Manik Roy, vice president for federal government outreach at the Pew Center, co-wrote this post.

By all indications, the climate bill is done for the year. A casualty of … well, you’ve been hearing the blamefest.

So what’s next?

Unfortunately, none of the problems we sought to fix with the climate bill have been solved by ignoring them.

Power companies and businesses still need to know what carbon emission requirements lie ahead of them before investing millions of dollars in new equipment – especially for carbon capture and sequestration, nuclear power, renewable energy, energy efficiency, and other low-carbon alternatives.

China and other countries are still investing heavily in clean energy and leaving us behind in the global race to dominate the clean energy market.

The United States is still dependent on oil from countries that do not have our best interests at heart.

And, oh yes, climate change is still real, still happening now, still largely caused by human action, and still presenting our children and grandchildren grave economic and environmental risks if we do not reduce our carbon emissions now.

Those urgent problems have only become more urgent, and therefore only tougher to solve. On top of that we’ll have a new Congress next year with many new Members who will likely be less eager to make tough choices on this issue than those they replace. So what comes next?

The primary question is the choice of policy approach. Should we continue to pursue a flexible market-based approach to reducing emissions, now that an outrageous, and yet outrageously-effective, PR campaign has convinced much of the American public that emissions trading – a policy approach warmly embraced and successfully used by both the Reagan and first Bush administrations – is the spawn of the devil and the equivalent of taxation? Or has the cap-and-trade brand been fatally damaged?

If so, maybe we should just go to a straight carbon tax, since a public that has been taught to hate “cap-and-tax” will surely embrace a tax.

Just kidding about that one.

Another option is subsidies for low-carbon technologies, whether in the form of grants, loans, loan guarantees, or tax cuts. (Note that tax cuts are essentially subsidies funded by all the other taxpayers.)

Two problems here. First, an adequate level of government subsidy will be hard, if not impossible, to generate when we have a huge government deficit. Second, and more subtle, is that government subsidies involve government employees, whether in Congress or the executive branch, choosing between technologies. Sometimes they choose wisely. But sometimes they don’t. And when they don’t, they are not especially good about identifying or rectifying their mistakes.

The option we’re left with, unless we can breathe real life into one of the above, is EPA regulation under the Clean Air Act. To develop a performance standard, for example, EPA would identify the technologies that pollute the least for a given industry sector and require all companies in that sector to pollute no more than if they used those best demonstrated technologies. Though performance standards do an adequate job of setting the floor, they tend not to reward efforts to perform above the floor, and hence tend not to advance technology. They also tend to be much more expensive than market-based approaches like cap-and-trade.

It sure seems like back to the future, but if they’re all we’ve got, we’ve got to use them or the hole we’re in will keep getting deeper.

Legislative efforts to price carbon emissions have been shelved but they are far from forgotten. Proponents of proposals including the Kerry-Lieberman bill to price carbon through a cap and trade system have pledged to find a way to resuscitate it. While unlikely to happen anytime soon, I say odds are good that the bill will resurface during the lame duck session.

That is why lawmakers, the media and unemployed Americans need to know the high price tag that legislation such as Kerry-Lieberman bear. Last week, the ACCF and Small Business Entrepreneurship Council released a new national study conducted by SAIC that details the projected costs of the emission goals outlined in the American Power Act. The study found that in 2030 the bill would trigger:

• Cumulative loss in US GDP up to $2.1 trillion;
• As many as 1.9 million jobs lost
• Residential electricity price increases up to 42 percent and
• Gasoline price increases (per gallon) up 18 percent

As unemployment numbers fail to improve significantly, job losses continue, and the economy limps along, it is reckless to saddle Americans with the higher energy prices and other rippling effects from this legislation.

Right now lawmakers and the public should continue to keep pressure on disallowing the EPA from regulating carbon emissions, a power grab that could have even farther reaching consequences than any legislative effort. While the costs of EPA regulation of carbon emissions are difficult to quantify , they are likely to be quite significant, depending on the timetable for emission reduction and the scope of industries covered.

