Cap and Trade Follies

When Congress began considering Cap and Trade legislation it had three ambitious goals:

1. Increase the cost of carbon-based fuels enough to reduce CO2 emissions;
2. Decrease the demand for foreign oil;
3. Use the amounts collected to pay for Obama's universal health care and other programs.

Measured by these standards, the bill that passed the House fails all three goals. If passed as originally envisioned, the cap and trade legislation would have been painful. That's the whole idea - make carbon-based fuel too expensive to use. The House chickened out on this. They watered down the cost of the carbon credits and set it to implement slowly to reduce, or at least hide, the pain. As a result, the bill is estimated to cost an average family less than $0.50/day - too low to force behavior changes. It will only bring in a fraction of the revenue that the White House had counted on.

This is the worst kind of legislation. It will not accomplish any of the original goals. Probably the only result will be a drag on the economy over the coming decade.

So why pass it? The Democrats have an image as the only true protectors of the environment. They need to pass something and hope that people mistake movement for progress.

There is a bright side to this. Once this version of cap and trade is passed, the pressure will be off of Congress to do anything about global warming. People will see it as a problem that has been solved. The Democrats will have a vested interest in keeping this illusion. After all, who wants to run on a platform as having passed useless legislation?