'Bipartisan' NCEP Seeks Government Energy Takeover

Mow do you win a policy debate? First, be sure you set the terms of the debate. Then develop your arguments cautiously and methodically to suggest that your only purpose is to discover objective facts. To be taken seriously, keep your prose steady and your sources respectable. You are above the fray-and beyond partisan strife. If the assumptions in your reasoning are controversial, don't acknowledge the controversy. Instead, suggest that your premises are bipartisan. That will mean your policy conclusions must be acceptable because they are the outgrowth of a political consensus.

In discussing energy policy, drop names of important people in politics, academia and the corporate world. Your conclusions must surely be right, because a panel of distinguished scholars and statesmen endorses them. Even calling the panel members a "commission" suggests that the participants are commissioned-pulled with reluctance from their busy lives to solve an urgent world-class problem. Their findings are sure to be top-notch and their policy prescriptions sensible and balanced, forged in the crucible of bipartisanship.

This is the modus operandi of the National Commission on Energy Policy (NCEP).

To win the trust of the public and policymakers, NCEP never deviates from its mien of objectivity. To the public, the organization seems like an independent commission, perhaps set up by Congress. In fact, it's a pressure group funded by liberal ideological foundations and partisan policy groups. Make no mistake. NCEP is a skillful activist group that has a singular goal: It aims to overhaul the energy business using the heavy hand of government.

Writing Legislation

In July. NCEP praised as "ecologically sound and politically smart" the energy bill introduced by Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D.N.M.) and Sen. Arlen Specter (R.-Pa.). The Bingaman-Specter bill aims to fight global warming by mandating a reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. And no wonder it received high praise from NCEP. It was written by NCEP. according to the website "Hill Heat." which monitors globalwarming legislation on Capitol Hill.

In many respects, Bingaman-Specter appears more "moderate" than its three Senate alternatives, known as McCain-Lieberman, Kerry-Snowe, and Sanders-Boxer. They propose to cut carbon emissions 40% by the year 2020 and 60% by the year 2030. In contrast, Bingaman-Specter cuts emissions by only 7.6% by 2020 and 22% by 2030, and at a much lower cost to the economy.

Bingaman-Specter is a "cap-and-trade" proposal like ail the others. It regulates alt industries that emit CO2 by creating an artificial scarcity, allowing industries to buy and sell the "right" to emit carbon dioxide. Oil refineries, natural-gas plants, manufacturers and coal-buming power plants all fall under the bill's provisions. While automobiles and airlines are not covered, these industries would pass on to consumers the higher fuel prices passed on by the regulated oil and gas companies.

Cap-and-trade legislation like the Bingaman-Specter bill is no doubt politically smart, because it silently shifts the cost burden to consumers in the form of higher prices while distributing carbon allowances worth "tens or hundreds of billions of dollars" to companies that emit CO2, according to a July 9 letter from Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Peter Orszag to Bingaman. The letter, a response to Bingaman's reaction to a highly critical April 25 issue brief by the CBO, observes that whether or not the capand-trade program cuts carbon emissions, it will impose huge costs on energy and energy -intensive users. Indeed, that is its purpose. Instead of relying on the marketplace, policymakers will have the discretion to decide who will bear those costs.

NCEP's Founding Fathers

On its website, NCEP says it is one of three projects of the "new" Bipartisan Policy Center (BCP). In March 2007. BCP held an inaugural luncheon in Washington, D.C., hosted by its supposed leaders, four former U.S. Senate majority leaders, two from each party-Howard Baker (R.-Tenn.), Bob Dole (R.-Kan.). George Mitchell (D.-Maine) and Tom Daschle (D.-S.D.). Initially, the center proposes to tackle three issues: energy, agriculture and national security. The senators say lheir purpose is to promote civility and improve the tone of political discourse and to show that "evidence-based collaborative approaches can gain the public und political momentum needed to forge political consensus."

News reports say that the center has a 2007 budget of $7 million provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation "and its partners." The 20 BCP staff members are led by Executive Director Jason Grumet.

Conservatives may scoff at warm and fuzzy stories of former senators' urging lawmakers to play nice, but they aren't learning the real story. The center's tax forms tell a more complex tale about the origins of BPC. For one thing, BPC is an outgrowth of NCEP. not the other way around. The group hasn't decided to focus its attention on energy policy. Instead, advocates of more government controls over the energy sector, funded by Hewlett, created a group to cover their real intentions with a bipartisan gloss.