Over on the National Journal Margaret Kriz poses the question:

Should Obama Follow Ambitious Recommendations?

A coalition of 31 national environmental organizations recently called on President-elect Barack Obama to work with Congress to pass ambitious economy-wide climate change legislation, while moving ahead under the Clean Air Act to set greenhouse gas emission limits on electric power plants, cars and fuels. Do you agree with this approach? Is immediate action on global warming necessary?

Here is the short version of my answer: If the proposals of the Gang of 31 are adopted this nation will be faced with:

1. Regulatory chaos;
2. Declining supplies of energy for decades until the technologies are developed;
3. A decades-long moratorium on major construction and infrastructure;
4. Disincentives to develop new technologies.

I covered number 1, regulatory chaos, on the National Journal blog. Let me move on to number 2.

Declining Energy Supplies

The best and brightest scientists studying the development of new energy technologies (from biomass, non-biomass, efficiency, nuclear, batteries for storage, carbon capture and sequestration) estimate we will not reap the results from widespread implementation of these technologies until around 2050 and until then oil, gas and coal will be the fuels that the world relies on to power our economies. Under the Gang of 31’s proposal, a hard cap on greenhouse gases would immediately occur if regulated under the current structure of the CAA. Such a cap would immediately limit the amount of fossil fuel that could be used so the nation could comply with the CAA.

So what does this mean?  First and foremost it means that as the country reduces its use of fossil fuel it would not have sufficient replacement fuels to meet energy demand. The country would have to adjust to less energy just as developing nations adjust to having less energy than is needed to run society.