Is Cap and Trade legislation worth the cost?

This is why I think that AGW needs to be proven before we do this.

Yes.

I think the alarmists have way overstated their case. Their evidence is weak and the alarmism unwarranted. On the other hand, the other side has way overstated its case, too. They claim that cutting our carbon emissions will wreak economic devastation. Nonsense.

I remember when they made the same claims about the Clean Air Act. It was going to cost too much and destroy the economy. But a 2003 study by the OMB (remember - that was when Congress was controlled by the ultra-liberal Republican party under that pinko Dennis Hastert and the commie Bill Frist, and that the President was the famous Marxist George Bush) showed that the benefits to society of the Clean Air Act were 40 times the cost. 40 times.

I don't care what it is; if you find something that will provide you with 40 times as much benefit as cost you should do that. To do otherwise is just irrational.

And how did the Clean Air Act provide all those benefits? Cap-and-trade.

This notion that "the gummint caint do nuthin rite" is pure ignorant drivel. How anybody could STILL think regulation is bad, in the midst of an economic crisis CAUSED by deregulation is beyond me.

I remember when all this deregulation talk started. The right-wing claimed that the regulations were no longer needed because the economy would provide the inherent safeguards to make sure this didn't happen again. I thought at the time it was like a man whose pants were falling down so he put on a belt. Then he noticed that his pants weren't falling down, so he decided he no longer needed the belt.

That's basically what we did. We took off the belt and our pants fell down. How stupid is that?

So if your only argument is that government regulations are always bad, so these regulations will be, too, then you're wrong.

The things we would need to do to combat global warming if we needed to combat global warming (which I don't think we need to do) would increase our energy independence, enhance the sustainability of our society, and SAVE us lots of money. Why would anybody be against that?

Not really for any cap and trade before trying know methods of reducing the cost of construction through tax incentives, cutting the non-security red tape surrounding nuclear, allowing for reuse of spent rods, allowing non-used land to have energy plants, so that state and local regulations cannot stop their construction simply because they don't want an energy plant near them, not building wind farms because they are a "eye sore". Simple things like this would likely have no ill-effects on the economy and not cause more taxes in the middle of a recession. That being said, in comparing the two programs, it seems to me that isolating electricity would actually be the right choice. Let me explain, one fear that you should have is the old shell game. The energy companies have side progams that are already in place and already use less CO2, or they simply buy companies like this. They use the CO2 credits from these locations in order to offset their own, thereby greatly delaying them making any progress whatsoever towards real reduction. By placing it entirely on the electricity companies, you can more easily insure that this does not occur and that they are indeed making changes. Further, we are moving towards e-cars anyways. The cost of gasoline will continue to climb and the technology supporting e-cars will continue to grow. Thus the move towards e-cars as an alternative will eventually occur. It may take a very long time to get to the point of all cars being e-cars, but it may not be that long until one family car is electric and that is the family car used for most all local trips. That would greatly reduce the amount of gasoline used and will eventually happen anyways.

Lets take a look at what is exactly said in this article:

"MIT did a study on the costs of cap and trade and found that cap and trade proposals that would reduce carbon emission by 50% to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 would cost the American household $800 a year in economic losses and $3,100 a year in taxes"

Cap and trade obliges businesses to buy carbon emission rights, and allows them to trade in it. This will increase their costs, and the thought is that business will shift in favor of energy efficient production. In turn, products will become more expensive, especially the energy-rich ones. Right now, the atmosphere is a relatively cheap dump site, and investments in energy efficiency are last in line as long as the negative costs in society are not accounted for. Cap and trade is an attempt to make businesses pay all their bills. In any case, it is is not the government, but a new market for new energy solutions that will adsorb and redistribute the money. I'd say its an all-American solution.

So this study estimates that the typical set of products that american families buy will -on average- cost them $3,100 more than under the current regime. they also will see their annual income decrease by 800$. But you'd expect that spending patterns amongst american families will change, they will direct their money more towards less energy-intensive products and services. in other words: you are in control when paying for the Cap and Trade system.

