Greenhouse Gas Policy Committee

As one of its planning priorities in 2008, the KEC agreed to examine the agreements adopted by the Midwestern Governor's Association (MGA) in November 2007, including the Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Accord. Accordingly, the MGA Committee was established in January 2008. However, because the underlying policy issue is the regulation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the Committee has been renamed the Greenhouse Gas Policy Committee.

The objectives of this Committee included an examination and discussion of the policy options available for controlling GHG emissions as well as the appropriate scope of various policy approaches. The committee met 5 times from January to June 2008.

All KEC meetings are open to the public.

Members

Bruce Snead, Chair Rex Buchanan Dave Dayvault Sarah Dean Joe Dick

Ken Frahm Mike Kelley Jeff Kennedy David Kerr Greg Krissek

Galen Menard Hans Nettelblad Adrian Polanksy Curt Wright

Meetings

Tuesday, January 15, 2008, 9:00 a.m. to noon, First Floor Hearing Room, Kansas Corporation Commission, Topeka.

• Agenda
• Notes
• Climate Change Impacts on Kansas PowerPoint Presentation
• Renowned Scientific Organizations and their Conclusions on Climate Change

Thursday, February 21, 2008, 9:00 a.m. to noon, Kansas Department of Transportation, Eisenhower Building, Auditorium A, 700 SW Harrison, Topeka.

• Agenda
• Notes
• Overview of MGA Energy Security and Climate Stewardship Platform & Midwestern GHG Accord
• Kansas and Climate Change
• IPCC: Impacts, Adaptation and Mitigation

Wednesday, April 9, 2008, 9:00 a.m. to noon, First Floor Hearing Room, Kansas Corporation Commission, Topeka.

• Agenda
• Notes
• MGA Cap and Trade: Overview of Cap and Trade and MGA Process
• Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) and the Western Climate Initiative (WCI)
• Federal Initiatives: Lieberman-Warner vs. Bingaman-Specter
• Climate Change Policy: Overview of Options to Reduce GHG Emissions

Wednesday, May 13, 2008, 1:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., Rooms 147 and 148, SRS Regional Office, 500 SW Van Buren, Topeka.

• Agenda
• Notes
• Federal Cap-and-Trade Policy: Overview of Design Options
• Point of Regulation, Permit Allocation, Uses of Revenue, and Offsets in Lieberman-Warner

Thursday, July 18, 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., Auditorium A, Eisenhower Building, 700 SW Harrison, Topeka.

• Agenda
• Notes

Resources

Listed below are some resources containing background information related to policy related to climate change policy (see KEC staff annotated summary for synopsis of these resources). Most of the resources listed below are from reasonably objective sources (e.g., governmental or educational institutions); however, also included are reports prepared by advocacy groups that are, arguably, less objective.

• The Economics of Climate Change: A Primer, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Study, April 2003.
• Climate Change Legislation Design White Paper: Appropriate Roles for Different Levels of Government, Committee on Energy and Commerce Staff, February 2008.
• Climate Change Legislation Design White Paper: Competitiveness Concerns/Engaging Developing Countries, Committee on Energy and Commerce Staff, January 2008.
• Climate Change Legislation Design White Paper: Scope of a Cap-and-Trade Program, Committee on Energy and Commerce Staff, October 2007.
• Who Gains and Who Pays Under Carbon-Allowance Trading? The Distributional Effects of Alternative Policy Designs, Congressional Budget Office, June 2000 (available at CBO's web site: www.cbo.org).
• A Question of Balance: Weighing the Options on Global Warming Policies, William Nordhaus, Yale University Press, 2008 (pre-publication version).
• Global Climate Change: A Challenge to Policy, Kenneth J. Arrow, Economist's Voice, 2007.
• Policy Options for Reducing CO2 Emissions, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Study, February 2008).
• Evaluating the Role of Prices and R&D in Reducing Carbon Dioxide Emissions, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Study, September 2006.
• National Climate Policy: Choosing the Right Architecture, Robert Repetto, Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, June 2007.
• Global Climate Change: What is to be Done? An Economic Perspective, Robert N. Stavins, Harvard Electricity Policy Group (HEPG), June 2007 (available at HEPG’s web site: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/hepg)
• What Will it Cost to Protect Ourselves from Global Warming?: The Impacts on the U.S. Economy of a Cap-and-Trade Policy for Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Nathaniel Keohane and Peter Goldmark, Environmental Defense Fund, 2008.
• The Economic Costs of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Change Legislation, The Heritage Foundation, 2008 (available online at http://www.heritage.org/research/EnergyandEnvironment/upload/cda_0802.pdf)

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