Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Markey Announces iCAP Climate Bill

WASHINGTON (May 28, 2008) – Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, introduced a revolutionary new bill that would reduce global warming pollution according to scientific targets, reinvest any revenue back to American workers and technology, and would establish America as a leader in solving climate change.

The bill offers a new paradigm for global warming legislation: the Cap-and-Invest system. It caps pollution at 85 percent below 2005 levels by 2050. It uses an auction system that sets a price on carbon, and allows companies to compete for reductions, or buy or trade credits within the system. It then takes the $8 Trillion in revenues expected from polluters over the length of the bill, and reinvests that money back to American families and workers and into promoting a clean energy economy.

The “Investing in Climate Action and Protection Act” (iCAP Act) amends the Clean Air Act to establish an economy-wide cap-auction-and-trade system that adheres to five core principles:
  • Reduce U.S. global warming pollution by 85 percent by 2050, the necessary U.S. contribution to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of heat-trapping gases and avoid dangerous global warming.
  • Auction pollution allowances, instead of giving them free-of-charge to polluters, to avoid windfall profits for polluters, ensure fairness and effectiveness, and reduce social costs.
  • Return over half of auction proceeds to low- and middle-income households to help compensate for any increase in energy costs as a result of climate legislation.
  • Invest the remaining auction proceeds in programs that will further reduce the costs of climate policy, spur the development of advanced low-carbon technologies, grow the U.S. economy, and address unavoidable impacts of climate change.
  • Include policies that will encourage major-emitting developing countries, like China and India, to take comparable action to reduce global warming pollution to protect the competitiveness of U.S. industry.
A video of Rep. Markey announcing the climate legislation is here.
An executive summary of the legislation here, and a report from 1Sky is here.