On the up-side there are benefits too, apart from a reduced greenhouse effect (which you obviously don't believe in) decreased dependence on foreign oil, less air pollution (NOx, SO2, fine dust etc go and in hand with CO2 emissions)

To be complete, a Cap and Trade systems also costs money. Companies will have to pay for information gathering, and will have to balance their level of emission reduction to the amount of emission rights they buy, which will take some trial-and-error. Also the accounting itself can be very expensive. There can be considerable inefficiency there, and the level of efficiency is determined to a great extent by the market design. So control you government on how they do their legislature, and quit whining about tax, because this is not about tax.

Nothing is worth the cost for something we neither have control over, or are not causing. The Earth is fine! Yes, the weather does weird stuff once in awhile, so what else is new. I refuse to pay for the change of seasons, or what is now referred to as "climate change.' Stupid politicians and AGW proponents don't understand that cold days in winter are normal and hot days in summer are normal.

The cap and trade is nonsense and complete waste of time and resources. The proposal is to make us pay dearly for energy, then we get it back as a tax refund. How stupid is that, now the Government is spending money in postage and processing to give back money it didn't need to begin with. The worst part is people who didn't pay into it, get a cut too.

Let me get this straight. The masses are being blame for contributing to the current environmental and economic crises. But the government is imposing more levees and not incentives. How is anyone supposed to cope with less money to improve? Big business, and foreign beneficiaries will find a way to exploit the system. You and I are stuck with bill. I call it; the horse pushing the cart. Typical government sanction's using idioms as justification. Isn't it nice to know that someone is looking out for the average guy. I feel like one big credit card for the world to use.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID...

It makes such a great bargaining chip for politicains. Areas and industries will have to lobby for favorable treatment, or suffer. Politically favored industry can get exemptions, or maybe even a share of the huge tax revenues.(a subsidy - excellent way to keep stupid people from realizing they are buying something wasteful. If it costs more, means it uses more resources)

Its already started. In order to gain votes from coal dependant midwest states, they are being offered free permits, for a while.

Thats power, the kind socialist totalitarians like.

Although Anthropogenic Global Warming is of course a fact, and a huge looming disaster for human beings, I'm not convinced that cap and trade legislation is going to make any worthwhile impact on it. In that sense, I'm not sure it's worth the cost.

Its a Ponzi Scheme for Al Gore and GE that has worthless

carbon credits to sell. GE and NBC stock is very cheap

and they want to raise it up. Obama might be planning to

give GE a first dibs on it. MSNBC is Obamas Mouth piece

and let every stupid thing that he does slide.

The MIT study has been grossly misrepresented by politicians/alarmists seeking to scare people.

A letter from the study's lead author:

"It has come to my attention that an analysis we conducted examining proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Report No., 146, Assessment of U.S. Cap-and-Trade Proposals, has been misrepresented in recent press releases distributed by the National Republican Congressional Committee. The press release claims our report estimates an average cost per family of a carbon cap and trade program that would meet targets now being discussed in Congress to be over $3,000, but that is nearly 10 times the correct estimate which is approximately $340. Since the issue of legislation to control greenhouse gases is now under consideration, I wanted to take an opportunity to clear up any misunderstanding created by this

press release and to avoid further confusion."

"Our Report 160 shows that the costs on

lower and middle income households can be completely offset by returning allowance revenue to

these households."

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/0...

If these political hacks actually had a strong argument, why would they feel the need to lie?

The EPA has done a recent economic analysis on proposed legislation. Among the findings:

"[The bill would] create strong demand for a domestic manufacturing market for these next generation technologies that will enable American workers to serve in a central role in our clean energy transformation; and

[It would] play a critical role in the American economic recovery and job growth – from retooling shuttered manufacturing plants to make wind turbines, to using equipment and expertise in drilling for oil to develop clean energy from underground geothermal sources, to tapping into American ingenuity to engineer coal-fired power plants that do not contribute to climate change. "

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/economics/economi...

I have seen another study suggesting it will cost $10,000 per year. You meant $3900 per year per average household which means much more for me since I make enough to pay taxes. It isn't really cap and trade. It is tax and tax. It isn't about controlling carbon in my opinion. It was never about that. It was about redistributing wealth. It is about the left trying to demonize those that have so they can take their wealth, and redistribute it through a corrupt and wasteful bureacracy to those they consider worthy. Their plan is dispicable, anti-american, anti-democratic, and won't work but that won't stop them. They think they are smarter than the rest of us. They aren't. They are just too stupid to know it.