Waxman-Markey Math: What are the numbers and what might they mean?
Published by Watermark Economics LLC, reprinted by permission
A marked-up version of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 initially released in April 2009 and revised in mid-May (a/k/a the Waxman-Markey draft bill) passed out of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on May 21, 2009.
The revised draft bill is 932 pages and covers a broad range of big-picture energy issues, including energy efficiency, renewable energy, and a federal cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
In this short comment, we focus on the cap-and-trade part of the Waxman-Markey bill. In particular, we consider the numbers in the current draft to see what they are, as a starting point for thinking more deeply later about what they might mean for capital, carbon, energy, and related markets.
