U.S. cap and trade rebranded as “pollution reduction”

Like a savvy Madison Avenue advertising team, senators pushing climate-control legislation have decided to scrap the name "cap and trade" and rebrand their product as "pollution reduction targets."

A clunky and difficult term to define for laymen and some politicians, "cap and trade" had become dirty words on Capitol Hill in recent months.

Republicans called the plan nothing more than "cap and tax" and one influential senator took great pains last week to declare cap and trade "dead."

Senator Joseph Lieberman, an independent trying to draft a bipartisan bill, said, "We don't use that term anymore."

Instead Lieberman said, laughing: "We will have pollution reduction targets."

But Lieberman did say it was still possible utilities may be subject to a cap and trade system. Senator Thomas Carper, who chairs a clean air panel in the Senate, told Reuters that cap and trade for utilities was the way to go.

Under cap and trade, or whatever it's called, Washington would impose steadily declining limits on carbon pollution that companies could emit, in the hopes of battling global warming. The pollution permits they would be required to hold would be traded in a regulated financial market.

A bill passed by the House of Representatives last year would impose an economy-wide cap and trade program. That bill has been stuck in the Senate since last year.

Since then, other ideas have been discussed for controlling carbon emissions, including a carbon tax, "cap and dividend" and even "cap and trade with training wheels," where an independent board would set a narrow price range for carbon for eight years to give markets experience in trading permits before going to a full-blown cap and trade.

Related News

energy storage

'Unlayering' peak demand could accelerate energy storage adoption

WASHINGTON - The debate over energy storage replacing gas-fired peakers has raged for years, but a new approach that shifts the terms of the argument could lead to an acceleration of storage deployments.

Rather than looking at peak demand as a single mountainous peak, some analysts now advocate a layered approach that allows energy storage to better match peak needs. The idea is beginning to gain traction with some states and utilities.

"You don’t have to have batteries that run to infinity."

Some developers of solar-plus-storage projects say they can already compete head-to-head with gas-fired peakers. "I can beat a gas peaker anywhere…

READ MORE

Britain's energy security bill set to become law

READ MORE

molten glass

Melting Glass Experiment Surprises Scientists by Defying a Law of Electricity

READ MORE

graph

Florida PSC approves Gulf Power’s purchase of renewable energy produced at municipal solid waste plant

READ MORE

working at home at night

Covid-19: Secrets of lockdown lifestyle laid bare in electricity data

READ MORE