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Cost-Effective Control of
Urban Smog
Smog in urban areas creates serious health and welfare problems for residents in
the United States and across the world. This book examines a pioneering
governmental effort to reduce emissions in the Chicago ozone nonattainment
region by a complex market designed to allow trading of pollution permits.
Cost-Effective Control of Urban Smog utilizes empirical data gathered over the
past four years to critically assess and evaluate the disappointing performance of
the Chicago cap-and-trade market. The authors describe the political economics
of the early market design process. In doing so, they identify one of the main
causes of subsequent performance deficiencies: the continued use of traditional
centralized regulation together with the use of decentralized market incentives.
That is, two policy instruments are used to try to achieve one environmental goal,
and they ended up in conflict. The authors develop extensive data to test and
elaborate these findings, and to establish a firm basis for an improved market
design, which could improve market performance. The cap-and-trade market
approach to controlling urban smog could then be a model for use elsewhere.
1 Greenhouse Economics
Value and ethics
Clive L. Spash
5 Environmental Sustainability
A consumption approach
Raghbendra Jha and K.V. Bhanu Murthy
Richard F. Kosobud,
Houston H. Stokes,
Carol D. Tallarico, and
Brian L. Scott
First published 2006
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
an informa business
© 2006 Richard F. Kosobud, Houston H. Stokes,
Carol D. Tallarico, and Brian L. Scott
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Cost-effective control of urban smog: the significance of the Chicago
cap-and-trade approach / Richard F. Kosobud . . . [et al.].
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical reference and index.
1. Air – Pollution – Economic aspect. 2. Smog – Economic aspects.
3. Emission trading. I Kosobud, Richard F. II. Title.
HC79. A4C66 2005
363.739'26–dc22 2006003838
ISBN10: 0–415–70202–X
ISBN13: 978–0–415–70202–7
Contents
List of figures ix
List of tables xi
Foreword xiii
Preface xvii
Acknowledgments xxi
List of abbreviations xxiii
1 Introduction 1
Objectives 1
The political economy of the Chicago market design 3
Expectations and actual market performance 5
Traditional regulations and market incentives 7
Simulated performance of alternative market models 7
Explaining market performance 9
Hot spots, spikes, and emissions trading 10
Banking horizons of tradable permits: an experimental
approach 11
Conclusions and policy recommendations for
market redesign 12
Glossary 164
Bibliography 167
Index 173
Figures
The natural human tendency is to trumpet success and to sweep failure under the
rug. How welcome and refreshing it is then to encounter the work of a dedicated
group of policy-minded scholars who have resisted this tendency and have
resolutely sought to find out what went wrong and what can be done about it. The
Chicago VOC trading program would have been worthy of study for any number
of reasons, and its lack of success adds yet another, and more compelling one.
Failure is a better teacher than success, and anyone interested in the use of
market-based instruments for environmental regulation will find this book rich in
lessons and well worth the read.
The underlying issue in this work is one that must be considered in the
implementation of most cap-and-trade programs: how is the new market-based
system to relate to the conventional, prescriptive regulation that is already in
place? The story is a cautionary tale concerning the use of two instruments to
meet the same objective. In this case, the cap-and-trade system became, as the
authors put it, “window dressing” (of appropriate market design) for the tradi-
tional, prescriptive system that did the real work. While the environmental objec-
tive was handily achieved, the market-based system can take little credit for the
emissions reduction, not to mention any significant cost reduction. Indeed, its
main contribution may have been only to add to the already higher cost by the
need to account for allowances and emissions for what turned out to be a largely
redundant regulatory mechanism.
Previous cap-and-trade systems also co-existed with pre-existing, conventional,
prescriptive regulation, but there is an important difference between the Chicago
VOC system and those predecessors. In the earlier cases, traditional regulation
had largely spent its force, or had proved either politically infeasible or unable to
achieve further emissions reductions. The cap-and-trade addition aimed either to
go beyond what could be achieved by the traditional means of regulation, as in
the RECLAIM or NOX Budget Programs, or to achieve a different environmental
objective, as in the Acid Rain/SO2 Trading Program. In the Chicago VOC trading
program, the usual form of regulation was alive and well, and, as amply demon-
strated in this book, fully capable of meeting the environmental objective, albeit
at greater cost and perhaps less equity in the distribution of the regulatory burden.
xiv Foreword
The most that can be said of the cap-and-trade overlay is that it permitted a few
firms facing very high costs of compliance with the conventional prescriptive
regulation to gain some relief. For the vast majority, the trading system was
simply an irrelevant, extra burden.
For the reader, there are a number of interesting sub-plots in this story. One is
the rationale for using two instruments. The two were happily heralded as being
complementary: the cap-and-trade system would reduce costs and the prescriptive
system would ensure against hot spots and other micro-level worries. That the
result was something else is not so much an argument against market-based
systems as it is a caution against wishful thinking and failing to pay close attention
to interactions with the conventional regulatory system. The authors make an apt
analogy to the well known failure of the liberalization of electricity markets in
California, which was also an instance of failing to understand interactions and
an attempt to have the best of both worlds.
Another interesting insight in this book is the glimpse into how a conventional
regulatory system actually works, an area in which very little research has been
done and which the authors can address because of the micro-data that were avail-
able to them. They offer a vivid metaphor of a hammer that randomly falls on a
line of nails with varying force, driving some deeply into the wood, others not
nearly so much, and some hardly at all. Emissions are reduced but in a haphazard
manner that makes one wonder why people worry about the unpredictable results
of markets. As the authors point out, the cause is not laxness, sloppiness, or
corruption of the conventional regulatory system, but the workings of separate
prescriptions concerning inputs, particular processes, and other aspects of
production that fall with uneven and uncertain effect on the emissions of the
regulated firms.
The research presented in this book offers many other interesting insights.
The Chicago experience shows that a nonbinding cap does not mean that all
allocations to firms are slack. Some firms can still be short and, in the absence
of good information about the status of other firms, pay good money for permits
that would otherwise be priced at zero. The phenomenon of positive prices in
a slack system also provides a warning against thinking that observed prices
necessarily reflect control costs. The authors have not attempted to estimate
the cost of the emissions reduction that was achieved by traditional regulatory
means, but they demonstrate that market incentives were not operating, and that,
more than anything else, the prices observed reflected poor information and
transactions costs.
As advocates of the use of market-based incentives in environmental
regulation, the authors admit that they were hesitant in advancing their critique of
the Chicago experiment for fear of “rekindling old arguments” about emissions
trading. Their brave decision to do so nonetheless, in order to produce this
model of policy-related academic research, is commendable. The architects and
participants in the Chicago VOC trading program are fortunate to have this
soundly based and clearly argued research as the basis for needed changes to
Foreword xv
the present system. Policy analysts and designers of future cap-and-trade systems
will be forever in their debt for not sweeping the whole subject under the rug and
describing what can result when two instruments are used to achieve the same
objective.
A. Denny Ellerman
Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
January 2006
Preface
The authors hope this book conveys their enthusiasm about studying up closely
the pioneering implementation of a cap-and-trade market to reduce stationary-
source volatile organic compounds (VOC) emissions in the Chicago ozone
nonattainment area. Among the reasons for this enthusiasm are the promises that
this decentralized environmental regulation by market incentives can bring about
cost-effective, innovation stimulating, flexible, and nonconfrontational reduction
of pollution in comparison with traditional regulations.
