The Wall Street Journal today writes about the costs of the proposed cap & trade program. It seems fair that people who have used the environment as their trash basket should not be able to do so when that's destabilizing the planet's climate. Of course, all of us have benefited, to some extent, as we pay less on our power bills than we would have if firms had to take care of their disposal instead of just releasing it into the atmosphere.
The new proposal is to make disposal more expensive, and someone's going to pay for that. If firms pay it, costs will be passed along to consumers. As Rep. Waxman and others note, though, there are upsides as well: there will be an added incentive for firms to research and develop new technologies for cleaning the atmosphere, which should lead to new jobs. Finally, of course, mitigating climate change should save money in the long run. The question is, who has to pay for the change that we'll all benefit from? No one wants to get stuck with the check!
