The Wall Street Journal has a couple interesting pieces worth noting before Members of Congress — whom we’re hearing from allies don’t actually know what’s in the bill — vote on the Waxman-Markey cap and trade legislation.

One, from Martin Livermore in the WSJ’s Europe edition, argues:

The biggest abuse began right at the start of the ETS when regulators handed out too many free permits. As a result, utilities companies made windfall profits by simply selling on large numbers of unneeded credits and not passing the savings on to their customers in the form of price cuts. Despite the EU’s declared goal to dole out permits based on objective criteria, industry lobbying led to an overallocation. When push comes to shove, governments will always protect their national champions. The German government, for example, negotiated an easing of planned caps on emissions from cars to the advantage of manufacturers of higher-powered cars such as Mercedes-Benz and Porsche.

And this is in a bloc where the environmentalists have far more influence than in America. Translated across the Atlantic, any climate change bill will become the subject of the worst kind of pork-barrel politics riddled with loopholes for key industries before it becomes law.

Indeed, Congressional wrangling has already ensured that taxpayers will get robbed because the permits would be given away for free. A Journal editorial this morning highlights that logrolling and warns of a misleading cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office that the bill’s authors are using to support their effort. The Journal continues:

The hit to GDP is the real threat in this bill. The whole point of cap and trade is to hike the price of electricity and gas so that Americans will use less. These higher prices will show up not just in electricity bills or at the gas station but in every manufactured good, from food to cars. Consumers will cut back on spending, which in turn will cut back on production, which results in fewer jobs created or higher unemployment. Some companies will instead move their operations overseas, with the same result.

When the Heritage Foundation did its analysis of Waxman-Markey, it broadly compared the economy with and without the carbon tax. Under this more comprehensive scenario, it found Waxman-Markey would cost the economy $161 billion in 2020, which is $1,870 for a family of four. As the bill’s restrictions kick in, that number rises to $6,800 for a family of four by 2035.

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