Earlier efforts to utilize cap-and-trade markets to reduce air pollution, and
notably the documented achievements of the US sulfur dioxide program, have
converted a number of doubters and skeptics into supporters. Other implementa-
tions then followed, among them the cap-and-trade market to reduce nitrogen
oxides in the US and preliminary efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions
through the use of cap-and-trade markets in the European Union. To be able
to add a useful book on the Chicago VOC program seemed appropriate and
well timed.
This research could contribute new information to the growing but as yet small
knowledge base on the use of market incentives in environmental policy. The
pollutants, the hydrocarbons that make up VOC, are precursors of low-level ozone
concentrations, which have been found to be harmful to human health and
welfare. The VOC emissions are numerous and contain a subset of hazardous air
pollutants (HAPs) that are harmful in themselves. The pollutants arise from a
diversity of sources found in the production processes and inputs of a wide variety
of emitters, large and small. Few of the emissions giving rise to VOC concentra-
tions can be tracked with continuous electronic monitoring equipment, adding to
the problems of emissions measurement and regulation.
In addition, a dense set of centralized traditional command-and-control
regulations, devised over a long period of time and worked out in detail, were
already in existence, with accompanying protocols, monitoring and enforcement
procedures. These regulations, extensive as they were, resulted in only modest
reductions of the stubborn VOC and ozone concentrations, partly because
they failed to cap VOC emissions. However, command-and-control measures
were familiar, easy to understand, and gave the impression of action on the
pollution front.
xviii Preface
Traditional regulations were characteristic of US environmental policy for
much of the twentieth century. They were responsible for some reduction of
pollution, although in most cases not to acceptable levels, but at the cost of rising
marginal control costs and increasing confrontation between the regulating and
regulated communities. Environmental groups were frequently dissatisfied with
the activities of both sides. There was concern among some observers that the
problems being encountered would slow the momentum for improving environ-
mental quality, unless alternative regulatory measures were implemented. This
brought about the authors’ interest in bringing to the attention of the reader the
gains that could be achieved by a new application of a cost-effective, decentralized
form of regulation.
The introduction of any new complex form of decentralized regulation into this
system cannot be free of problems. These problems and the efforts to resolve
them are explained in detail for the interested reader. This book is not only a case
study of the implementation of a dramatic regulatory innovation in a difficult
setting, but also an effort to relate the Chicago program to the larger economic
and political issues of the use of market incentives to control a major urban pol-
lutant. The authors are aware that many other urban areas in the US and elsewhere
suffer the harms and welfare losses of ozone and its precursors. Readers from
these areas could have a special interest in the outcomes of the Chicago VOC
cap-and-trade market that are explained in this book.
The reader interested in the authors’ qualifications should know that the
authors were involved in the implementation of this program from the design start
in 1995 through the current date. They were thus able to pay close attention to the
development and execution of the market, including discussions with all partici-
pants and observers. The authors were also able to assemble a detailed database
on the design and recorded activities of the market, which proved of great value
in analyzing its performance during the first five years of the program, from 2000
through 2004. Before the start of market trading, the Illinois Environmental
Protection Agency (IEPA) set up a dialogue group to bring together regulators,
affected businesses, local environmental groups, and academics, such as the
authors, to discuss and debate the many design decisions to be made about the
features of the VOC cap-and-trade market. This discussion can be very revealing
to the reader interested in the political economy of a cap-and-trade market and is
reported in detail in this book.
The setup for trading in quantities of pollution in a cap-and-trade market differs
in important ways from the trading practices in private markets, for instance in
bread or wine. The IEPA must determine which firms are to be included in the
market and the reduction from benchmark emissions (the cap) that is required for
the protection of air quality. Then, decisions must be made about the definition and
pollutant content of the tradable permit, the allotment of permits to individual
emitters, and the length of life of the permit after issuance. Finally, decisions are
required about the monitoring of emissions and the enforcement of market rules.
These design decisions affect the performance of the environmental market,
and they can affect the confidence the public will have in supporting the market
Preface xix
and in understanding its role in regulation. Having the government allot permits
to pollute rather than reduce these unpleasant substances to zero can be explained
by the careful consideration of these decisions that is provided in the text.
Reducing these emissions to zero is both practically impossible and prohibitively
costly.
The final design of the market was a compromise of the various positions
taken in this dialogue debate, especially the positions taken by the business and
environmental communities. A summary of these discussions and the important
final decisions are provided in this volume for the reader, since they will have a
significant bearing on the final analysis.
After the design decisions are made, the new regulation then requires the
government to step back and allow emitters to manage their permit portfolios and
to reduce emissions, to the extent and by whatever control measures they wish,
all, hopefully, with cost minimization in mind. Managing the permit portfolio
involves buying or selling permits, returning them to the government to cover
emissions, or banking them for future use, guided by market incentives. An effective
market at equilibrium will find all emitters equating their marginal control-costs
to the equilibrium price of the permit, thus achieving a level of aggregate control
cost that, in almost all cases, will be below the level achieved by centralized
implementation of traditional regulations on all emitters. The authors modeled
these private emitter decisions in an abstract, ideal model in order to provide
forecasts of what might be expected prior to the start of the actual trading in 2000.
These forecasts could then be compared with observed market outcomes.
The enthusiasm of the authors was challenged by the departures of the actual
performance of the VOC market over the first four years, when compared with the
forecasted, and expected, outcomes. Emissions were much lower than predicted,
permit banks were much higher, and permit prices were well below expected
values. Most surprising were large expirations of tradable permits. Something
had gone amiss, after years of good work by all involved. While some problems
had been anticipated and were thought to be amenable to small adjustments, the
scale of the problems being encountered had not been foreseen by any of the
participants or observers.
A good idea for environmental regulation that runs aground in a particular
implementation can yield valuable knowledge, not only to facilitate correction of
the problems, but also to provide lessons for others planning similar innovations.
This was the position taken by the authors, who were determined to find answers
to the many questions posed by the surprising and unsettling market performance.
The authors harnessed their original enthusiasms, in order to embark on an
exploration of reasons for these perplexing market outcomes and to search for
ways to resolve these problems.
The authors invite the reader to join in this exploration. It will cover such market
imperfections as monopsony and imperfect information. It will also deal with
such matters as the recession and the possibility of over-allocation by the regu-
lating agency. Finally, it will confront the dual regulation character of the VOC
market in Chicago in which a particular compromised market design came into
xx Preface
contact with the dense set of traditional regulations that impacted on market
incentives. That is, two regulatory instruments were utilized to achieve one envi-
ronmental goal, the reduction of VOC emissions. Therein lies the problem. The
authors believe their search has been successful in revealing the reasons for the
problems encountered thus yielding valuable knowledge about the pitfalls of
implementing a new regulation, and a reward for the research effort.
The reader will see these findings explored and tested empirically. What
emerges is a sorting of the reasons for the unexpected performance that stands up
to rigorous statistical analysis. The objective is not only to identify the reasons
for the problems but also to lay a firm basis for correction of the market design
deficiencies.
To propose a redesign of a complex cap-and-trade market is a serious undertaking
that will have to hold out the promise of success and will have to secure the
support of concerned groups. The authors have utilized several sources of infor-
mation and undertaken original research in an effort to realize these objectives.
These efforts include: a study of tradable permit banking horizons, based upon
simulated markets devised by experimental economic methods; an estimation of
the appropriate cap for the redesigned market, based upon daily ozone and
precursor data for the Chicago area obtained during the hot summer of 2005; and
a comparison of the VOC approach with that of other cap-and-trade markets.
