Only in Washington D.C. would a program that costs hundreds of billions of dollars and perhaps over one trillion dollars, be called “comparatively modest.” But that’s what Congressional Budget Office (CBO) director Douglas Elmendorf said about the costs of cap-and-trade in his recent testifimony [.pdf] before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
Elmendorf’s testimony [...]

The CBO has issued a new report [.pdf] that summarizes the economic effects of greenhouse-gas legislation, relying on previously published analyses. The report shows just how weak the case for the proposed cap-and-trade plan really is. In fact, the CBO demonstrates that the theoretical benefits of Waxman-Markey to the United States fall far short of [...]

Just over a month ago, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Waxman-Markey energy tax.[1] Much of the debate focused on how much the bill will cost Americans. For example, the Congressional Budget office claimed the cap and trade section of the bill would only cost $175 a year in 2020, but this claim has [...]