EPA Says Carbon Caps Won’t Harm Economy Much.

I read a Wall Street Journal article from last Monday’s paper entitled, “EPA Says Carbon Caps Won’t Harm Economy Much.” This article described the Lieberman-Warner Bill which would control greenhouse gas emissions of power plants, factories, and oil refineries over the next two decades. Apparently, companies that exceed there EPA limit can purchase excess credits from other companies and still remain legal. This bill if passed it would also increase the price of gas and electric.

If you look at this problem from a Simon point of view then there is no need to reduce emissions now because in the future someone will develop something to eliminate the pollution from emissions. While this may be true, I don’t think that closing our eyes and hoping for the best will fix the problem. We should do as much as we can now to prevent further environmental impact.

I was also troubled by the ability of a company that exceeds their allotted amount of pollution to purchase credits from another company which have excess. It does not seem fair that a company can actually break the law, pollute our air further and simply buy their way out of trouble. Everyone should be held to the same standard. Of course there are repercussions since the company has to buy the excess but if the credits are always available then why would they change practices. It almost makes this new law worthless since probably most companies would rather pay for the credits then change infrastructure in order to comply.