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NEW YORK—A
climate-change bill cosponsored by three presidential
candidates would slow economic growth by about 0.4
percent by 2030, while reducing emissions linked to
global warming by 33 percent, the Department of Energy
said.
The
proposal would also raise energy prices for consumers
and power producers, according to an analysis released
Monday by the Energy Information Administration (EIA),
the statistical arm of the energy department. The bill
includes provisions to offset higher fuel costs,
according to David McIntosh, Lieberman’s legislative
assistant for global warming.
The EIA
analysis “makes these types of policies look pretty good
from the macroeconomic standpoint,” McIntosh said in an
interview.
The
legislation, sponsored by Sens. Joseph Lieberman and
John McCain, is one of five Senate proposals to reduce
carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming
through new requirements on power producers, oil
refiners and large manufacturers. The measure is
cosponsored by McCain, an Arizona Republican, and
Democratic Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary
Clinton of New York, all of whom are presidential
candidates.
The EIA
review follows an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
report in July that said the bill would reduce gross
domestic product, the value of US goods and services, by
0.6 percent to 1.6 percent in 2030. Power prices would
rise 25 percent and gasoline prices would increase 68
cents a gallon in 2050 under the measure, known as the
McCain-Lieberman bill, according to the EPA.
Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat, last week released
guidelines for a new climate-change bill in conjunction
with Sen. John Warner, a Republican from Virginia. The
pair plans to introduce legislation later this year that
borrows from other climate-change proposals, including
McCain-Lieberman.
Both
proposals would require polluters to obtain a credit for
each ton of carbon dioxide they pump into the
atmosphere.
Power
plants and other polluters would be allowed to trade
carbon credits under the so-called cap-and-trade system.
Cap-and-trade is currently used in the US to control
sulfur dioxide pollution from power plants, and it’s
used in
Europe to lower carbon emissions.
President George W. Bush has said he would not support
any emission limits that harm the US economy. Sen. James
Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, says imposing a
cap-and-trade system on emissions would amount to “the
largest tax increase in American history.”
Lieberman’s proposals aim to offset higher energy costs
by earmarking billions of dollars that will be raised
from the sale of carbon credits to help middle- and
low-income customers adjust to higher energy costs,
McIntosh said. Credits will range from $14 to $31 per
metric ton of carbon dioxide in 2020, rising to $31 to
$58 per ton in 2030, the EIA said.
“We are
going to be raising tens of billions of dollars a year
through the action of allowances,” McIntosh said. Much
of that can be used “to defray the impact of higher
energy costs on low- and middle-income Americans.”
Coal
miners, chemical makers and the pulp and paper industry
would also be among those covered by the measure. Power
plants are the single largest source of carbon-dioxide
emissions in the US. (Bloomberg) |
