Remember When Cap and Trade Was a GOP Idea?

[Willinois]

What I like about this blog post is that, in addition to calling out Republicans for their flip-flop, it debunks the cynical talking point that cap-and-trade can't work.
FYI, Kate Sheppard is the only DC reporter I make a habit of reading regularly.


http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/...s-gop-idea

Remember When Cap and Trade Was a GOP Idea?

— By Kate Sheppard
| Tue Dec. 21, 2010 7:48 AM PST

It might have been hard to tell during the past few years, with Republican opponents branding all attempts to cut greenhouse gas emissions "cap and tax," but the idea of capping emissions and trading emission permits was originally a GOP idea introduced to deal with acid rain. On Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency released a report celebrating the 15-year-old program to curb acid rain as an environmental (and economic) success.

The program aims to cut emissions of the two compounds that cause acid rain, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, and was endorsed by President George H.W. Bush and approved in 1990 as an amendment to the Clean Air Act. The program actually began in 1995. Since then, the American industrial sector has slashed sulfur dioxide pollution 64 percent. Moreover, the EPA reports, the program has saved $120 billion in public health costs, which is about 40 times what it cost to implement the program. The EPA concludes that the program's success in cutting fine particle pollution has saved 20,000 to 50,000 lives per year.

Like the cap and trade system proposed for dealing with an even bigger emission problem, greenhouse gases, the program set a hard limit on emissions and then provided polluters with "allowances" for how much they could emit. Companies were able to trade permits between themselves to meet their needs, a program designed to keep costs lower for industry while achieving the overall reduction goals.

More at: http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/...s-gop-idea