The following comments were submitted by Kate Offringa, president and CEO of the Council of the North American Insulation Manufacturers Association.

While debate continues over how America can achieve energy independence, Congress is poised to take an invaluable step in that direction - and it's almost slipped under Washington’s radar screen. With little fanfare, Majority Leader Reid has made Home Star an integral part of the revised energy package scheduled to reach the Senate floor in late July.

Why? Because the Home Star Energy Retrofit Act has bipartisan support. Home Star will help America conserve energy while enabling homeowners to reduce utility bills – some by as much as 40 percent. Once fully implemented, Home Star will also safeguard the environment from harmful greenhouse emissions and put tens of thousands of Americans to work. No wonder Home Star has brought together disparate lawmakers and organizations as far removed as the National Association of Manufacturers and the Sierra Club. A dozen Republicans voted for Home Star when it passed the House in May. Now three Republican Senators are cosponsoring it in the Senate - with others expected to support it on the floor. Home Star’s benefits are tangible – and immediate. If American homes were properly insulated, this country could annually save more than 30 times the amount of energy lost in the tragic Gulf oil spill. Home Star retrofits could cut carbon emissions so dramatically that it would be as if 600,000 cars disappeared – overnight – from our highways. Moreover, Home Star will instantly create productive jobs in long-suffering communities. Studies show that nearly two-thirds of the jobs generated by Home Star will go to the 10 states that need them most. No sector in America has been hit harder than the construction and home renovation industry, where unemployment is running two-and-a-half times the national average. Within a month of Home Star’s enactment, contractors will be on the job. Seventeen months later, conservative estimates predict that Home Star will have generated 168,000 jobs. Home Star is a rebate program that encourages homeowners and home builders to install energy-efficient materials such as insulation. As Majority Leader Reid said in his July 22 announcement about Home Star being part of the energy bill, most insulation materials are manufactured here in the U.S.; those jobs cannot be shipped overseas. The sooner Congress can enact Home Star the better, because good weather means more jobs and quicker energy savings. Home Star’s bipartisan Senate champions – Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Olympia Snow (R-ME), and Mark Warner (D-VA) – are working with the Majority Leader to expedite Home Star’s passage. It’s not every day the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Blue-Green Alliance see eye-to-eye on public policy. When they do, it should get – and keep - policymakers’ attention.

1. Republicans believe in free markets but not in protecting free goods when they cause market failure.

2. Republicans trust markets to pick winners but won't even consider "yes" unless CCS or Nuclear or "drill baby drill" are deemed winners via massive subsidies.

2. Coal-state Democrats weigh both abatement costs and avoided damages when polluting themselves, but only consider the cost side when polluting their descendants (and everyone else's).

3. Coal-state Democrats fear losing votes over the same rising energy costs that technologists fear won't be high enough to motivate use of money-saving home smart meters.

4. Republicans and Democrats in trade-sensitive states believe in "fair trade" but think it's OK for each of us to emit 18 times more co2 than the average citizen of India - even if climate damage will be dramatically worse there.

5. Emanuel and Axelrod apparently see that domestic energy, and particularly energy efficiency, is a big net job creator but won't let the President act to incentivize it until we otherwise "deal with unemployment".

6. The Administration won't back a complex cap & trade bill before midterms but a 39-page cap & dividend bill simply requiring all producers to buy permits to sell fossil fuels (with Government returning 3/4 of the revenue to citizens) is largely ignored.

7. The President promises "change we can believe in" only to let Senate lobbying interests craft a "too big to succeed" climate bill - with lost cleantech market share to Europe and China the only "change we can believe is actually happening".

Beach reading is fine. But for those politicians interested in enlightened leadership, a bit of pondering "Irony and the Reid-Obama Climate Whiff" is in order.

For over a decade -- ever since the Kyoto Treaty was signed by the Clinton Administration in 1998 -- the US Senate has walked up and down the cap-and-trade road. Time after time, these bills have failed because of an inability to garner any tally close to the 60 votes necessary for passage. Cap-and-trade iterations are like zombies: walking dead that just keep coming back to haunt us. How many times must mandated energy scarcity be rejected before someone says rest in peace?

