TW: Or at least why it probably should fail. Only a quarter of Americans can even identify the cap and trade concept as related to the environment. Cap and trade is a difficult to understand concept, if it is enacted it will be due to powerful interest groups pushing it through not a clear consensus of Americans favoring the approach. Industry in collusion with politicians will co-opt cap and trade so fast that it will give environmental policy a bad name for decades, meanwhile we will continue to expend blood and treasure chasing oil whilst pouring carbon into the atmosphere.
We need a decent energy policy, cap and trade just is not the answer. More later.
From Ryan Avent's blog:
"...Americans have no idea what cap-and-trade is. They don’t even know to what major public policy problem it is generally suggested as a solution:
Given a choice of three options, just 24 percent of voters can correctly identify the cap-and-trade proposal as something that deals with environmental issues. A slightly higher number (29 percent) believe the proposal has something to do with regulating Wall Street while 17 percent think the term applies to health care reform. A plurality (30 percent) have no idea.
... will readily admit that I have no idea whether Americans know much more about a carbon tax or whether more knowledge would be a help or a hindrance. It does seem to me, however, that the most relevant factor is whether the folks playing interest politics understand the difference (they do) and how that knowledge influences their preference (results vary, but crucially, those who seem to want or expect a pricing bill to pass this year are mainly joining team cap-and-trade)..."
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