"Cap and trade" harnesses the forces of markets to achieve cost-effective environmental protection. Markets can achieve superior environmental protection by giving businesses both flexibility and a direct financial incentive to find faster, cheaper and more innovative ways to reduce pollution.
Cap and trade was designed, tested and proven here in the United States, as a program within the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. The success of this program led The Economist magazine to crown it "probably the greatest green success story of the past decade." (July 6, 2002).
The following points highlight some real world results of that program:
- The expected market price for SO2 allowances was in the range of $650-$850 (in 2000 dollars). The actual market has been between $100 and $200 for most of the program.
- In the 1990s, the U.S. acid rain cap and trade program achieved 100 percent compliance in reducing sulfur dioxide emissions. In fact, power plants took advantage of the allowance banking provision to reduce SO2 emissions 22 percent (7.3 million tons) below mandated levels for the first phase of the program.
- On the eve of legislation, the EPA estimated that the program would cost $6 billion annually once it was fully implemented (in 2000 dollars). The Office of Management and Budget has estimated actual costs to be $1.1 to $1.8 billion -- just 20 to 30 percent of the forecasts.
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What are the elements of a well-designed cap and trade program?A successful market-based program requires just a few minimum elements. All of the following are absolutely essential to an efficient and effective program:
- A mandatory emissions "cap." This is a limit on the total tons of emissions that can be emitted. It provides the standard by which environmental progress is measured, and it gives tons traded on the pollution market value; if the tons didn’t result in real reductions to the atmosphere, they don’t have any market value.
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moreHere's why Kerry is pushing this hard, he knows and cares a lot about the issues:
First, Senator Kerry. Now you can disagree over the significance of his record on the environment during his years of service as an elected official, but John Kerry has one. And the record begins during a period in his life that hasn't gotten much attention -- a period after Vietnam, after he was a prosecutor, but before he was elected to the U.S. Senate. The time was 1982, the place was Massachusetts. The environmental issue of the day was acid rain, and people were still coming to terms with it. Dianne Dumanoski was an environment writer for the Boston Globe at the time.
DUMANOSKI: Acid rain was a really dominant issue. We had lakes – actually we still have lakes -- that were acidified and had lost their fish, there's been widespread damage to the forests in New England
CURWOOD: John Kerry had been elected Lieutenant Governor, traditionally a stepping stone in Massachusetts politics. The governor, Michael Dukakis, delegated the issues of state-federal relations to Kerry just as acid rain was becoming the premier cross-border issue.
DUMANOSKI: He sort of became the point person on acid rain and was the person that was doing all this organizing and collaborating with the other governors and the Eastern Canadian provincial heads of government. And there was actually a treaty that was signed in '83. It was actually the first agreement on acid rain. It really predated the agreements in Europe and this actually later became the blueprint for the provisions in the Clean Air Act that didn't get passed until 1990.
CURWOOD: Dianne Dumanoski credits Kerry with developing a strong grasp of this complex issue, in which pollutants are carried by the wind from the Midwest to the U.S. and Canadian east. Bob Turner also covered the earlier career of John Kerry and is now deputy editorial page editor at the Boston Globe.
TURNER: I do think that the work on the acid rain was to some extent was a model for the Clean Air Act in Congress, which he did play a significant role in, and which did pull enough states together and enough bipartisan support to produce quite a momentous piece of legislation.
CURWOOD: In his early years in the Senate, John Kerry also wrote a bill to keep fishermen from inadvertently killing dolphins in the huge nets known as driftnets. He also championed a measure that dealt with plastic garbage in the ocean.
linkSenator John Kerry has stood up to polluters and been a champion of protecting human health and the environment during his entire career in public office.
He spoke at the first Earth Day in Massachusetts in 1970. As Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts, Kerry chaired an Acid Rain Task Force and issued a "Call for Action" on the topic of air pollution. As a Senator he has championed the cause of conservation, been a leader in the fight against polluters and blocked the Bush Administration's efforts to reverse 30 years of environmental progress.
From clean air to clean water to toxics to public lands to energy, we can count on John Kerry to provide leadership, vision, and solutions so that all Americans can have a clean, safe, healthy environment.
John Kerry on Clean Air
John Kerry has been a leader in the fight for clean air since before his election to the U.S. Senate in 1984. In his first year as a Senator, John Kerry introduced the National Acid Rain Control Act to improve standards and create a fund for clean air. He has continued to work for cleaner air since then, defending the Clean Air Act against weakening in 1990 and more recently opposing the Bush Administration's attempts to weaken the Clean Air Act's New Source Review rules. John Kerry opposes President Bush's plans to increase the allowable toxic mercury pollution in our air, and as President would immediately reinstate Clean Air protections weakened under the Bush Administration.
John Kerry on Clean Water and Drinking Water
John Kerry has consistently pushed for strengthening protections for our nation's waters and drinking water. In his first year in the Senate, John Kerry sponsored a bill to help states clean up water quality problems due to acid rain. He was a vocal opponent of the Bush Administration's attempt to weaken drinking water standards for arsenic, and he pushed for the Bush Administration to repeal a dangerous proposed rulemaking that would have removed 20 million acres of wetlands from Clean Water Act protections. He opposed federal funding for polluting factory farms that are a major source of water pollution. Kerry also opposed Bush's proposal to allow coal companies to shave off mountaintops and bury the rivers below under tons of mine waste in violation of the Clean Water Act.
This was from a Seirra Club release, the link is no longer active:
http://www.sierraclub.org/error/404.aspx?aspxerrorpath=/pressroom/presidential_endorsement/factsheet_kerry.aspx 
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