The time has come to bury this flawed approach to emission management and move on. The Senate would do itself (and certainly the nation) a great service by abandoning the notion of comprehensive climate legislation and, instead, concentrating on taking an incremental approach that starts with actions which enjoy broad agreement. Such measures include:

• bolstering the provisions of EPACT 2005 that were intended to promote the export of technology to developing countries;
• promoting an innovative R&D program targeted to the low and no-carbon energy systems that could be commercial and competitive in the latter half of this century;
• promoting incentives for the turnover the capital stock, especially power generation where natural gas could lead to significant CO2 reductions;
• removing impediments to accelerated nuclear power development;
• abandoning an overly ambitious Renewable Performance Standard;
• continuing to promote improvements in energy efficiency; and
• making clear that EPA does not have authority to regulate CO2.

Since the turn of the century, federal energy legislation has contained provisions intended to lower greenhouse gas emissions without sacrificing the use of energy to meet the needs of a healthy economy. The time is ripe to take a “look back” to determine how well those provisions have worked and what changes are needed to improve those that have worked well and terminate those that have proven to be flawed or failed outright.

The results of such a “look back” could enable the Senate to be more focused and, in doing so, strike a balance between energy, emission management, and economic growth. Instead of assuming that Congress is smart enough to mandate absolute emissions reductions decades in the future, it would be better off using improvements in carbon intensity -- the amount of carbon consumed per unit of GDP -- as the metric of progress.

One way to reduce carbon intensity without damaging the economy is to impose a moderate carbon tax with proceeds used to reduce the payroll tax. That sends a signal that carbon will become scarcer while increasing the take home pay of workers. Politicians who claim that the public won’t accept a carbon tax are fooling themselves if they think that public doesn’t understand that cap-and-trade or a stringent renewable standard isn’t a tax. At least, the public -- rather than traders and rent seekers -- stands gain from a carbon tax.

There is always a temptation to overreact in response to a crisis or catastrophe like the Deepwater Horizon accident. Avoiding that dangerous impulse is an imperative now. As time goes by, more and more evidence surfaces that bad decisions and negligence were primary causes of the explosion and not poor industry practices. The Senate should first remove the moratorium imposed by President Obama while making it clear that it understands the important role domestic oil and gas exploration has in our economy and in improving energy security. Congress can then turn to potential improvements in operating practices and clean up and restoration.

While fundamentally changing the way the United States consumes sources of energy sounds initially daunting, there are several first steps that would be both economically and environmentally beneficial to take. The fact that these actions have not been taken reveals how entrenched the “business as usual” crowd is.

First, begin to regulate the largest sources of greenhouse pollution, most notably those utilities and industrial sources that spew tens of thousands of carbon into the atmosphere annually. These sources already foul the air and pose dangers to human well-being. The science-based Clean Air Act is well-equipped to deal with them. EPA clearly has the legal authority to act.

Second, create incentives to reduce and eliminate the substantial non-carbon greenhouse pollutants such as methane from landfills (it can be converted to valuable natural gas), various hydro fluorocarbons (cheap substitutes exist and they can already be regulated under the successful Montreal Protocol), and black carbon (a massive human health threat that more efficient American technologies could easily abate around the globe).

Third, end the billions of dollars of federal subsidies to the oil, coal and gas industries and pump them into solar, wind and geothermal. These renewable sources of energy are the future and on the precipice of significant residential and commercial utilization. Take the money now contemplated for dangerous and unreliable carbon sequestration and new nuclear plants, and give the U.S. taxpayer a healthy rebate.

These three actions would pay for themselves, spur incredible job innovation, and take us down the road to true clean energy independence. Would George Washington side with Massey Coal in this debate? Would Abe Lincoln embrace Exxon-Mobil and BP? Would the Roosevelts say this change was all too difficult? Of course not. Crisis begets innovation. Innovation defines this great country.

Let’s do it.

A bipartisan bill with a national renewable electricity standard (RES) passed the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee over a year ago. It is beyond comprehension that we are now hearing that the bill may never be brought to the Senate floor.

