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- Blog Post
Congress recently considered creating a nationwide cap-and-trade program that would limit emissions of greenhouse gases below the levels projected under current law and would allow trading of rights, or allowances, to produce those emissions. The ability to buy and sell allowances would reduce the cost to the economy of meeting the cap by letting market forces determine where, how, and when the associated cuts in emissions would be made.
- Report
Evaluating Limits on Participation and Transactions in Markets for Emissions Allowances
- Report
CBO examined the effects on allowance prices and greenhouse gas emissions of three mechanisms that would help prevent allowance prices from reaching unexpected highs and lows.
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Using Biofuel Tax Credits to Achieve Energy and Environmental Policy Goals
- Blog Post
The federal government supports the use of biofuels—transportation fuel produced usually from renewable plant matter, such as corn—in the pursuit of national energy, environmental, and agricultural policy goals. Tax credits encourage the production and sale of biofuels in the United States, while federal mandates specify minimum amounts and types of biofuel usage each year through 2022. Tax credits effectively lower the private costs of producing biofuels relative to the costs of producing their substitutes, gasoline and diesel fuel.
- Report
CBO analyzed research on the effects that policies to reduce green house gases would have on employment and concluded that total employment during the next few decades would be lower than would be the case in the absence of such policies.
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Letter to the Honorable Christopher H. Smith
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Federal Climate Change Programs: Funding History and Policy Issues
- Blog Post
As awareness of global climate change has expanded over past decades, Congresses and Administrations have committed several billion dollars annually to studying climate change and reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, most notably carbon dioxide. Most of that spending is done by the Department of Energy (DOE) and by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, although a dozen other federal agencies also participate. The effort has included funding science and technology, creating tax preferences, and assisting other countries in their attempts to curtail greenhouse-gas emissions.
- Report