Heritage Comments on the CBO Brief: “The Costs of Reducing Greenhouse-Gas Emissions.”

David Kreutzer / November 25, 2009

On November 23, 2009 the Congressional Budget Office issued “Economic and Budget Issue Brief: The Costs of Reducing Greenhouse-Gas Emissions.”

This brief echoed many of the points The Heritage Foundation has made in its reports, WebMemos, blogs and our responses to a request from Henry Waxman (D-CA), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

For example:

A. The CBO correctly notes that efficiency mandates (standards) don’t lower the cost of cap and trade. Here’s how they say it:

“However, standards would tend to increase the costs of a cap-and-trade program if they supplanted the effective reliance on market forces—even though they would also tend to reduce the allowance price in the program by reducing emissions covered under the program.” [Emphasis added] [CBO, page 5]

Here is what Heritage said in response to the Natural Resources Defense Council’s criticism of our analysis for not including (what NRDC misunderstands to be beneficial) impacts of such mandates: (more…)