What results from this work is a recipe for redesign of the VOC market that can
be presented to all the participants in the Chicago program, and to the reader, for
their evaluations. While the current market performance turned out different from
first expectations, the good work invested in the innovative program can be mod-
ified along the lines set forth in this volume to increase the chances of reaching
the original environmental goals. Urban ozone is an important problem and
reducing the precursors of urban ozone is a necessary step in its control. Such
control had not been achieved by traditional regulations, nor was it expected to be
easily achieved by the use of a cap-and-trade market. However, the authors
believe their work will further the prospect of success in the not too distant future.
Acknowledgments
The authors are indebted to numerous people and institutions for comments and
data that proved invaluable in this book. The list enumerated below is by no
means complete, but may suffice in giving a representative sample of the sources
upon which the authors have drawn.
The following people listed alphabetically were among those who gave helpful
comments or research assistance at various stages in the work:
DePriest, William, Manager, Environmental Services, Fossil Power Technology
Group, Sargent & Lundy LLC, Chicago, IL.
Ellerman, A. Denny, Senior Lecturer, Sloan School of Management and Faculty
Associate, Center of Energy and Environmental Policy Research,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.
Harley, Keith, Chicago Legal Clinic, Chicago, IL.
Hermanson, Robert, Environmental Consultant, BP West Coast Products, LLC,
Naperville, IL.
Hoelscher, Joanna, Citizens for a Better Environment, Chicago, IL.
Jiric, Alan, Director of Regulatory Affairs, Corn Products International Inc., Bedford
Park, IL.
Kanerva, Roger, Adjunct Faculty, University of Illinois at Springfield,
Springfield, IL, USA. Formerly Chief Policy Adviser, Illinois Environmental
Protection Agency, Springfield, IL.
Kosobud, Adam D., Research Assistant, Department of Psychology, University of
Chicago, Chicago, IL.
Kroack, Laurel L., Manager, Bureau of Air, Illinois Environmental Protection
Agency, Springfield, IL.
Linn, Joshua, Professor of Economics, University of Illinois at Chicago,
Chicago, IL.
McGrath, Daniel T., Associate Director, Institute for Environmental Science and
Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL.
Scheff, Peter A., Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences,
University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL.
Summerhays, John, Air Program Branch, US Environmental Protection Agency,
Region V, Chicago, IL.
xxii Acknowledgments
Stokes, Diana A., Editorial Processing Manager, American Medical Association,
scientific publications, retired.
Theis, Thomas, Director, Institute for Environmental Science and Policy,
University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL.
Among the places that presentations were made of work in progress were the
following:
Center of Energy and Environmental Policy Research, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge, MA.
Illinois Economics Association, Chicago, IL.
Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, Springfield, IL.
Institute for Environmental Science and Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago,
Chicago, IL.
Midwest Economics Association, Saint Louis, Mo.
Objectives
Any comprehensive effort to describe and analyze a pioneering and innovative
environmental regulatory measure based on market incentives designed to control
a serious urban air quality problem deserves more than the customary brief intro-
duction. This serious problem concerns the harms and welfare losses attributable
to low-level ozone and one of its precursors, volatile organic compound (VOC)
emissions. This book aims to be that comprehensive effort covering the initial
contentious market design discussions, the expectations and actual performance
of the regulation during the first years, the surprises and problems encountered,
the search for and diagnosis of the causes of the problems, and, finally, the
proposals to redesign the market to achieve improved air quality.
While each of the four authors had a special responsibility for particular
chapters dealing with these topics, the separate contributions were thoroughly
discussed and integrated so that the book is meant to be read from start to finish,
with subsequent presentations building on prior work. Nevertheless, it is
recognized that some readers may be more interested in the market performance,
others in the statistical analysis of problems, and yet others in the policy conclu-
sions. Therefore, this introduction has been prepared as a guide outlining the
major topics presented in each chapter. This introduction may also be valuable for
readers desiring a substantive overview before taking up the important content
and details.
As a general introduction, the authors call attention to the recent development
of emissions trading, especially the cap-and-trade variant, as a now well-received
and potentially more cost-effective, flexible, and less confrontational choice than
traditional regulations for control of environmental quality. By traditional regula-
tions the authors refer to centralized mandating by the US Environmental
Protection Agency (US EPA) of pollutant emission rates and/or control technolo-
gies. Marginal control costs are typically not equalized under this regulatory
regime, frequently termed command-and-control.
By cap-and-trade market the authors refer to the decentralized design of an
environmental market in which the government allocates tradable permits to
emitters that reduce prevailing or historical pollution levels. The emitters,
2 Introduction
assumed to be cost minimizers, are free to trade permits, bank them, or choose
control measures. The government collects a permit for each unit of pollution
emitted and monitors and enforces market rules, but allows emitters to make the
micro-control and permit portfolio decisions. In theory, marginal control costs are
equalized across all emitters when the market is in equilibrium, leading to control
costs typically below those of centralized regulation. This latter model and depar-
tures from it underlie much of this book and is explained in detail in Chapter 5.
Not long ago, the use of decentralized market incentives was hardly on the
agenda of the regulating and regulated communities, and certainly not on
the agenda of the environmental communities. It was to be found in the table of
contents of economic journals where the theory was under serious consideration.
Such studies while demonstrating the cost-effectiveness and flexibility of market
incentives were not sufficient in and of themselves to have them adopted as a
matter of public policy, as the authors shall explain. What mattered more were the
increasing costs imposed by traditional regulations.
The national sulfur dioxide (SO2) trading system, a cap-and-trade market,
established by the US Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (CAAA 1990), was a
major breakthrough and is now widely regarded as a success (Ellerman et al.
1997: 64). Other cap-and-trade markets, for example, the US EPA-managed
nitrogen oxides (NOX) trading system is being closely monitored and now seems
well on its way to a successful implementation. The European Community is
developing cap-and-trade systems in an effort to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2)
emissions (Kruger and Pizer 2004: 8–23). An extension to other pollutants, such
as VOC emissions, seemed a natural next step. Both VOC emissions as a precur-
sor of urban ozone concentrations and the concentrations themselves have
adverse health and visibility effects and are important constituents of urban smog.
This book is focused on the market control of VOC and urban ozone because
designing a market for these pollutants raises special considerations and chal-
lenges. The authors evaluate the performance of a cap-and-trade market to reduce
stationary-source air emissions of VOC in the Chicago ozone nonattainment area,
one of the first market systems implemented in an effort to reduce an urban pol-
lutant rather than a regional, national, or global air quality problem. The diversity
of hydrocarbons that make up VOC emissions, the inclusion of hazardous air pol-
lutants as a subset, the wide variety and complexity of sources of these emissions
with challenging problems of measurement, and the existence of a complex set of
traditional regulations already in effect all created special issues and choices in
designing a market system, and in formulating effective market rules and emis-
sion measurement protocols. Despite these complications, the expectations were
for another success story when the new program began in 2000.
