Several weeks ago we received a letter from Chairman Henry Waxman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee requesting information concerning our economic modeling of H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act. We quickly responded (our answers are available here). Several other organizations and government agencies also received the same request including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Energy Information Administration (EIA), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), CRA International, the American Council for Capital Formation (ACCF), and the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC). Notably missing from this list were other prominently used studies from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), and the Brookings Institution.
In our response to Chairman Waxman we noted this omission and mentioned that we had sent letters to those organizations encouraging them to answer the questions. Apparently Chairman Waxman took this under advisement because on Friday morning we received a phone call from CBO Director Dr. Doug Elmendorf in response to our letter that he had received the questions from Mr. Waxman and they would be answering them shortly. We commend Chairman Waxman for his follow up with CBO and we continue to hold out hope that he will do the same with Brookings and PERI so both he and the public have a complete record.
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