US carbon market seen topping $1 trillion by 2018

摘要

A global-warming bill that the Senate is.slated to take up in June will create a carbon market worth more than $1.2 trillion over the next decade, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said in a report last week. The sponsors of the bill also proposed an amendment that would increase the amount of emissions allowances auctioned off to the highest bidder, which would raise compliance costs for power plants, oil refineries and other industries. Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat-California, said the CBO analysis shows that the bill (S. 2191) will spur the creation of thousands of new jobs and low-carbon energy technologies. "At the end of the day, this bill will be a boon to the economy," Boxer said. But other lawmakers took a different view. Senator James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican and a leading skeptic of human-induced climate change, said the CBO analysis shows that the bill will impose a "$1.2 trillion tax increase" on US industries and families.