We have been covering cap and trade for a little while. Let's check in and see what's going on with its latest developments. With the so-called cap and trade bill may be dead, as Lindsay Graham has said, but it now looks like the Environmental Protection Agency is trying to save the measure, after being left for dead in the Senate. The EPA's website has a page dedicated to cap and trade:
Cap and trade is an environmental policy tool that delivers results with a mandatory cap on emissions while providing sources flexibility in how they comply. Successful cap and trade programs reward innovation, efficiency, and early action and provide strict environmental accountability without inhibiting economic growth.It is now thought that the EPA will use the existing Clean Air Act, which was set up in the 1990s to combat acid rain, in order to institute a cap and trade regulation. Indeed, the EPA has made a 2011 budget request for a $7.5 million initiative to look into a "market-oriented" greenhouse gas reduction, which sounds a lot like cap and trade. Such a plan on the EPA would be audacious, and surely face many challenges. The US Chamber of Commerce, the world's largest not-for-profit lobbying firm, has already filed a petition asking the EPA to reconsider its course of action.
Examples of successful cap and trade programs include the nationwide Acid Rain Program and the regional NOx Budget Trading Program in the Northeast. Additionally, EPA issued the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) on March 10, 2005, to build on the success of these programs and achieve significant additional emission reductions.
It remains to be seen how the presence or absence of a cap and trade bill would influence the power generation industry. While it's thought that power generation costs would rise, it also seems likely that the power generation companies will be able to pass onto consumers rising costs of energy production. Whether the country's quality of life, health, and safety would improve is certainly uncertain, but a move to sustainable, clean energy--even at an increased cost upfront--seems to be the only way for America to sustain its still-growing population.
