House Democrats have floated a draft greenhouse gas bill. The draft bill, described as incomplete, is 648 pages long. Environmental Capital pulls together a number of links (Green Ink: A ‘Starting Point’ on the Climate Debate).
With respect to competitiveness and trade, the Reuters summary (FACTBOX: U.S. Democrats launch draft carbon legislation) notes:
INDUSTRY REBATES/TRADE
Authorizes U.S. companies in industries that use a lot of energy to receive "rebates" to compensate for additional costs of cap and trade. If rebates are not sufficient, the president would have the power to establish a "border adjustment" program, possibly tariffs on goods from countries that do not take action on cutting greenhouse gases.
Keith Johnson at Environmental Capital goes into more detail (Cushions and Crutches: How Would the Cap-and-Trade Bill Protect Vulnerable Industries?):
For instance, the bill identifies several sectors that are energy-intensive or heavily exposed to global trade, such as steel, cement, paper, chemicals, and the like. Those sectors would get a government handout in the form of rebates to cushion the higher energy bills brought about by climate legislation. This would help keep their products globally competitive.
The problem is figuring out just how much those rebates would be. The bill’s relationship with English breaks down a little here when it says the cash rebates will be “equal to the sum of the covered entity’s direct compliance factor and the covered entity’s indirect carbon factor.”
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