On June 15, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its analysis of The American Power Act of 2010 (bill number not yet available) – the comprehensive climate change bill introduced in May by Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT). According to the EPA, the bill would cost households an average of $79 to $146 per year.
The EPA analysis attributed the bill’s overall cost to provisions that would refund to consumers some of the revenue generated by auctioning off emissions allowances.
The EPA also found that the Senate bill would be better at containing the price of carbon allowances than the House-passed bill (HR 2454) because it allocates more of the allowances to a reserve fund.
According to the EPA analysis, under the Kerry-Lieberman bill, allowances would likely be priced between $16 and $17 per metric ton of carbon emitted in 2013. That cost would increase to between $23 and $24 per metric ton in 2020.
EPA’s complete analysis is available here.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) have reviewed the discussion draft of the American Power Act, as released on May 12, 2010, with certain technical corrections and other changes subsequently provided to CBO by U.S. Senator John Kerry’s staff.
That report can be found at the following link: http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/115xx/doc11565/AmericanPowerActKerryLtr.pdf