In general, the merits of a decentralized trading approach to reducing pollution
have often been expressed and analyzed by economists in abstract models and a
version of that analysis will be presented in a later chapter. However, there
remained an unease among some observers, including many environmental
groups, a number of businesses, and even some regulators, about possible
problems with the use of autonomous and anonymous markets in environmental
Introduction 3
regulation. For example, environmental groups were concerned about hot spots,
business participants about benchmarks and permit prices, and regulators about
emissions measurement and monitoring. Many of these views were contentious
and entered into the market design decisions. They also were influential in the
decision by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) to retain and
extend traditional regulations while developing an emissions trading approach to
be placed along side the former. This unique feature of the pioneering Chicago
program, a dual centralized and decentralized regulation of VOC emissions, has
played a major role in the cap-and-trade market design and its implementation.
A detailed explanation and analysis of the consequences of this combined
regulation will be one of the major objectives of this book.
The book has other important objectives. It aims to provide a detailed
description of the first four years of performance of the VOC cap-and-trade
market, presenting the facts given by the IEPA plus data generated by our own
accounting. That is, the authors provide seasonal data on benchmark emissions,
allotments of tradable permits, emissions covered by the return to the agency of
tradable permits, banks, and prices of permits in addition to our estimates of
expirations or non-use of dated permits. The intention is to evaluate these data to
determine the extent to which the VOC cap-and-trade market has met its air
quality, cost-effectiveness, and flexibility goals. Whether these goals have been
met by the performance of the market will require a probing beneath the observ-
able data. To the extent the program has fallen short of its goals, as the authors
find in this research, it provides a strong motivation to search for and provide
evidence on the relative importance of each cause or explanation of the shortfall
as a preliminary guide to redesign of the market.
Also, it is our intention to evaluate the extent to which the cap-and-trade
approach used in Chicago can be recommended to other urban areas confronted
with VOC emissions and low-level ozone. To satisfy these objectives requires that
the authors first provide information on the origin and design of the innovative
market approach.
These results are based upon agency data reported in the annual performance
reports in addition to some calculations by the authors to achieve consistency
demanded by our tabular presentation, as will be explained. Inconsistencies and
gaps in agency-provided data led the authors to construct a tradable permit
sources and uses table that provides a framework for checking the consistency of
data. It also provides a framework for a deeper analysis of the flow of transactions
in the market. The agency has not yet adopted such a table. The authors illustrate
the advantages of the table in an application presented in Chapter 3.
The fact that emissions were reduced far below the cap was regarded by the
agency as a success of the market system. While the authors too applaud this
reduction, our findings, which will be supported later, are that continuing and
extended traditional regulations were binding in reducing emissions and not the
market system or cap. Enormous banks, large expirations, and very low prices of
tradable permits call for careful appraisal as they suggest design imperfections.
Such surprising market outcomes led the authors to a reconsideration of the
existing market design and to concerns that the Chicago cap-and-trade approach,
locally called the Emissions Reduction Market System (ERMS), was performing
far below its potential in achieving cost savings, innovation, and flexibility. There
is every indication from information emanating from the agency that such out-
comes continued after the first four years; that is, the market suffers from certain
design, rather than transitory, problems.
No evaluation of the cap-and-trade program would be complete or of value
without a full account and analysis of these perplexing outcomes. A number of
explanations are put forward in an effort to understand this market performance,
several of them discovered in subsequent research and others obtained from
discussions with concerned observers. One of the major research efforts reported
in this book is to formulate hypotheses to test the soundness of these explanations
and their capacity to point the way toward remedial action. This will require the
search for and development of data and statistical methods that will enable us to
reach new conclusions about how market design imperfections interacted with
external constraints on market incentives. These conclusions could be of great
help in the forthcoming redesign of the market and provide guidance to other
urban areas considering this new tool to reduce their smog problems.
Introduction 7
Traditional regulations and market incentives
Environmental regulation for improvement of land, air, and water quality for
much of the twentieth century was mainly of the centralized, prescriptive type,
often called command-and-control regulation. Certainly, the important national
legislation of 1970 that set standards for VOC among other air pollutants and
established the US EPA, envisioned centralized or traditional regulations as the
main measures to be used to obtain improved air quality. Market incentives are a
relatively recent regulatory measure that to date have been combined in varying
ways with traditional regulations. Chapter 4 describes how centralized traditional
regulations are expected to work before analyzing how they may work in combi-
nation with decentralized market incentives.
Traditional regulations, as the authors have mentioned, set limits on the rate of
emissions for particular processes or prescribes technologies often based on
particular control techniques to be applied to specific processes. On occasion,
emission limits are set in advance of known capabilities in an effort to “force
control technology” to be developed by the firm. Traditional regulations also set
limits on the VOC content of certain inputs that vary widely in type and pollutant
content. By congressional mandate, the regulating community was to consider
health impacts and not the costs of control in setting these limits. Given the wide
diversity of pollutants, production processes, and inputs, the environmental
protection agencies have been hard pressed to develop regulations to cover all of
these, not to mention keeping up with new information and changes.
When the acceptable rates of emissions were established, it was clear that mar-
ginal control costs would not be equalized among emitters, and therefore a least
aggregate control cost would not be achieved. That was not the objective of the
regulations. Note that controlling the rates of emission or the use of particular
inputs does not limit the aggregate volume of pollution that can vary by rate of
economic activity or by entrance of new emitters into the pollution area.
Chapter 4 describes relevant features of this centralized regulation as they were
applied to VOC emissions control. These measures continued during the market
period and increased in number and intensity, especially for the hazardous air
pollutants (HAPs) components of VOC, which are numerous and not yet com-
pletely prescribed by acceptable levels and control techniques. While much of this
regulation was specified in guideline fashion at the federal level by the US EPA,
implementation, monitoring, and enforcement was left to state and local levels of
government. One important question raised in this chapter concerns how the limits
prescribed by traditional regulations could constrain market decisions made under
the particular design of the Chicago program. For example, traditional regulations,
by lowering emissions below tradable permit market allotments for the firm or by
setting a ceiling on emissions levels, could constrain market transactions.
1 How could a market induce substantial cost savings with so few transactions?
2 How could the market induce control measure innovations when permit
prices were so low and when most participants held excessive permits soon
to expire?
3 How could the market induce wise allocation of costs over time when the
banks of permits were so large that most of them would expire?
4 How could the market induce flexibility in participant choices to reduce
emissions or trade or bank when the pressing problem for most of them was
how to dispose of huge banks of nonsalable permits?
Introduction
Introducing a pioneering, even radical, regulatory innovation on top of a
long-established, tested, and traditional set of ozone control regulatory measures,
which many believed should be extended instead, is not a trivial exercise in
environmental governance. This chapter describes the setting for this action,
including information on the local health impacts of urban ozone, the contending
views on design of this innovative regulation, the subsequent compromised
design, and the resulting hopes and expectations as the new regime was launched.
The actual performance of the first years of this new regulation is described in
Chapter 3.
Table 2.1 Ozone morbidity damage reductions obtained by reducing ozone concentrations
(from 190 to 120 ppb)
the 1970 legislation. During the period, “little attention had been paid to
developing a credible database” (Calcagni 1993: 191), which clearly must play a
key role in measuring progress toward the air quality goal and in laying the foun-
dation for any market-based incentive scheme. Achieving that database had
proved a challenge involving more expense and effort than anticipated. The
challenge remains to this date, despite some progress. The difficulty is indicated
by the fact that no state had completed the database in any satisfactory manner
two years after the 1990 Act.
