As expected, President Obama’s first budget includes a cap-and-trade plan that will require emitting companies to purchase emission allowances. This will generate several hundred billion dollars to be used for energy subsidies and a tax credit for working families. The WSJ reports:
In one of the budget’s most ambitious proposals, the president plans to cap the emissions of greenhouse gases, forcing polluters to purchase permits for emissions that would be slowly brought down to 14% below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83% below 2005 levels by 2050. The sale of those permits, beginning in 2012, would reap $646 billion through 2019. Of those revenues, $525.7 billion would be devoted to extending Mr. Obama’s signature “Making Work Pay” $800 tax credit for working couples. Another $120 billion would go to clean energy technology.