Cap-and-trade: Trick or treat?

Inter Lake editorial

It's not a coincidence that the U.S. House may vote today on the massively misguided cap-and-trade bill: the Democratic leadership fully knows that the energy tax must not be debated because it cannot withstand scrutiny.

It certainly will not stand up to a rigorous cost-benefit analysis.

Thus, lawmakers will cast their votes on the 1,200-page bill without reading it, just as they did with the stimulus bill in February, and they will be on planes back to their districts for the Fourth of July break by the weekend.

It is an abomination of political stealth. And it should be alarming - even to those who believe the U.S. government can control the climate - that Congress is handling such consequential legislation the way that it is.

The Wall Street Journal says cap-and-trade is "likely to be the biggest tax in American history." It will create a new bureacracy that will sell permits, basically a tax, to carbon-producing companies that will in turn pass their costs on to consumers. This will have a cascading effect through the economy, with the most severe average household costs estimated to range around $1,800 annually by 2020.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the cost will be only $175 by 2020, but that estimate is concentrated on the direct costs of cap-and-trade, it accounts for government rebates that may or may not happen, and it applies to a single year before carbon caps are severely tightened. And the CBO estimate does not account for broader impacts on the economy, including job losses and decreases in gross domestic product.

But there's no need to rely on speculative estimates, when steep and real costs have already been calculated in countries, such as Britain, where carbon taxing schemes have been under way for several years.

This is not what the U.S. needs to be competitive with countries such as China and India, countries that will never adopt similar carbon restrictions on their developing economies. But a country that elects a Congress that would so carelessly pass such legislation may deserve what it gets.

IN GLACIER National Park country, today is the first day of summer, with the opening of Going-to-the-Sun Road over Logan Pass.

Once again, park plow crews and construction contractors deserve credit in finishing the big job of getting the pass open, and a June 26 opening is a relatively early one at that.

And this year, Glacier Park and its gateway communities could be much busier than last summer, when gas prices were considerably higher than they are now.