| Hillary:
All she says is what Chris has said: cap and trade to cut 80% by 2050. Fine. [http://www.hillarycl...]
Obama:
"Barack Obama supports implementation of a market-based cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050. The cap-and-trade system will include an initial partial auction of pollution credits to raise money to upgrade our energy infrastructure, create hundreds of thousands of new, high-wage jobs, and make America truly energy independent."
[http://www.barackoba...]
So, actually Obama's for (at least "initially") something like a cap-and-auction system, not a cap-and-trade system. He doesn't say anything about the scale of the auction, how long it would run for, how much money they'd try to raise with it, etc.
Edwards:
Fact sheet [http://johnedwards.c...]:
"# Capping greenhouse gas pollution starting in 2010 with a cap-and-trade system, and reducing it by 15 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050, as the latest science says is needed to avoid the worst impacts of global warming.
...
# Creating a New Energy Economy Fund by auctioning off $10 billion in greenhouse pollution permits and repealing subsidies for big oil companies. The fund will support U.S. research and development in energy technology, help entrepreneurs start new businesses, invest in new carbon-capture and efficient automobile technology and help Americans conserve energy."
His full plan says: "Edwards will auction off a portion of the pollution permits to raise $10 billion a year for a New Energy Economy Fund to jumpstart clean, renewable, and efficient energy technologies and create 1 million jobs. Other permits will be sold or given away." [http://johnedwards.c...]
So this is actually more of a full-scale "cap-and-auction" system, with a known scale -- $10 billion per year.
Why cap-and-action instead of a carbon tax or simple cap-and-trade (like we did for sulfur)?
First, from Edwards:
"[Salon.com:] Do you think we need a carbon tax?
Edwards: Well, I think I accomplished the same thing in a different way. What I have proposed is capping carbon emissions in America, ratcheting the cap down each year to eventually achieve the goal of 80 percent reductions by 2050, and then auctioning off the right to emit greenhouse gases and using that money to change the way we use and produce energy in this country. I think it is just another mechanism for doing the same thing."
[http://johnedwards.c...]
A cap-and-trade system like the ones the Europeans set up to work with Kyoto gives away its credits, and provides a windfall to whichever companies can game the system/pay off the regulators to get more credits, which they then sell to their competitors. In the end, it provides the biggest windfall to the biggest polluters, who keep their credit allotments and therefore have more to sell.
Cap-and-auction gets the regulator out of the business of assigning credits, lets the market set the price, and ensures revenue to the government.
For more on the distinction between cap-and-trade, cap-and-auction, and a carbon tax, see http://www.sightline...
For reference, here is Dodd's nominal "carbon tax" plan, which is actually anything but a simple carbon tax, and is remarkably unclear in my book. read this, and tell me who pays what?
"# Reduce 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. By mandating the framework of the Sanders "Cap-and-trade" legislation and the toughest, most transparent rules possible, we can make serious reductions to carbon emissions every decade. By 2020, the U.S. must reduce its emissions by 15% of 80 percent below 1990 levels; by 2040, emissions must be reduced by 2/3 of 80 percent; and by 2050, emissions must be reduced to a level that is 80 percent. * A portion of the allocated credits will be auctioned off and revenues directed to the Corporate Carbon Tax Trust Fund.
# Enact a Corporate Carbon Tax. A Corporate Carbon Tax will discourage big corporate polluters and stimulate innovation. The revenues of a corporate carbon tax-estimated at over $50 billion annually-will be placed into a Corporate Carbon Tax Trust Fund (CCTTF) to fund: * Fast tracked research, development and deployment of renewable technologies such as wind, solar, as well as ethanol and other biofuels;
* Efforts to expedite the process for bringing energy efficient technologies to market;"
[http://chrisdodd.com...]
So, while the broad strokes are similar (and they're more similar to each other than to Dodd), they are at different points along the critical line between cap-and-trade and cap-and-auction, with Edwards at close to a full auction system, and Hillary just saying "cap-and-trade".
It's subtle, but it might mean a lot in terms of who pays, and how much. |
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