On Friday, 17 environmental, labor, utility and renewable groups sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid calling for inclusion of the RES in the Senate energy bill now being drafted. The letter said in part, “Without immediate passage, hundreds of thousands of future jobs in the clean energy sector could be lost and surrendered to other countries forever … An RES would provide a down payment on carbon reduction goals, save and create jobs, and keep America competitive.”

Only about 700 megawatts (MW) of wind power were added in the second quarter of 2010 and wind power installations to date this year have dropped by 54% and 69% from 2008 and 2009 levels, respectively. Manufacturing investment also continues to lag below 2008 and 2009 levels.

Not passing an RES endangers at least 360,000 jobs: 85,000 currently employed in the wind industry and the potential 274,000 additional jobs created by an RES. Workers, families, and our country demand a new energy future. That future must emphasize new strategies that embrace clean, renewable sources of energy that reduce costs, create jobs, and enhance our national security.

Late last week, while the U.S. Senate was buckling under polluter pressure, China announced a decision to begin reducing its carbon emissions next year. Couple that with China's huge investments in renewables, its new lead in wind installations and solar manufacturing, and the fact that it appears to be making policy based on facts instead of lobbying dollars, and July 21-22, 2010, could become the turning point in the US/China race to dominate the 21st century economy – with America coming in dead last.

Ensuring steady growth of the industries that will solve our climate, water, and waste problems will be a critical way to address not only near-term employment challenges, but our long-term economic, environmental and energy security goals. Renewable electricity, energy efficiency, and biofuels can make a significant down payment on carbon pollution targets. These sources are rapidly deployable today, immediately producing jobs, energy security, and environmental benefits.

The time has come for Congress to enact legislation providing long-term support for energy efficiency, renewable electricity and biofuels. It is essential for American jobs, our national security, and the environment.

"First, do no harm." This guiding principle of medical care should become a guiding principle for our elected officials as well. And there is no better place to apply this principle than energy legislation now being cobbled together for consideration by the Senate.

Unfortunately, the guiding principle behind many of the proposals discussed by Senate Democrats up to now seems to be "let’s do something." What senators need to keep in mind is that doing the wrong thing is worse than doing nothing at all.

Senators need to reject environmental extremists who seem to find something wrong with every existing form of energy. In their zeal to reach the energy age of the Jetsons, some seem determined to throw us back to the age of the Flintstones.

While restrictions on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions may sound like a good idea at first glance, in reality they would strike a devastating blow against the American people.

Carbon restrictions would slap billions of dollars in hidden taxes on every American family and business, wipe out millions of jobs, raise the costs of gasoline and other forms of energy, and accelerate the exodus of businesses and jobs abroad.

A cap and trade system like the one passed by the House and supported by some Democrats in the Senate is based on a complex and confusing scheme to pick the pockets of families and job-creating businesses. The scheme would enable Wall Street speculators to make fortunes trading emissions permits in a giant casino, and raise the cost of many types of energy and the products produced with that energy.

If Rube Goldberg were alive today and was asked to design an energy tax, he’d be hard-pressed to outdo the supporters of the Kerry-Lieberman bill that fell flat in the Senate and the Waxman-Markey bill that passed in the House.

A poll conducted earlier this month of 6,000 registered voters in 10 states by Harris Interactive for the American Petroleum Institute found that 64 percent opposed higher taxes on the U.S. oil and natural gas industry. There was no leading question designed to get any preconceived result. The poll simply asked: "Do you support or oppose raising taxes on the oil and gas industry?"

Voters in the poll said the two most important issues the federal government should deal with are the economy and creating jobs – a finding consistent with other recent national polls. These two issues should be paramount in any legislation taken up by the Senate.

The Kerry-Lieberman bill was abandoned – for now at least – by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid because senators understood that with an election less than four months away, voting for massive new energy taxes, no matter how well disguised, would be hazardous to their political health.

Carbon restrictions would result in all pain and no gain. That’s because if global issues like carbon emissions are to be addressed, the only effective way to do so is to address them globally.

