PA - Carbon Cap Critics Predict Healthy Economy under Cap-and-Trade

The debate over global warming has prompted a number of attempts to forecast the effects of a carbon cap on the overall economy, despite the near impossibility of producing reliable forecasts. It is well documented that the actual costs to U.S. businesses of complying with the Clean Air Act, the Acid Rain Act and other environmental laws have been dramatically lower than what had once been estimated by opponents of these measures.

One study of the potential costs of a carbon cap-and-trade measure produced by the American Council on Capital Formation and the National Association of Manufacturers (ACCF/NAM) offers a new twist on this pattern. ACCF/NAM forecasts that the effects of a cap-and-trade law similar to that proposed by the Obama administration are significantly more negative than similar exercises conducted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and a range of private organizations. However, according to ACCF/NAM’s own forecasts, a carbon cap will have only a minor impact on the U.S. economy. This is true even under the worst-case scenario that they present, what they term the “high-cost case” forecast.

With a carbon cap in place, Pennsylvania’s economy would experience healthy economic growth.

According to the ACCF/NAM “high-cost case,” Pennsyl-vania’s economy would grow 54%, while carbon emissions would fall by 36%.

Click here to download the fact sheet on Pennsylvania

Click here to dowload the full report.