Blog Post Two, Argument Two

Recently in the United States there has been a lot of talk by politicians and citizens alike about pollution and carbon emission made by companies into the atmosphere. Prominent individuals and leaders of the nation have gotten together and drafted a cap and trade law. This law would restrict carbon emission (the nasty, black smog that comes out of buildings) into the air and allow companies to trade their pollution permits (like baseball cards and Pokeman cards). While there are many aspects of the cap and trade law, I would like to focus on one part, the core, of passing the cap and trade law in the United States. Consider the following questions. Would a cap and trade law lower the world’s pollution level because it decreases pollution in the United States? Or would the United States’ high polluting companies just relocate to somewhere where they can pollute without restriction?

Imposing a cap and trade program to deal with carbon emissions in the atmosphere will only cause high polluting companies to move to a different country thereby not decreasing the amount of pollution in the atmosphere. Through the cap and trade law, high polluting companies become like felons fleeing the country in the middle of the night. If there is a company in the US that pollutes substantially there is no reason for that company to stay in the United States and pay a lot of money to buy and trade permits to emit carbon when all they have to do is relocate to somewhere that they can pollute without punishment or without a high cost to pollute. Aaron Renn, an independent writer about urban affairs, firmly believes that even if the cap and trade law is passed in America, it would not influence carbon pollution for good but rather for worse. In his insightful article, Mr. Renn says, “An American manufacturer could escape cap and trade simply by moving production to China. Given China’s massive coal-based electricity infrastructure and other notoriously polluting practices, carbon emissions would likely only get worse as a result…” China and its potentially rising pollution level are only a plane ride and a cap and trade law approval in the US away.

However, some New York Times authors argue that the cap and trade law on carbon emission will prove successful because one cap and trade program is currently present in the United States therefore major companies will remain in the US like they did under the first cap and trade program. The supporters of this cap and trade law argue that because the cap and trade program that exists for sulfur dioxide is successful, likewise a carbon cap and trade law would also be successful. However, in an article written by two prominent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lawyers, Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel discuss the reasons for why the sulfur dioxide cap and trade program succeeded: the switch to reduce emission was easy. Unlike the carbon cap and trade program, the sulfur dioxide cap and trade program mostly only required a switch of fuel to a more inexpensive, available, and low-sulfur coal. A carbon cap and trade program would not be so simple. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina acknowledges this and states that, for the time being, the cap and trade law is not very company friendly. Because the carbon cap and trade isn’t as simple and inexpensive for companies to make efficient, important changes, high pollutant companies will move to other countries and produce pollution freely. Just because a cap and trade program has been successful does not mean that all cap and trade programs will work well. Once companies see how costly carbon cap and trade will be to them they will be on the red eye flight out of the US on the way to anywhere but here: trading their baseball cards and orange jumpsuits for black suits to match the tons of carbon pumping out of the company’s roof.