The Easy Way to Cap and Trade

Posted by on . One comment.

Given the way that president Bush has used executive orders to gut, among other things, environmental rules, it would be deliciously poetic if Barack Obama used his authority under the Clean Air Act, as clarified by the Supreme Court in Massachusetts v EPA, to enact a nationwide cap-and-trade regime. Conservatives would scream about executive overreach and industry groups would say that Obama was working to kill the economy, but I suspect the hubbub would die away pretty quickly (especially once consumers saw that energy prices didn’t immediately skyrocket). It would also allow Congress to keep its powder dry for other legislative fights.

We’ll see. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see him take this action while pushing for a large, infrastructure-focused stimulus package.

Comments

  1. Daniel Hall says:
    December 4, 2008 at 5:30 pm

    Very unlikely that EPA has the authority to establish national GHG cap-and-trade, particularly given the recent EAB ruling that CAIR — which extended the (very successful) SO2 cap-and-trade program to additional utilities — was not allowed under the 1990 CAAA.

    You’ve misinterpreted (or been led astray by) the Gristmill post, which disingenuously evades the question of whether EPA can establish national GHG cap-and-trade (the authors know EPA almost certainly cannot) while arguing strongly that EPA SHOULD regulate GHGs (which they likely do have the authority to do given Mass. vs. EPA). The implication is that EPA would have to do this through NAAQS, which most regulatory experts — ones who don’t have something they are trying to sell you, as I so disappointingly find to be the case at Gristmill — think will be a logistical nightmare. The Clean Air Act works as a threat to get Congress moving on national cap-and-trade but isn’t actually going to get employed this way.