The country is nearer to putting a cap on global warming emissions through a cap-and-trade system. In the Obama administration's proposed budget, it accounts for revenue generated under a cap-and-trade system.The budget will show the government beginning by 2012 to collect billions of dollars in revenues from selling permits to businesses that emit greenhouse gases, assuming the President’s energy initiative becomes law as soon as this year, officials said.
This is one small step for man, one giant leap in the fight to stop global warming. By supporting a cap-and-trade, President Obama's confidently reaffirming our national priorities -- job creation, clean energy, and reinvigoration of our economy. If passed, a cap-and-trade system could do just that by providing the incentives and the revenue needed to create clean energy jobs.
To help offset potentially higher energy costs, the budget includes provisions for tax credits for lower income individuals and couples who may have trouble paying for slightly higher energy costs. Also, according to the New York Times, a portion of "the projected revenues from the permits will finance Mr. Obama’s campaign promise for $15 billion a year over 10 years to subsidize research and development of alternative energy sources."
Now there is still no guarantee that President Obama's budget will pass through Congress (or considering the wide-ranging scope of these domestic policies, at any time for that matter). But there is no time like the present to think big on global warming. The problems that our nation faces economically and the crisis that our world faces from global warming will not solve themselves without action now.
(Photo courtesy of the New York Times)
2 comments:
Another tax on the citizens of the US which reduces freedom. The administration has chosen to ignore those who are disputing the suggestion that man is the cause of any climate change. This plan to use permits is nothing but a money collecting plan to enlarge government and support special interests.
A proposed carbon cap-and-trade program is not just another tax, but rather it is accounting for an externality. Externalities, like air and water pollution, are generally ignored in the development of projects, and what a cap-and-trade program or carbon tax would accomplish is that it would simply make people aware of global warming pollution and the economic impacts the associated consequences it will have.
Furthermore, much of the money collected in President Obama's cap-and-trade program would be returned to the citizens in need of financial assistance to offset the increased cost of energy.
Post a Comment