Missing Info on Cap and Trade Now Public

A global warming cap and trade scheme could cost U.S. taxpayers $300 billion a year, the Treasury Department admitted in documents released late Friday afternoon.

The same documents had been released by Treasury earlier in the week, but with crucial passages redacted. Now, the documents are available in their entirety for public scrutiny (you can read them here). The documents were obtained by the Competitive Enterprise Institute through a Freedom of Information Act request.

According to CEI, the new information reveals the Treasury Department has estimated that "domestic policies to address climate change and the related issues of energy security and affordability will involve significant costs and potential revenues, possibly up to several percentage points of annual GDP (i.e. equal in size to the corporate income tax)."

A CEI release on the matter notes, "This explains why the administration initially sought to keep its internal expectations from the public: The cost of a cap and trade plan to businesses and consumers will be enormous."

For more information, see "Enviros flail over FOIAed Treasury documents", Marlo Lewis's blog post on the subject.