Making US environmental policy is neither a simple nor always a transparent
process. The federal and state government elected branches are clearly active and
important participants, together with the US EPA, as in the 1990 CAAA. The
50 environmental agencies in the states play active roles in regulatory implemen-
tation and in certain discretionary areas, such as the choice of a cap-and-trade
decentralized approach. Having so many government agencies involved in policy
making and in implementation has been criticized as having “too many cooks in
the kitchen” and increasing opportunities for evasive lobbying. It has also been
praised as furthering experimentation and strengthening policy selection.
The eight-hour standard was initiated in the first instance by the US EPA under
legislative authority to set requirements in terms of health considerations, and
the initiation withstood challenges in the federal courts. As the authors have
mentioned under the new standard, each urban area was classified, or reclassified,
in terms of concentration data; the Chicago area, unchanged in spatial dimen-
sions, was reclassified as a “moderate” nonattainment region in June 2005.
20 The political economy of the market design
Table 2.3 Urban area classifications for the eight-hour ozone standard
The option of redesigning the cap-and-trade market remained very much on the
state’s agenda given the reductions in VOC emissions that would be required. The
agency has stated, “Further VOM reductions will be needed to meet the new stan-
dard, and the ERMS program is expected to have a role in obtaining those reduc-
tions” (IEPA 2003: 2). VOM stands for volatile organic material, which is
equivalent to VOC, and ERMS stands for the Emissions Reduction Market
System. Thus, an opportunity has been created to redesign the market in ways
more compatible with traditional regulations and more consistent with the new air
quality goals.
The authors have prepared a summary Table 2.3 that specifies the eight-hour
ozone levels not to be exceeded and the new attainment dates required for state
implementation. Reasonable further progress is required for each urban area clas-
sification; for example, Chicago should achieve a 15 percent reduction in VOC
emissions from baseline by no later than 2008 and attainment by no exceedances
over the prior three years now to be reached by the later date of June 15, 2010.
Several requirements are relaxed for moderate nonattainment areas compared to
severe categories, such as tests of vehicle emissions by basic inspection and main-
tenance measures rather than enhanced inspection and maintenance, the latter
involving longer tests of vehicles on rollers with the motor running. Other
requirements carry over by and large from the one-hour standard, including the
option of utilizing market incentive programs. Moderate nonattainment areas run
the risk, as do other areas, of more stringent classification if ozone concentrations
increase beyond the threshold or design values.
"I don't think at all of him. In one evening I am not able to form an
opinion of any one; at least," checking herself, "not often. He didn't say
anything remarkably brilliant, did he?"
"Brilliant! No."
"Yes, Marmaduke has a regard for me. But don't you think him superbly
handsome?"
This was said with perfect unaffectedness; but he raised his eyes
quickly, and gave her just such a look as she remembered him to have given
her once before, when they were talking of Leopardi, and it embarrassed
her. Indeed, said to an ugly man, this had an equivocal sound: it was either a
sarcasm or a declaration.
"Come, come, you do not state the case fairly. The question is not,
whether you or your sex prefer beauty to brains, but whether you prefer
beauty to ugliness? It is curious to notice how this question is always
confused in this way, by mixing up with it an element that does not properly
belong to it. People say, 'Oh, a clever plain man before a handsome fool!'
and then argue, as if all the plain men were necessarily clever, and all the
handsome men imperatively fools."
"I cannot agree with you. Running over the list of great men you will
find the proportion greatly in favour of handsome men; which, when you
come to reflect how few handsome men there are compared to the
thousands of ugly men, is the more striking. The reason I take to be this:
these men, from their very intellectual greatness, must have had great
beauty of expression, so that with features a little better than ordinary they
would rank among the handsome. It may be said, indeed, that very fine
organizations include genius and beauty."
"Oh!" she replied, laughing, "if I once get into an argument with you,
you'll make out anything. But I won't be browbeaten by logic: 'hang up
philosophy!' as Benedict says. I'm as difficult to be reasoned out of my
convictions as if I were a logician myself. I don't like handsome men, I
have said it; nor shall you reason me into liking them."
At this moment they were joined by Marmaduke, who was all anxiety
about the private theatricals; not for themselves, but because he saw in them
an excellent excuse for being constantly at the Hall, and in Violet's society.
With his usual impetuosity Marmaduke had already settled that Violet
should be his wife. Love at first sight, which may be a fiction with regard to
the colder children of the north, is no fiction with regard to such passionate
natures as his; and he was in love with Violet, without seeking to disguise it.
Indeed, he spoke in such raptures of her to Rose, that she smiled and looked
significantly at Julius, who returned her glance, and confirmed her
suspicions.
CHAPTER X.
... O bella etimologia, e di mio proprio Marte or ora deprompta! Or dunque quindi
prope jam versus movo il gresso, per che voglio notarla majoribus literis nel mio
propriarum elucubrationum libro."—GIORDANO BRUNO. Candelajo.
These were Cecil and Blanche. I call them undeclared lovers, because
not only were they ignorant of each other's feelings, but ignorant also of
their own. Blanche's love had been of gradual growth. The lively,
handsome, accomplished Cecil had early made a deep impression on her,
though her shy, retiring disposition gave no signs of it; and his attentions on
the evening before had been so delightful that she was still under their
influence.
still, the sacrifice is so sweet, that it is with difficulty we forego it; and if the
object change, the feeling still remains. Partly, also, because the amour
propre, outraged by a defeat, is glad to be flattered by the chance of a new
success.
There they stood, enchanting and enchanted, when Meredith Vyner put
his head out of the glass door of the drawing-room which opened on to the
terrace, and said, "Mr. Chamberlayne, you are not doing anything particular,
are you?"
"Then, if you have nothing better to amuse you, just step with me into
my study; I have a new discovery to communicate, which will, I think,
delight you."
Nothing better to amuse him! to leave Blanche for some twaddle about
Horace! was it not provoking? But he was forced to go, there was no
escaping, If anything could have compensated him, it would have been the
expression of impatience on Blanche's face, and the look with which she
seemed to say, "Don't stay too long."
When they were in the study, Meredith Vyner placed his snuff-box on
the table, and, resting his left foot on the fender, began stroking his
protuberant calf in a very deliberate manner. This was a certain sign of his
being at that moment struggling with some conception, which demanded
the greatest clearness and composure, adequately to bring forth. His mind
was tottering under the weight of an unusual burden. As the left hand
slowly descended the inner part of his leg, from the knee to the ankle, and
as slowly ascended again the same distance, Cecil saw that he was
arranging in his head something of more consequence than a verbal
criticism. "The discovery I am about to impart," he said at last, with a slight
pomposity, "is not perfectly elaborated in my mind, since the first gleam of
it only came to me last night. It kept me sleepless. I have meditated
profoundly on it since, and I am now in a condition to communicate it to
you."
U.
-niversity of Güttingen;
And so throughout. Does not the sweep of this last line carry a fine
harmony with it? Is it not incomparably superior to the mean, niggling,
clipping versification as we usually receive it? There cannot be a question
about it. And if you come to reflect, you will see how the error has crept in
by the copyists being cramped for room, and writing the Adonic addition
below, as if it were a new line. But it is no more a new line, than the
additional syllables in Spenser are new lines; nevertheless, we often see
printers forced to break a line into two. Here is an example," taking up a
volume, "which occurs in Tennyson, whom I opened this morning." And he
read aloud:—
"There," throwing the book down, "now suppose a few centuries hence
all our literature to have perished, except half a dozen poets, some noodle of
a commentator will imagine that 'Queen o' the May' is a separate verse, and
will write learned twaddle on the versification of the English!"
