I wrote yesterday about where utility-only cap-and-trade might go wrong. There is, however, a potential upside. If the United States ever gets serious about reducing its use of oil, utility-only cap-and-trade could actually lead to deeper emissions cuts than an economy-wide system. Here’s how. Read more »

[This post is coauthored with Trevor Houser.]

The Chamber of Commerce has responded to our analysis, published on Tuesday, of the Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act using their Energy Security Risk Index. They don’t challenge our basic conclusion: that the bill would improve U.S. energy security as measured by their own index. They do, however, make a host of other claims, to which we respond here. Read more »

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about the Chamber of Commerce’s new Energy Security Risk Index. At the end of the post, I asked a question:

“It will be interesting… to see how various energy and climate bills being debated in Congress score on [the energy security risk index]. Anyone with an economic model want to take up that challenge?” Read more »

Trevor Houser and his colleagues at the Peterson Institute have a sharp economic analysis of the Kerry-Lieberman energy and climate bill out this morning. Take a look here. (There’s a lot more in it – on emissions, oil consumption, and energy prices – than I discuss here.) This is the first analysis of any climate bill I’ve seen that actually tells a plausible story of the “green jobs” front. Their conclusion is that the bill would add modestly to job growth during the next decade, while depressing it slightly in the decade after, but still leaving a (tiny) net gain over the two-decade period. This is a big deal if it holds up. Read more »

The special election to replace the late Rep. John Murtha (D) was, as Politico notes, the only House race last night that really matterered to both parties. Democrat Mark Critz decisively beat Republican Tim Burns in a district that voted for John McCain in 2008. Good news for Democrats – but a bad sign on cap and trade. Read more »

[IMPORTANT UPDATE BELOW]

I’ve got three quick thoughts on what the big Kerry-Lieberman energy and climate bill means for the international negotiations, and they’re not good. (More to come later; I’m on the road.) Read more »

Most of what can intelligently be said about the breakdown this past weekend of the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman climate talks has already been said. I suspect, though, that the news isn’t quite as bad for many climate bill supporters as they think. Read more »

Oh, “linked fee”, we hardly knew you. For the last few months, conventional wisdom held that the Kerry-Lieberman-Graham climate bill, due out next Monday, would tackle emissions from transportation in a novel way. The bill was reported to leave transportation outside its emissions cap, and levy a fee on refined oil products (gasoline, petroleum, jet fuel) instead. That fee (call it a tax if you must) would have been indexed to the price of permits that power plants would have had to purchase under the cap. During its brief life, there was basically no serious public analysis of the fee’s wisdom. Now all signs say that it’s dead. Read more »