To help inform readers as the Senate approaches a vote (maybe) on a carbon dioxide cap-and-trade scheme, Smithsonian magazine has a piece oddly titled “The political history of cap-and-trade.” I say oddly because it fails to delve at all into the actual history of CO2 cap-and-trade. Instead, it redirects attention to the Bush 41 White House and its 1990 deal with the (then-) EDF to get a trading scheme in place for the actual impurity and undesired side-effect from combustion — sulfur dioxide (as opposed to CO2, which is produced in greater amounts the more efficiently you combust; technically, it’s what you’re trying to produce).

Meanwhile, it devotes one line to the fact — but nothing to the wretched experience — of Europe’s CO2 trading scheme. Leave it to the commenters to use the word “Europe” twice as many times as the author (literally two-to-one, at present count).

I take it that the actual political history of CO2 cap-and-trade is nothing to boast about, or at least nothing that its cheerleaders want known. My philosophy remains that, when opponents wave such giant red flags about what they are afraid of, consider it a request to drag the issue into the light. A search for “Enron” is a good start toward an actual political history of CO2 cap-and-trade — or check out posts by another former Enron employee, Rob Bradley, noting how the scheme was Enron’s baby all along and revealing some illuminating internal memoranda that have emerged, here and here.