The great Washington pastime of reading between the lines of the President’s State of the Union address is in full swing.  If the POTUS had last night said “I support the Waxman-Markey bill and ask the Senate to pass it” — that would have been clear.  If he had instead ignored climate change and focused on energy — that would have been an equally clear sign.  What he did, however, struck this observer as so nuanced that it left plenty of room for interpretation.  And this was one case where actually watching the speech rather than reading it provides an additional layer of complexity.  Let’s interlineate some comments in italics between the POTUS’s words below:

But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.

Interesting lead, here.  Senator/Candidate Obama campaigned on an energy plan that sounded pro-nuclear, but the only concrete nuclear decision thus far in the Adminstration has been pulling the plug on Yucca Mountain.  To be fair, pulling the plug in this context means ending life support, not unplugging a smoothly functioning machine.  So what incentives for nuclear will the Administration support?  Some in Congress have been advocating significant increases to the DOE loan guarantee program.  In these times of sky-high deficits, that’s a policy that makes a great deal of sense, since a well-constructed loan guarantee is actually a revenue-raiser for the government.

It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development. 

Another good one, as long as the “tough decisions” are favorable decisions.

It means continued investment in advanced biofuels and clean coal technologies. 

In the context of his proposed discretionary spending freeze, does this mean that these programs will be protected in the forthcoming budget?  We’ll see.  What happened next in the speech was the most interesting of all.  Having paused for the applause from representatives of ag and coal states, the POTUS cocked his head, smiled, and said:

And, yes, it means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America.

Note that he didn’t say “cap and trade” but a “comprehensive” bill “with incentives.”  That can mean a lot of things, and the POTUS was in full charm mode.  In fact, if he had winked, his body language would have been clear.  To this observer, it would have meant:  I know you folks aren’t really going to be able to pass a big ol’ cap and trade bill, but let’s at least do something. 

Then he went on to not really endorse the House bill but offered help to the “bipartisan effort in the Senate.”

I am grateful to the House for passing such a bill last year.  And this year I’m eager to help advance the bipartisan effort in the Senate.

Most people interpret that as support for the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman process, about which we’ve written previously about in this space.  Yet one wonders whether Senators Cantwell (D-WA) and Collins (R-ME) — authors of the only bipartisan climate bill currently pending in the Senate — might be forgiven for hoping he was referring to them.  Especially since the KGL process is really a “tripartisan effort,” right?  Sorry, but probably not. 

The POTUS then went for a strong finish:

I know there have been questions about whether we can afford such changes in a tough economy. I know that there are those who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change. But here’s the thing — even if you doubt the evidence, providing incentives for energy-efficiency and clean energy are the right thing to do for our future -– because the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy. And America must be that nation.

So here again, pricing carbon through a cap and trade or tax is certainly one kind of incentive for energy-efficiency and clean energy.  So, however, are tax subsidies, renewable or clean energy portfolio standards, and other measures that don’t encompass capping and trading.  Was the POTUS endorsing cap and trade?  Are the POTUS and his team going to really engage in the effort on energy and climate for cap and trade?  Or are they going to push for a clean energy bill that contains “incentives” for energy-efficiency and clean energy?  We’ll see.

Previous Post  

Next Post

Weekly Political Roundup--Why We Blog
March 5, 2010

Cap and trade; bait and switch
March 4, 2010

Oil Companies Offer an Alternative to Cap-and-Trade
March 3, 2010