Kiwi Carbon Cramdown

There is no 'good' way to do emissions controls.
New Zealand's government is crowing about the amended cap-and-trade bill passed Wednesday as a "balanced" and "responsible" solution to fight global warming. That is, if pork barreling and ramming a bill through parliament without any serious economic study of its impact is what's considered "responsible."
Prime Minister John Key's National Party-led government ran on a campaign promise to amend the previous government's onerous cap-and-trade law, which was rushed through before the last election. Mr. Key promised to water down the scheme to protect the economy from severe harm, while fulfilling New Zealand's Kyoto Protocol commitments.
The Key government soon found that its coalition partners, the ACT Party and the Maori Party, had serious reservations about passing what turned out to be the world's most comprehensive cap-and-trade bill. No wonder they were alarmed: National's bill covered all greenhouse gases and would affect most of the economy, including the country's key export industries of agriculture and forestry.
Critics also questioned the usefulness and timing of the bill, pointing out that New Zealand only contributes 0.2% of total global emissions, and a Copenhagen deal next month looks unlikely. Add in the climate-gate scandal bubbling in Britain, where evidence surfaced that climatologists tried to suppress skeptical global-warming studies, and there's even more reason to delay.

Yet the nominally conservative Key government plowed ahead by buying off the Maori Party earlier this week. In return for votes, the Maoris will get "energy efficiency assistance" for 8,000 low-income homes, the right to plant trees on government land to offset emissions elsewhere, and other goodies. The Nationals then rushed the bill through parliament under the "urgency" tool, used to extend sitting hours for priority business. The bill still only passed by a hair, 63-58.
Pork barreling to get a bill passed is nothing new in politics. But in this case it is only part of a bad picture: The government still has not released its own comprehensive study of the new law's potential economic impact. Kiwis may soon demand one as their energy prices rise and foreign investment goes elsewhere—all in the name of being "responsible."