EU Referendum: The EU goes on and on

The European Investment Bank will sell the €4.3 billion ($6 billion) of CO2 allowances from the post-2012 reserve for new companies in the EU emissions-trading system and disburse the revenue via national governments "to aid projects for carbon capture and storage and renewable energy."

Let the market rule and trade is worth nothing. Give it to the regulators and they can magic $6 billion out of thin air (which we then have to pay). There has to be a lesson there.

A Carbon Tax Emerges Among the Ideas to Reduce the Federal Deficit - NYTimes.com

Forget climate change. This electorate -- and the new Congress -- seems more interested in fiscal discipline. So some sense a rising opportunity for harmony between environmentalism and economics.

"When you look out at the potential sources of increasing government revenue, this has to be an especially appealing one," Michael Greenstone, former chief economist of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, said of a carbon tax or cap and trade.

"We don't have very many other opportunities to penalize activities that are harmful," he added. "We could raise marginal income tax rates, but we actually like the fact that people earn a lot of money. We don't want less of that. But we do want less greenhouse gas emissions."
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Yet new money will also be found from other sources as the economy heals, said Eastman, Camp's spokesman. As for a price on carbon?

"I don't see the commission being able to revive that monster," he said, noting that even Obama described cap and trade as an unsuccessful effort last week, saying it is just one way of "skinning the cat."

Montreal Protocol Climate Treaty May Be Broadened - NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON — With energy legislation shelved in the United States and little hope for a global climate change agreement this year, some policy experts are proposing a novel approach to curbing global warming: including greenhouse gases under an existing and highly successful international treaty ratified more than 20 years ago.