, persuasively deflates and rebuts an attack in the Washington Post by Sarah Palin on the cap-and-trade mechanism.   One important evolution in the idea of cap-and-trade that Lesley did not have a chance to get into is the key reform of auctioning the allowances and using the money generated by the auction for good purposes that reduce emissions and save money for all our citizens.

CLF, as part of a broad coalition, successfully fought for this model in the design and creation of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative regulating carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.   The states of New England have repeatedly pushed in Congress for this model to be recreated on the federal level.

The reason for embracing allowance auctions and using the money from the auction for energy efficiency is crystal clear – it will reduce the cost of the program and reduce emissions even further.  The cost reduction argument is quite powerful – analyses of the bill passed by the House by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office and the US EPA estimate the cost of the program for an average household at between $111 and $175 per year by 2030.  Independent analysis of the bill shows that even modest gains in energy efficiency, like those that can be financed by allowance auction revenue can result in savings for citizens that dwarf these costs.

Indeed, during the presidential campaign this was precisely the position taken by President Obama:

• 100 Percent Allowance Auction: Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s cap-and-trade system will require all pollution credits to be auctioned. A 100 percent auction ensures that all large corporate polluters pay for every ton of emissions they release, rather than giving these emission rights away for free to coal and oil companies
• Invest Revenue for a Clean Energy Future: Some of the revenue generated by auctioning allowances will be used to support the development and deployment of clean energy, invest in energy efficiency improvements to help families reduce their energy prices, and to address transition costs, including helping American workers affected by this economic transition and helping lower-income Americans with their energy costs.

In a recent Op-Ed in the Boston Globe CLF President John Kassel reflected on our concern that the federal bill had drifted away from 100% auction, giving out a significant number of allowances for free – but at least the bill that passed the House accepts the importance of cap and trade, auctioning the allowances from that system and moves towards the RGGI model of  “auction and invest.”

The bottom line is clear.  Cap and Trade is a tool that can work to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases causing global warming.  It can work even better, and be implemented at even lower cost, if we do it right by auctioning the allowances at the heart of the program and using the money raised by the auction for clean energy projects like energy efficiency.