John Dingell gave a speech yesterday at the Detroit Economic Club. But for one fact, I would swear that the cagey old lawmaker had done his part to kill any Kyoto-style carbon cap-and-trade legislation from moving through Congress in the near-term. That one thing is that the recent SCOTUS ruling specifically addressed CO2 emissions from new U.S. autos — Dingell is from Detroit — indicating that if EPA acts, as it likely will do (though by no means has to — an important note, see below), it will be cars that they regulate.

Indeed, reviewing his speech, the WSJ noted that:

“Mr. Dingell in his prepared remarks proposed crafting legislation that spreads the emissions-regulation burden “evenly and equally,” among several industries, including oil companies and electric utilities.”

That is, SCOTUS or no SCOTUS, you’re not just dumping this on my guys.

The one fact that could change my mind is if Chairman Dingell had been in communication with the White House beforehand, and it was understood that in fact EPA is not going to simply shuffle its way to the climatically meaningless regime of regulating tailpipe CO2. Instead, efforts like the President’s Executive Orders, also announced yesterday, would serve as the response until January 2009 when another team gets to deal with it. Suddenly, Congress’ imperative to usurp SCOTUS’s command to EPA by addressing the matter directly, spreading the pain in actual, enrolled legislation, becomes mush less urgent.

The problem with this is that it is far too insightful a move to be presumed as involving this White House. I don’t mean that snarkily. The simple truth is that the Bush White House has so badly mismanaged the global-warming issue that it defies description; it began Day 1 (March 17, 2001), when they simply should have stated that they will continue the Clinton-Gore policy of not seeking ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. Instead, they mangled the announcement and have made an utter hash of it at every opportunity since, refusing (with one exception) to note in any high-profile forum that since Kyoto, and certainly of late, U.S. emissions favorably compare with our moral hectors the Europeans, as well as Japan, Canada, and others.

However, it remains possible that Dingell and/or his staff brought them into it.

Here is what Dingell sayeth:

“First, we are working to fashion an economy-wide cap-and-trade policy. Now, I realize that everyone says Europe’s cap-and-trade policy is a mess. But who says we have to emulate their mistakes? [NB: no one explains how their proposal avoids them…because they don’t know how] I also realize that just about every economist – including President Bush’s former chief economist — says that a carbon tax would be a better approach. That’s probably true. But it’s also true that many Members of Congress remember only too clearly the letters B, T and U. So cap-and-trade may be the most realistic way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

My instinctive reaction is that we owe Congress’ longest-serving member an enormous debt of gratitude for saving us the effort of even having to raise “B-T-U.”

A year ago we had to spend our time explaining why cap-and-trade is an energy tax, but an inefficient one. Then the Kyoto crowd came out and first and pushed the carbon-tax issue, saving us a lot of work, despite the valiant efforts of several free-market think tanks to beat them to it . . . though it could also be Dingell’s intention to sucker them into ensuring we’re the ones to propose it, sigh. (Look, guys, “do nuance”, and just ask why those who express the most concern aren’t just pushing a tax; don’t actually push a tax).

Now comes Dingell, saying in essence, “yep, BTU is what we’re talking about, but it needs to be disguised to save pols’ jobs . . . if we’re too transparent we get kicked out and no one wants that.”

I’m not the most seasoned Dingell-watcher, but I’ve had enough exposure to suspect, with gladness, that he has put the kibosh on this for a while. Yes, lots of sturm over the next two years, but little drang.

Or he could be rhetorically digging a pit and covering it with palm fronds for Republicans to stagger into by demanding we inanely nibble around the relative edges of global CO2, efficiently, insisting instead upon the less unwieldy tax.