"What are you looking at?" inquired Vyner, in a tone which his
politeness could not completely subdue.
"Oh! on my discovery?"
Cecil said this by way of cutting short the discussion, perfectly aware
that Vyner was too much of a commentator to care one straw about an
opinion, unless he were the originator.
"Yes, yes, but you think it is not original? Its originality is everything
with me."
Vyner was doubly hurt. The inattention was one offence, but that was
nothing to the careless way in which Cecil had proposed as an indifferent
modification the grand discovery he, Vyner, had made, which was to
immortalize him. With an air of quiet dignity, which Cecil had never seen
before, the offended philologist assuring him he was not ripe yet for such
subjects, which could scarcely be a matter of surprise at his age, he bowed
him out.
CHAPTER XI.
Although you have not answered my letters, Frank, I must write to you
once more, if only to gratify that besoin d'epanchement which all lovers
feel. Were I a century or two older, I might carve my Blanche's name on
every tree, comme cela se pratiquait autrefois; but being a frock-coated-
nineteenth-century prosaic creature, I am condemned to write on
unsentimental Bath post, that which should be confided only to the trees.
You will doubtless raise those wondering eyebrows at the sight of the
name Blanche. It is not an erratum for Violet, I assure you; I have given up
all thoughts of that high-spirited, imperial, but imperious creature. I looked
into my heart and found I loved her not. She is evidently hurt at my
inconstancy; but, on nearer acquaintance, I found Blanche so infinitely
preferable, that I could not help making the comparison. Fortunately I had
not gone too far to recede, and the haughty girl will, I dare say, soon be
consoled.
She is very fair, with a skin of dazzling loveliness, long dreamy eyes,
always moist with emotion, an exquisite smile, a low soft voice—"an
excellent thing in woman"—and a wondrous head of hair, which has that
bright golden hue which Italians prize so highly—indeed, Firenzuola says,
"che de' capelli il proprio e vero colore è esser biondi."
We have all but declared our passion. It has been declared by our eyes,
but as yet I have had no favourable opportunity of doing it in form. That she
loves me, I am certain; still more certain that I love her. She is the only
woman I ever met who would make me happy, and I feel that she will
change me into a quiet, domestic being. High time too, seeing that I have
squandered my patrimony. However, what with my four thousand pounds,
and the handsome dowry Vyner will assuredly give his daughter, we shall
be able to live modestly till I can get diplomatic employment. Once his son-
in-law, Vyner will be forced to exert his interest in my behalf.
The house is lightened of Mrs. Broughton and her niece, and young
Lufton. I regret the last named; he has been useful to me, in losing seventy
pounds to me after winning two ponies at billiards.
Yours ever,
CECIL.
CHAPTER XII.
"He is good tempered, not good hearted; cleverish, but not clever. It is
natural that you should mistake the characteristics of good temper for those
of a good heart—most people do so."
"Insincere!"
"It is your dislike," said Blanche, rising and colouring, "which distorts
your usual candid judgment. You do not like him, and you misinterpret
everything. I won't have him abused. I like him very much—very much,
and I can't sit and hear you talk so of him." She left the room.
Captain Heath did not stir. He had never seen such an exhibition of
temper on the part of Blanche before. She was greatly moved, it was
evident. And there could be but one cause for her agitation—that cause
made the captain thoughtful.
The truth is, he loved Blanche, and now seemed for the first time to see
that she loved Cecil. He had vaguely suspected it before. This was a
confirmation. His lip quivered as he said, "She is perhaps right. My dislike
may be groundless. I will try him."
Cecil stared at such an invitation from one whom he had never seen in
the billiard-room since his arrival, but accepted, with some curiosity as to
how the "solemn prig" would play.
The dislike was mutual; and mutually did they libel each other.
"By George! you play a first-rate game," said Cecil, amazed at the skill
of his antagonist, whom he expected to find an indifferent hand.
"Yes, I play well," quietly answered the captain. "I used to play a great
deal when with my regiment. But you are stronger at it than I am."
Cecil thought so, but would not acknowledge it. Nevertheless, the
captain won three games in succession, which considerably irritated his
antagonist, who began to swear at the chalk, to abuse the table, to change
his cues frequently, and to throw the blame of his non-success upon
anything and everything except his want of skill.
The captain, who was critically observing him throughout the game to
see if his opinion was well or ill founded, smiled scornfully at all these
ebullitions. He had judged rightly in assuming that the best moment for
observing a man's real character is during a game of chance and skill
combined. Then it is that a man unbends, and shows himself as he really is.
The self-love is implicated; and, as both vanity and money are at stake, you
see a mind acting under the impulsion of two of its most powerful
stimulants. Cecil, who was both vain and weak, was betrayed into a
hundred little expressions of his character; and, as he was also somewhat
less than delicate—without being at all dishonourable—in money matters,
he led the captain to think ill of him on that score.
"Splendid, indeed! They are all three lovely girls, though in such
different styles."
"(How stands the game? Seven, love: good.) What a sad thing it is,
though, to think such girls should be absolutely without fortune. (Good
stroke!)"
Cecil was chalking his cue when this bomb fell at his feet; he suspended
that operation, and said,—
"Why, the estate is entailed, and Vyner, who is already greatly in debt,
will neither have saved any money to leave them when he dies, nor be able
to give them anything but their trousseaux when they marry."
"The devil!"
"(That's a teasing stroke: one of the worst losing hazards. You must take
care.)"
This last remark, though applied to the game, was too applicable to
Cecil's own condition for him not to wince. The captain's eye was upon
him.
"Horrible, indeed!"
"They will be penniless," gravely replied the captain, as he sent the red
ball whizzing into the pocket.
"I wonder he is not ashamed to look them in the face," said Cecil, duly
impressed with the enormity.
"He trusts, I suppose, to their marrying rich men," carelessly added the
captain. "(Game! I win everything!)"
Cecil declined to play any longer. He went up into his own room, and
locked himself in, there to review his situation, the aspect of which the
recent intelligence had wonderfully altered.
Captain Heath shrugged his shoulders, quietly lighted a cigar, and
strolled out, well satisfied with the result of his experiment.
Then he met Blanche, who came up to him, holding out her hand, and
asking forgiveness.
"I was very naughty," she said, "but you have spoiled me so, that you
must not be astonished if I do not behave myself to you as to my best
friend. But the truth is, I was angry with you, and now I am angry with
myself, Am I forgiven?'
He only pressed her hand, and looked the answer. She put her arm
within his, and walked with him to the river, where they got into the boat,
and he rowed her gently down. She prattled to him in her prettiest style all
the way, for she was quite happy at having "made it up with her darling
Captain Heath."
It should be observed that, although he was no more than five and thirty,
yet, to the girls, he was always an elderly man, they having known him
from childhood. They were extremely fond of him, as he was of them; but
they laughed outright at one of their companions, asking Rose if there was
anything like flirtation between them.
The hair, indeed, was somewhat worn away above the forehead; but this
was from the friction of his hussar cap, not from age.
"No, no, my dear," continued Rose, "I make no havoc with the highly-
respectable-but-eminently-unfitted-for-flirtation race of papas and
grandpapas. My Cupid is in no need of a toupet; and if I am to be shot, it
shall not be with a gouty arrow. Captain Heath is handsome—or has been—
and though his moustachios are as dark and silky as a guardsman's need be,
yet he has one leetle defect—his age makes him respectable!"
