January 24, 2003—Senators Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) recently unveiled legislation to curb global climate change by establishing a market-based emissions credit trading system that will give companies maximum flexibility in meeting emissions-reduction goals.
Companies would have the economic choice of reducing their emissions to reduce their required allowances or purchasing other companies’ allowances to cover their continued emissions. Companies that have voluntarily undertaken efforts to reduce their greenhouse gases would receive credit for those actions.
The legislation is modeled after the acid rain trading program of the 1990 Clean Air Act. It would require a reduction to 2000 carbon dioxide emission levels by the year 2010, and a reduction to 1990 levels by the year 2016.
The bill would affect emissions from the electricity generation, transportation (via petroleum refiners), industrial, and commercial economic sectors, which together account for 85 percent of overall US greenhouse gas emissions. It would only apply to entities that emit more than 10,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases per year, and would not apply to individual car owners, homeowners, or the agricultural sector.
