The Congressional Budget Office says in a new report that both a national “renewable energy standard” (RES) and a so-called “clean energy standard” (CES) would be more expensive ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions than the infamous-and-now-dead cap-and-trade.
The CBO report states,
Neither a renewable electricity standard (RES) nor a clean electricity standard (CES) could achieve a desired reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions at as low a cost as a “cap-and-trade” program could.
Not that we have much confidence in CBO (has it ever been close to being correct in its budget projections?), but the report doesn’t seem to herald much of a future for energy central planning.
It seems a bit disingenuous to criticize the left for pursuing a clean energy standard in terms of its inefficiency. They (the intellectuals at least) clearly preferred a cap-trade system or a pure carbon tax, but that wasn’t politically feasible. It’s not like the right would be supporting either the C&T or carbon tax because of its efficiency relative to a clean energy standard. The public seems to love ‘clean energy’/’energy independence’ so that’s the route they have to go down now.