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Congressional Budget OfficeCongressional Budget OfficeCongressional Budget OfficeCongressional Budget Office
 Testimony 
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Statement of Douglas W. Elmendorf Director
 The Distribution of Revenues from a Cap-and-Trade Program for CO
2
Emissions
before theCommittee on FinanceUnited States SenateMay 7, 2009
This document is embargoed until it is delivered at 10:00 a.m. (EDT) on Thursday, May 7, 2009. The contents may not be published, transmitted, or otherwise communicated by any print, broadcast, or electronic me-dia before that time.
 
Chairman Baucus, Senator Grassley, and Members of the Committee, thank you forthe invitation to testify on the distribution of revenues that could be generated by acap-and-trade program for reducing U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide (CO
2
).Global climate change poses one of the nation’s most significant long-term policy challenges. Human activities are producing increasingly large quantities of greenhousegases, especially CO
2
. A strong consensus has developed in the expert community that, if allowed to continue unabated, the accumulation of greenhouse gases in theatmosphere will have extensive, highly uncertain, but potentially serious and costly impacts on regional climates throughout the world. Those impacts are expected toinclude changes in the physical environment, changes in biological systems includingagriculture, and changes in the viability of some economic sectors. Moreover, the risk of abrupt and even catastrophic changes in climate cannot be ruled out.Those expected and possible harms can justify policy actions to reduce the extent of climate change. However, the potential cost of doing so may be significant because it would entail substantial reductions in global emissions over the coming decades.U.S. emissions currently account for roughly 20 percent of global emissions. As aresult, substantially reducing global emissions would probably entail large reductionsin U.S. emissions. Achieving such reductions would be likely to involve transformingthe U.S. economy from one that runs on CO
2
-emitting fossil fuels to one that relieson nuclear and renewable fuels, improvements in energy efficiency, or the large-scalecapture and storage of CO
2
emissions.One option for reducing emissions in a cost-effective manner is to establish a carefully designed cap-and-trade program. Under such a program, the government would setgradually tightening limits on emissions, issue rights (or allowances) consistent withthose limits, and then let firms trade the allowances among themselves. Such a cap-and-trade program would lead to higher prices for energy and energy-intensive goods, which would in turn provide incentives for households and businesses to use lessenergy and to develop energy sources that emit smaller amounts of CO
2
.Higher relative prices for energy and energy-intensive goods would also shift incomeamong households at different points in the income distribution and across industriesand regions of the country. Policymakers could counteract those income shifts by authorizing the government to sell CO
2
emission allowances and using the revenuesto compensate certain households or businesses, or by giving allowances away tocertain households or businesses.My testimony makes the following key points:
B
Under a cap-and-trade program, consumers would ultimately bear most of thecosts of emission reductions. Firms that used emission allowances for CO
2
wouldgenerally pass along to consumers the cost of using those allowances in the form of higher prices for their products—regardless of whether the government sold emis-sion allowances or gave them away. Such price increases would be essential to the
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