Cap & Trade

[Wife_and_mommy]

I'd love to hear thoughts from the educated moms here about this bill.

[mommylamb]

the House bill is a very complicated piece of legislation. I'm not opposed to cap and trade, but I'm not convinced it's the best way to go either. I'm more inclined to a carbon tax because there's a bit more simplicity there. Here are a couple quick concerns I have about the bill:
- it's a lot more difficult to get a real baseline for carbon than it is for sulfer dioxide, so it's much more difficult to regulate this way (there is already a cap and trade program for SOX and NOX in the clean air act amendments in the early 90s, and the success of that program is often sited for support for a carbon cap and trade system.
- I think it's a legitimate concern that carbon intensive industries will simply leave the U.S., taking their jobs with them, and go to countries that have even more lax regulations than we have.
- this is a global thing, and without global participation, our cap and trade system doesn't do a lot of good. And yes, I'm well aware of the argument that we have to act first and others will follow, but I'm just not sure that's the case.
-the bill also includes a renewable electricity standard that I think leaves a lot out and will be much harder for some states to meet than others.

I've been following this bill very closely for work, so if you have questions about what's actually in it, just let me know. To be honest, I find these problems to be overwhelming, and I don't think there are any silver bullet ways of dealing with them. Unfortunately, we have a carbon intensive economy and our transportation and urban planning system is set up poorly. My concerns do not make me think we should do nothing, but I don't know if the actions we take will have the desired outcome.