First, thanks for re-opening the carbon tax versus Cap-and-Trade door again.
It has been forgotten, while greatly misunderstood.
As the Post article indicates.

"How about a free-market solution to climate change"?
So said the EDFers a LONG time ago.

They and other environmentalists have been trying to shoehorn sound environmental policy into the free market ever since.

You and many others may believe that a CAP is a limiting factor on carbon emissions. More so, that is, than a carbon tax. You put in a CAP, and let the free market do the rest.

I do not.

A CAP is a legal mandate with a loophole.
CAP, or pay.
A CAP has no mechanism to force a reduction in the amount of carbon emissions.
Neither does it have a plan for doing so.

That cap-or-pay loophole will rather quickly, in my opinion, be TOTALLY CONTROLLED by the international financial markets – a disfunctional and disorderly array these days.

So, either way, we end up with a financial imperative to achieve our carbon balance goals.

One with a straight-forward, publicly-controllable carbon tax. The American people fixing the American problem.

The other with a convoluted, profit market-driven mechanism, played out with carbon futures, derivatives and hedge-funds. An obviously international financial market game, over which the American people can exert absolutely no control once a carbon emission allowance has reached the free-market.

I have read the CBO study and I agree completely with its findings that a carbon tax is superior to any cap-and-trade program out there.

I read your criticism of the study, and I found it so empty that I had to call the CBO to inquire whether it was my ignorance that caused me to not see any substance to your commentary.

I asked why they didn't reply to your commentary.
The reply was that if anyone understood the CBO study they would conclude, as I did, that there was NOTHING there to reply to.

Cap and trade.
Environmental Economic Pap.
Carbon Tax Now.