Cap and Trade is Counter-Productive: EPA Study Says Waxman-Markey Would Reduce Development of Renewable Energy
ByMost of the fight over the cap-and-trade program set for a vote in the House of Representatives today concerns the extraordinary cost of implementation of the program. However, a recent study from the EPA should give environmentalists who aren’t concerned about imposing massive transaction costs and taxes a reason to think twice about supporting the legislation. The reason? It won’t help and may hurt the effort to spur cleaner, renewable energy sources.
Here’s a quote from the WSJ Enviro Blog summarizing the EPA report:
“First, the bill’s efficiency measures – such as those that requiring more efficient buildings and appliances – would reduce overall electricity demand “significantly.” Less demand means less need for new generation, including power from the wind, sun and biomass.
The bill also won’t sufficiently drive up the price of dirty fossil fuels to encourage a big switch to renewables, the analysis says. (Here’s how that sounds in untranslated EPA-speak: “Allowances prices are not high enough to drive a significant amount of additional low or zero-carbon energy . . . in the shorter term.”)”
We aren’t sure whether this analysis is accurate… or whether there is global warming and whether carbon is a pollutant to begin with, but environmentalists should consider that they are burning a lot of political capital in support of something that even their experts admit will only accomplish half of their objectives.
