Article by Kyle Danish, Shelley Fidler, Andrea
Campbell, Kevin Gallagher and Megan Ceronsky
To receive the Weekly Update via email, visit our Sign
Up/Subscribe page
http://www.vnf.com/news-signup.html
Commentary
The Audacity of Auctioning . . . President Obama made a
dramatic entrance into the debate over climate change legislation
this week. He called for a cap-and-trade program with an emissions
cap starting at 14% below 2005 levels by 2020, declining to 83
percent below 2005 levels by 2050. President Obama also took a
position on the controversial issue of how to distribute
allowances. Consistent with his campaign pledge, he called for 100
percent auctioning. Furthermore, he linked the auction to a
promised tax cut for 90 percent of Americans by pledging over three
quarters of the auction revenues to this purpose. The balance of
the revenues would go to fulfilling a campaign promise to devote
$150 billion to clean energy technologies over 10 years . . .
