Posted By Marc Morano - Marc_Morano@epw.senate.gov - 5:47PM ET

Climate Bill Will Cost ‘Hundreds of Billions of Dollars' - Lieberman Concedes

The Lieberman-Warner global warming cap-and-trade bill (S2191) would cost "hundreds of billions of dollars" to the electrical and industrial sectors of the economy, Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) conceded today. Senator Lieberman made the remarks during today's Environment & Public Works (EPW) subcommittee markup on the bill.

"It's hard to imagine that [Lieberman-Warner] will not cost - over time -- these two sectors (electric power and industrial), hundreds of billions of dollars to comply with the demands of this bill," Senator Lieberman said during the business meeting today.

Senator Lieberman, along with Senator John Warner (R-VA), is the co-author of "America's Climate Security Act."

Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the EPW Committee, has already warned that the Lieberman-Warner bill is "real economic pain, for no climate gain."

"The Lieberman-Warner bill will burden American families with additional energy costs and significantly harm the United States economy," Senator Inhofe said on October 18. "Senators are going to be asking the American people to pay more for home energy and pay higher prices at the gas pump for no climate benefit," Senator Inhofe added. (LINK)

Inhofe also noted that former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan is very skeptical of cap-and-trade legislation. Greenspan wrote in his new book, The Age of Turbulence: "There is no effective way to meaningfully reduce emissions without negatively impacting a large part of an economy," Greenspan wrote. "Net, it is a tax. If the cap is low enough to make a meaningful inroad into CO2 emissions, permits will become expensive and large numbers of companies will experience cost increases that make them less competitive. Jobs will be lost and real incomes of workers constrained."

Greenspan has also said: "Cap-and-trade systems or carbon taxes are likely to be popular only until real people lose real jobs as their consequence."

On Thursday, Senator Inhofe criticized the committee process for placing the Lieberman-Warner bill on a fast track.

"This does not seem like a good faith attempt to conduct a thorough and collaborative process which is substantive. It seems like a staged process to create a sideshow at [the December UN meeting in] Bali at how far we've come in the U.S. Senate," Senator Inhofe said during today's subcommittee business meeting. "It is just checking the process box," he added. (LINK)

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