"I have been playing billiards with Mr. Chamberlayne this morning,"
said the captain, as he rested on his oars, and allowed the stream to float
them quietly down.
"So far from it, I prophesy that his attentions to you—which have been
marked of late—will visibly decrease, until they relapse into mere
insignificance. And all because I casually remarked that your father's estate,
being entailed, and he being in debt, you and your sisters were portionless."
"My dear Blanche, I may be wrong, but I fear I am not; let me not,
however, be condemned, till the event condemns me. Watch him!"
"You shall own you have calumniated him; the event shall prove it," she
said with great warmth.
A dark shade passed across his brow, and he rowed rapidly on. Not
another word passed between them.
CHAPTER XIII.
The more he reflected, the more urgent it appeared to him that he should
conquer his passion, and save himself from perdition. Could Captain Heath
have read what was passing in his rival's mind, he would have smiled
grimly at this verification of his suspicions, and rejoiced in the success of
an experiment which removed that rival from his path.
Blanche was standing at the window, looking out. She turned her head
towards him as he entered, and felt a little mortified to see him throw
himself into a chair by the side of Rose, with whom he began a lively chat.
"I shall not dine to-day," she said, angrily, hurt at the pity of his tone.
"My dear Blanche, do not betray yourself; do not give him reason to
suppose his neglect can affect you."
She sighed, put her arm within his, and walked silently with him into
the dining-room.
She sat opposite Cecil, who seemed more talkative than usual. No one
remarked her silence—she seldom spoke at dinner, except to her neighbour.
No one asked her if she were ill, though she sent away her plate each time
untouched. Cecil and Captain Heath observed it; both with pain.
Keen were the pangs she suffered at this fulfilment of the captain's cruel
prophecy, and bitterly did she at that moment hate him for having
undeceived her. That Cecil avoided her was but too evident. That his
neglect could have but the one motive Captain Heath had ascribed was
never doubted; but she threw all the blame on the captain's officiousness in
speaking about their want of fortune, and in fact, with all the
unreasonableness of suffering, hated him as the proximate cause of her
pain.
Now this argument would have no flaw in it, if we assume that a man is
led solely by prudential considerations: it would be perfect, were men
swayed solely by their reason.
Cecil's views were precisely such as Captain Heath had suspected. But
then Cecil had emotions, passions, senses—and these the captain had left
out of the calculation. Yet these, which are the stronger powers in every
breast, were to overthrow the captain's plan.
Cecil in his own room, surveying his situation, was a very different man
from Cecil in the presence of his beloved, pained at the aspect of her pain,
and conscience-stricken as he gazed upon her lovely, sorrowing face. His
heart smote him for his selfishness, and he was asking himself whether he
could give her up—whether poverty with her were not preferable to
splendour with another, when he thought he saw something in the captain's
look which betokened scornful triumph.
"Can he have deceived me? Does he wish to get me out of the way?" he
said to himself. "Egad! I think so. The game at billiards this morning—that
was mysterious. What could induce him to propose such a thing to me—he
who never took the slightest notice of me before? He had some motive. And
then his story about Vyner's affairs—fudge! I won't believe it, until I have it
on better authority."
"I sha'n't sit long over the wine," Cecil whispered to Blanche, as she
passed him.
A sudden gleam irradiated her sweet face, as she raised it towards him
with a smile of exquisite joy and gratitude. That one word had rolled the
heavy stone which was lying on her heart, and gave the lie to all the "base
insinuations of that odious Captain Heath."
'Twas thus she spoke of one she really loved, and who loved her more
than anything on earth!
The men drew their chairs closer together, and commenced that
onslaught on the dessert which is characteristic of such moments.
"Have you never remarked," said Cecil, "that men refuse to touch fruit
until the women retire, and then attack it as if their appetites had been
sharpened by restraint?"
"Very. But I don't think much of the compensation myself. I should like
the women to remain with us as they do abroad."
"That," said Meredith Vyner, "would spoil dinners. The pleasantest part
is the conversation after the ladies have retired."
"By the way," said Cecil, who was anxious to regain Vyner's goodwill,
by flattering his vanity, "I have a theory which I must call upon your stores
of learning, Mr. Vyner, to assist me in developing." Vyner bowed, and with
his forefinger and thumb prepared a pinch of snuff, while Cecil continued
—"It was suggested to me by Talleyrand's witticism that language was
given to man to conceal his thoughts."
"Talleyrand," said Vyner gravely, "is not the author of that joke; though
it is commonly attributed to him. The author is a man now* living in Paris,
M. Harel, some of whose bon mots are the best I ever heard. I remember his
describing to me M. Buloz, the proprietor of The Revue des Deux Mondes
and The Revue de Paris, as a man who was 'l'âme de deux revues, avec
l'attention habile de n'en être jamais l'esprit.'"
"No, no; none of your theowies," said Wincot, "they are always
pwepostewously exaggewated."
"You shall judge," replied Cecil, "in saying language was given to us to
conceal our thoughts, M. Harel explained the construction of a great many
words in all tongues. Thus demonstration is evidently derived from demon,
the father of lies."
"Then, again, Mr. Vyner will tell you," pursued Cecil, "that the Greek
verb to govern is ανασσω, which is derived from ανασσα, a queen, not from
αναξ, a king. Now, you will admit, that to deduce the governing principle
from the weaker sex is only a bit of irony. The mildest possible symbol is
used for the severest possible office, viz., government. The soft delicious
sway of woman who leads humanity by the nose is not to be disputed.
Bearded warriors, steel-clad priests, ambitious nobles, a ragged, mighty,
and mysterious plebs, these no single arm could possibly subdue. And yet a
king is necessary. Here the grand problem presents itself: how to force the
governed to accept a governor?"
"The king," said Vyner, shutting his box, "is the strongest. König,
Könning, or canning: he is the one who can rule."
"But," replied Cecil, "I maintain he can't rule: no man was ever strong
enough to rule men. The true solution of the problem is, that the first king
was a woman."
"Very true," suggested Vyner, "very true. What says Anacreon, whom
Plato calls 'the wise?' Nature, he says, gave horns to bulls, and a 'chasm of
teeth to lions;' but when she came to furnish woman with weapons,
Beauty, beauty was the tremendous arm which was to surpass all
others."
"And formidably she uses it," continued Cecil. "To man's violence she
opposes her 'defencelessness'—and nails; to his strength she opposes her
'weakness'—and tongue."
"In support of your theory," said Vyner, "the French call a queen a reine;
and we say the king reigns."
"My theory of kingship is this," said Cecil. "The first king, as I said,
was a woman. She ruled unruly men. She took to herself some male subject,
helplessly strong; some 'brute of a man,' docile as a lamb; him she made her
husband. Her people she ruled with smiles and promises, touchingly
alluding, on all befitting occasions, to her helpless state. Her husband she
ruled with scratches——"
"Well, a son was born—many sons if you like; but one was her especial
darling. Growing old and infirm, she declared her son should wield the
sceptre of the state in her name. Councillors demurred; she cajoled; they
consented. Her son became regent. At her death he continued to govern—
not in his name, but in hers. The king was symbol of the woman, and
reigned vicariously. When we say the king reigns, we mean the king queens
it."
"This explains also the Salic law; a curious example of the tendency of
language to conceal the thoughts. A decree is enacted that no woman shall
reign. That is to say, men preferred the symbol (man) to the reality
(woman). They dreaded the divine right of mistresses—the autocratic
absolutism of petticoats."
