The Cost of Cap & Trade

My friend and esteemed Keloland colleague, Cory Heidelberger, has a post worth reading on the Waxman-Markey bill. Here is a gem:

On the costs of cap and trade: How big a pocketbook bite would SHS have had to sell to us to justify a yes vote on ACESA? According to the Truth-o-Meter folks at Politifact.com, the Congressional Budget Office estimates this specific bill would cost $175 per household... a little more than one postage stamp a day.

Well, that sounds manageable. Of course there is a logical problem. The bill is supposed to force everyone from Wal-Mart down to the guy with the shifty eyes in the one bedroom apartment to go green. Is one postage stamp a day really going to do that?

But leave that alone for a moment. Cory thinks that the bill will be cheap. What does Barack Obama think? Here is Jeff Jacoby writing for the Boston Globe:

In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle in January 2008, [Obama] calmly explained how cap-and-trade - the carbon-dioxide rationing scheme that is at the heart of Waxman-Markey - would work:

"Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket . . . because I'm capping greenhouse gases, coal power plants, natural gas, you name it . . . Whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money, and they will pass that [cost] on to consumers.''

In the same interview, Obama suggested that his energy policy would require the ruin of the coal industry. "If somebody wants to build a coal-fired plant, they can,'' he told the Chronicle. "It's just that it will bankrupt them, because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted.''

Okay. President Obama wants electricity rates to "skyrocket." He wants to ruin the coal industry, from which we get about 23% of our energy. And all this is going to cost us a postage stamp a day? The thing is, I think Cory might be right. If Waxman-Markey passes, and does what the President wants it to do, a single postage stamp might really cost more than any American can afford.

update: this post was mentioned favorably at one of my favorite sites: No Left Turns. Thanks to Peter Lawler.