No matter what unilateral actions the United States takes, carbon emissions will grow from India, China, and other rapidly modernizing nations. Since everyone on Earth shares the same common atmosphere, the carbon emitted abroad has the same impact as carbon emitted at home.

There are many steps the Senate can consider to encourage energy conservation, improve energy efficiency, and increase research on new energy sources.

My industry favors the use of alternative sources of fuels and materials that are now being developed, once they become commercially viable. However, we oppose special subsidies for non-competitive energy sources that are costing American taxpayers billions of dollars today and could cost far more tomorrow. Uncle Sam’s bank account is already overdrawn.

We favor an even playing field, with the American people choosing by their purchasing decisions which forms of energy and which products best meet their needs at an affordable rate.

While it’s important for Congress and the administration to focus on America’s energy policy for tomorrow, they shouldn’t ignore the energy needs and realities of today.

(This response was written by Eric Haxthausen, director of the Nature Conservancy's U.S. climate policy.)

It is now clear that the Senate will not act on climate change before it adjourns in August for its end-of-summer recess. This is deeply disappointing for the many of us who have been working long hours over the last year-and-a-half to help design legislation that would greatly improve the lives of all the world’s citizens.

There will be lots of time for reflection, re-examination and, regrettably, some recrimination, but let me take this moment to make the case that the Senate can find a way to press forward. A bill may not be ready for Senate debate next week, but with the active engagement of the president, the deep reserve of talent in his administration, and senators from both sides of the aisle, it can be done this year.

Why should the Senate act this year?

There are many reasons, but here are three:

1) The science keeps getting stronger. And the risks are increasingly clearer. A report released last week by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that humans are changing the atmosphere and oceans to such an extent that we are entering a new geological epoch, called the Anthropocene. What does this mean for us? Today’s hottest summers will be the future norm. And, with only a 2 degree Fahrenheit increase in temperature, three to five times more forest land in parts of the American West will burn each year.

2) America’s place in the world is at stake. For more than three generations, the world has looked to the U.S. to lead on major international issues. As the country with the world’s largest economy, and the one that has produced more carbon emissions than any other, the rest of the planet anxiously awaits a commitment from us on climate change. That may be changing, though. Increasingly, developed countries are looking to China for partnership, trade, and even leadership on climate. And ironically, yesterday, the Chinese press reported that the country is moving forward to impose a domestic carbon trading scheme in order to meet its 2020 commitments.

3) The economy needs it – in the short run and the long run. Clarifying the rules of the road on carbon will drive innovation and stimulate investment, helping the economy get back on track. These days, most business leaders realize that something will have to be done about climate and energy. The question is what? Until that question is resolved, investment dollars will sit idle or, more likely, go to other countries. Take a look at this recent quote from Lew Hay, CEO of NextEra (formerly FPL Group), one of America’s largest utilities:

“We need some certainty about the economics. Are we going to have a price on carbon and, if so, what's it going to be?”

He argued that the current uncertainty “puts a lot of investment dollars on the sideline,” adding that while FPL Group is hoping to spend up to $18 billion on nuclear power plant development, it will be difficult to proceed with the investment without greater certainty over the legislative landscape.

These are three reasons for the Senate to press forward, and for ordinary citizens to demand that it do so. But can it?

Here are two reasons why it can: First, an unprecedented coalition of businesses, labor, conservation and faith-based organizations has been clamoring for action. This isn’t just about the environmental movement. Electric utility and other CEOs have been vociferously arguing for carbon limits, so they can begin investing rationally with a long-term orientation. These business leaders prefer a legislative solution to the regulatory approach rather than the continued uncertain trajectory under an abandoned policy.

And let’s not forget that the House has already completed its work – more than a year ago, in fact. Senate passage of a bill, even a scaled-back one, would allow Congress to move forward with a conference and reconcile the two bills later this year.

Two more ingredients could be helpful to keeping this effort going through the hot days of summer: a visibly engaged President Obama, and a visibly engaged public, reminding political leaders that their future is at stake.