"And pray, Mr. Chamberlayne," asked Vyner, "how do you explain the
derivation of the French verb tuer, to kill, from the Latin tucor, to
preserve?"
"Nothing easier upon my theory of the irony of language. What is death
but preservation?"
"Is it not preservation from sickness and from sorrow, from debts,
diseases, dull parties, and bores? Death preserves us, by rescuing our
frames from mortality, and wafting our souls into the bosom of immortal
life. Then look at the irony of our use of the word preserves, i.e., places
where game is kept for indiscriminate slaughter; or else, pots of luxurious
sweets, destined to bring children to an untimely end."
"Because his sycophancy has its source in το δέος, fear," replied Vyner,
delighted at the joke.
"Good!" said Cecil, laughing. "I accept the derivation: the irony is
perfect, as a toad is the very last creature to accuse of sycophancy; he spits
upon the world in an unbiassed and exasperating impartiality: hence the
name. One of the things which has most struck me," he continued, "is the
occasional urbanity of language—instance the word question for torture."
"This is all vewy ingenious, pewhaps," said Tom Wincot; "but let us go
to the ladies, and hear their theowies."
They rose from table. Vyner in evidently better disposition towards
Cecil than he had been since the last Horatian discussion; Maxwell dull and
stupid as ever; Captain Heath silent and reflective.
CHAPTER XIV.
JEALOUSY.
O, my lord, beware of jealousy.
It is a green-eyed monster that doth mock
The food it eats on.
Othello.
He took up her portfolio of loose music, and began turning over the
sheets, as if seeking some particular song. She came to help him, and as she
bent over the portfolio he whispered gently,—
All the rest of the evening he sat by Violet, only occasionally addressing
indifferent questions to Blanche. Captain Heath seeing this, and noticing a
strange agitation in Blanche's manner, which she in vain endeavoured to
disguise, interpreted it according to his wishes, and sat down to a rubber at
whist with great internal satisfaction.
"By the way," said Vyner, while Cecil tuned his guitar, "talking of
Spanish songs reminds me of a passage I met in a Spanish play this
morning, in which the author says,
What say you to that, ladies? It means that love without jealousy is a body
without soul. Immane quantum discrepat!"
"I should vewy much like to hear Miss Violet's pwoof of her wemark. I
have always wead that jealousy is insepewable fwom love; though, I
confess, I never expewienced jealousy myself."
"That is sevewe, Miss Wose! Do you pwetend that I never felt that
sensation which evewy man has felt?"
"If you mean love," replied Rose, "I say, that if you have felt it, I
imagine it has only been just the beginning."
"Twue, twue!"
"And like the charity of other people, your love has begun at home!"
"Miss Wose, Miss Wose!" said Tom Wincot, shaking his finger at the
laughing girl.
"So that, if you have ever been jealous," she continued, "you must have
an exaggerated susceptibility."
This sally produced a hearty laugh, and Tom Wincot, turning to Violet,
said,—
"I'm afwaid of your sister Wose's wepawtees, so shall not pwolong the
discussion; but pway explain your pwevious weflection on jealousy."
"I mean," said Violet, "that jealousy has its source in egotism; love, on
the contrary, has its source in sympathy: hence it is that the manifestations
of the one are always contemptible, of the other always noble and
beautiful."
"And I," said Maxwell, his dark face lighting up with a savage
expression, "think that jealousy is the most natural instinctive feeling we
possess. The man or woman who is not jealous, does not know what it is to
love."
"Prove it! easily. What is jealousy but a fear of losing what we hold
most dearly? Look at a dog over a bone; if you approach him he will growl,
though you may have no intention of taking away his bone: your presence is
enough to excite his fear and anger. If you attempt to snatch it, though in
play, then he will bite."
"You are speaking of dogs," said Violet, haughtily, "I spoke of men."
"Yes, when men resemble dogs.—I spoke of men who possessed the
higher qualities."
"I do not think, papa, you are quite correct," said Violet, "when you say
the Spaniards are more jealous than other nations."
"I am quite aware of it. But what one nation says of another is seldom
accurate. If I understand jealousy, it is the sort of passion which would be
felt quite as readily by northerns as by southerns, though it would not be
expressed in so vehement a manner; but because one man uses a knife,
when another man uses a court of law, that does not make a difference in
the sentiments."
"I agree with Violet," said Captain Heath, "it seems to me that jealousy
is a mean and debasing passion, whatever may be the cause which excites
it. To suspect the woman whom you love and who loves you, is so
degrading both to her and to you, that a man who suspects, without
overwhelming evidence, must be strangely deficient in nobility of soul; and
suppose the evidence complete—suppose that she loves another, even then
a noble soul arms itself with fortitude, and instead of wailing like a
querulous child, accepts with courage the fate which no peevishness can
avert. The love that is gone cannot be recalled by jealousy. A man should
say with Othello,—
He looked for Blanche as he concluded this speech, but she had already
retired to her room.
Cecil sang, but soon left off; and pleading "heartburn," caught at the
advice of Tom Wincot, who assured him that a stwong cigar was the best
wemedy for it, and strolled out into the grounds to smoke.
CHAPTER XV.
It was a lovely night. The full harvest moon shed a soft brilliance over
the far-stretching meadow-lands; the sky was dotted with small patches of
light fleecy cloud, and a few dim stars. All was hushed in that repose which
lends a solemn grandeur to a night-scene, when the sky, the stars, the
silence—things suggestive of infinity—become the objects of
contemplation.
Cecil was not one to remain indifferent to such a scene: his painter's eye
and poet's heart were equally open to its mild splendour. The tall trees
standing dark against the sky, and the dim outline of the woody heights
around, no more escaped his notice, than the picturesquely grouped cattle,
one of which, a dun cow, with large white face and chest, stood motionless
amidst her recumbent companions.
Although he could not resist the first burst of admiration, Cecil was in
no mood to luxuriate in the poetry of such a scene, as he would have done
at any other time; but, striking into the thick and shadowy shrubbery,
delicately chequered with interspaces of moonlight, he began to consider
the object of this nocturnal ramble.
Certain it is that Cecil, standing beside Blanche looking over the same
portfolio, their hands occasionally touching, their eyes occasionally
meeting, was in no condition to listen to the dictates of reason. A tumult of
desire beat at his heart. He was standing within that atmosphere (if I may
use the word) which surrounds the beloved, and which, as by a magnetic
power, inconceivably stirs the voluptuousness latent in every soul. He was
within the halo which encircled her, and was dazzled by its lustre.
Irresistibly urged by his passion to call this lovely creature his own, he
could not forego bringing things to a crisis; and he made the assignation.
Her consent enchanted him. He was in a fever of impatience for her to
retire. He cursed the lagging time for its slowness; and, with a thrill of
delight, found himself in the open air, about to hear from Blanche's own lips
that which her eyes had so frequently expressed.
"What an ass I have been!" he thought. "What the devil could induce me
to forget myself so far? She will come, expecting to hear me declare myself.
But I can't marry her. I can't offer her beggary as a return for her love. If
Heath should have told the truth. D—n it, he can't be such an unfeeling
egotist as not to make some provision for his children! No, no; I'll not
believe that. A few thousands he must in common decency have set aside,
or he would never be able to look honest men in the face. Besides, Vyner
doesn't appear to be particularly selfish. However, it may be true; and if so
——