The Competitive Enterprise Institute used the Freedom of Information Act to force the Treasury Department to release a number of memos about the real costs of carbon cap and trade legislation. It proved difficult to get the Obama administration to give up these memos and reports and they were heavily censored. Censoring of Defense Department documents I understand, but censoring Treasury Department documents is generally much less understandable. It must be an elitist thing. Those dumb taxpayer dolts have no need to know and they would not understand anyway.
Gary Jason gives a rundown on what was found and summarizes some previous estimates of the effect of carbon cap and trade on jobs and costs here. He points out that the CRA think tank estimated that carbon cap-and-trade will cause the loss of 3.2 million jobs in America over 15 years. The Obama Energy Department says that the cap-and-trade bill will increase electricity costs by 20% over 20 years. I think this a terrible underestimate, but Obama did not want this out anyway.
The CEI released memos of the Treasury Department revealed that:
- Judson Jaffe of the Office of Environment and Energy estimated the new taxes of the Obama plan will be between $100 and $200 billion a year, which is higher than Obama publicly estimated them to be. The upper end tax cost is an increase of $1761 per family.
- An Obama transition memo said that the Obama environmental plan will double the cost to the economy of environmental regulations.
- One memo thought the carbon cap-and-trade cost would be $300 billion a year.
- A memo said the Obama environmental policies will cost as much as corporate income taxes.
- A memo says cap-and-trade will ruin energy-intensive industries, such as manufacturing.
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