A broadcast reporter queried The Heartland Institute May 15 for an analysis of the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill to reduce carbon emissions. While the Heartland Institute, as a 501 (c)(3) non-profit, doesn’t take positions on legislation, Heartland’s James Taylor, senior policy advisor on the environment, does follow legislation closely, and responded with the following insightful (and pithy!) assessment:

Hello, (reporter’s name). We don’t have an analysis posted on this evolving legislation, but a couple of good analyses are linked below.

In short, Waxman-Markey will force Americans to abandon coal in favor of other energy sources.

However, the levelized cost (the cost of production per unit of energy minus taxes and subsidies) of wind and solar power — which will be the electricity sources of choice given the administration’s current opposition to nuclear and clean coal — is between 75 percent (wind power) and 800 percent (solar voltaic) more expensive than coal (solar thermal is 500 percent more expensive).

The higher cost of energy that will be imposed under Waxman-Markey will permeate every segment of the economy, raising electricity prices, raising gasoline prices, killing jobs, and reducing people’s real income. For such a high price, we will get very little real-world benefit.

Even if the U.S. eliminated ALL its CO2 emissions, the growth in Chinese emissions alone (roughly 10 percent per year over the past decade) will render all U.S. reductions moot within 10 years.

Heritage Foundation analysis is here, and MasterSource, a free market energy site, is here.