Darryl Cherness asked:


As election day draws near, it appears extremely likely that Barack Obama will be elected the next President of the United States. In addition, there is a general consensus, even among Republicans, that the Democrats will pickup seats in congress and may even obtain a “filibuster proof” majority in the Senate.

Currently, the Democrats have 49 seats in the Senate. In addition to those 49 seats, there are 2 independents, Joe Lieberman and Bernard Sanders, who caucus with the Democrats, effectively giving them a 51 seat majority. However, in order to get anything done in the Senate, 60 votes are needed to break Republican sponsored filibusters, the process of talking a bill to death and preventing action on urgently needed legislation.

There is general agreement, given the state of the economy, that 2008 will be a Democratic year. If Democrats pick up 5 seats in the Senate, the minimum they are projected to win, they will have 56 votes and will only need 4 Republican votes to break a filibuster. However, if the Democrats pick up 9 votes, difficult but not impossible, they will be able to shut off debate without crossover Republican votes.

What will it mean for the labor movement to have a filibuster proof, Democratic majority in the Senate?

First and foremost, it means that the Employee Free Choice Act will be enacted into law. The Democratic congress will vote for the Employee Free Choice Act and send that legislation to President Barack Obama who will sign it into law. Once the Employee Free Choice Act becomes law and management can no longer manipulate company based representation elections, it is a safe bet that there should be a significant increase in the number of union represented employees in the United States.

In addition to the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, a strong Democratic majority in congress can be counted on to periodically raise the federal minimum wage for the working poor. Hopefully, the days of having to wait nine years for small increases in the minimum wage should become a relic of the past.

Other areas where significant changes can be anticipated include revisions in NAFTA to make it more labor friendly, the elimination of tax incentives to encourage American businesses to relocate overseas, greater regulation of the home loan industry to prevent a reoccurrence of the “subprime” housing debacle, and tax breaks for middle income wage earners.

Another significant change will come in the area of job creation. Unlike George Bush, Senator Obama has made it clear that he intends to spend significant sums of money on promoting renewable energy such as wind, solar, and geothermal energy. The expenditure of these funds should create thousands of new jobs for working men and women.

Finally, it is my belief that it is absolutely inevitable that the Democratic congress and the new Democratic president will allocate significant resources for “public works” projects; i.e. repair of infrastructure such as roads, bridges, sewers, water treatment plants, etc. Rather than rely on the marketplace to generate wealth that will “trickle down” to the masses, Obama and the Democratic congress will take direct action to stimulate our economy and return our nation to prosperity by means of these job creating projects.

I believe that the next four years may very well be recorded by historians as labor’s new “golden age.”

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World Energy asked:

Carbon offsets have received some bad press of late, some of it deserved but much of it misdirected. This is due in part to the fact that there is no single prevailing quality assurance standard or government oversight of the voluntary emissions reductions (VER) market. However, the variety of standards means that there are high quality and lower quality offsets, and therein lies the challenge.

The truth is there are many praiseworthy carbon reduction projects. To increase the odds of selecting one, offset buyers must become educated consumers. Only through education can buyers ensure they are purchasing the right carbon commodity for them and avoid the traps that have tripped up the most well-intentioned greening efforts.

Buying Carbon Offsets: A Quick Primer

Carbon offsets serve a number of purposes. In the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU-ETS), under the auspices of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), European companies can invest in emissions reduction projects in developing countries and claim the reductions as their own. That’s because greenhouse gases, unlike local pollutants such as mercury, are global: reducing one ton of CO2 in China has the same result as reducing one ton of CO2 in Germany.

Cognizant of this fact, and seeing an opportunity for wealthier countries to reduce their emissions at the lowest cost while simultaneously contributing to international development, the framers of the Kyoto Protocol included the CDM as a cost containment mechanism. In the US, where there is not yet a mandatory federal cap-and-trade scheme in place, offsets can be purchased by those companies that would like to voluntarily reduce their carbon footprint but find it too expensive to curtail their own emissions without an incentive to do so.

There are several key components of an offset that every potential buyer should examine closely before making a purchase:

Five Easy Pieces: Your Offset Quality Checklist

Verification standard: There are numerous standards under which an offset project can be certified (a good comparison of the major standards can be found here). The most important criterion for many buyers is additionality, or whether the project goes beyond business as usual. If you are about to invest in a project that can’t meet the additionality standard: think twice! A rigorous additionality requirement is the most important component of a high quality offset.

Project type: As with additionality, some standards are more selective of the types of emissions reductions projects they will certify. Moreover, from a public relations perspective, some project types can be more appealing to stakeholders than others. For example, while a wind farm and a landfill gas capture project may have identical emissions mitigation potential, the former might look better on your company’s annual report.

Project location: The geographic location of an offset project may be important to a company looking to make an investment in a strategically significant region. Where a project is based can also introduce geo-political risks. Knowing where a project is based can allow buyers to factor country risk into their pricing considerations.

Co-benefits: Some projects provide employment in the local area. Others create clean drinking water as a by-product. Auxiliary benefits such as these can make offset purchases more attractive.

Likelihood that offsets will be accepted under a future compliance regime: As the US Congress debates a mandatory, federal cap-and-trade scheme, there is speculation as to which offsets, if any, will be permissible in meeting compliance obligations. While there is no way to be certain that offsets from a particular project will be accepted, a good rule of thumb is that the more rigorous the protocol a project adheres to, the higher the probability that those offsets will be fungible.

These factors, amongst others, demonstrate the need for transparency in the offset marketplace. When buyers know exactly what they are buying – when they can see all project documentation and compare offsets from projects based on the criteria that matter most to them – they will be making an informed decision that they can defend to their stakeholders. And thankfully, opportunities to buy high quality offsets at a reasonable cost and in a transparent and liquid marketplace are closer than you might think.