Pollution Allowance Auctions

In high school debate, twenty years ago, I ran a case for auctioning pollution permits, the application of the free market to pollution. We did pretty well because there was nothing written against it. In the last week, it's hit the headlines. Wired points out that sulfur dioxide went on the market in 1993. Paul Krugman argues that the market fails in the case of local pollutants like mercury (though his research has been questioned). And after reading WorldChanging's take on pollution permits, I have to wonder, why aren't these sold on E*TRADE? If I want to take 5 tons of pollution off the market, why should I have to go through a broker? And if I buy 5 tons, what stops Congress from releasing 10 more tons tomorrow?

Comments

Citizens

[UID1000000]

I think that the majority of people haven't picked up on this yet, even though it's been around for 10 years. This is because there are still millions of blinking VCR lights...

I agree with you, what is the purpose b/c the govt will turn around and release more. The govt is all for major industries that use pollutants, like energy sources, etc. If the public were too buy them all up they would turn around and rerelease more "blocks".

Now let's suppose that a large group, like a co-op gets together and buys everything, all of the EPA auctions. Would society collectively turn it's head and say "hey, let's find a new source of energy, or a new source of whatever". I think that would be an interesting day...

They could make a rule...

[kabocox]

This was meant for businesses not individuals. I wouldn't be surprised if 2 rules gets implemented that state: 1 Only those entities that release these chemicals may own these allowances. 2 Once the entity releases 0 amount in their pollution emission, the allowance will automatically revert back to the governmental pool.

Citizens have no power against gov't agendas

[Spamalamadingdong]

Conservationists have already tried to shield old-growth forest by buying the timber rights. IIRC, they were told by the Interior department that they could not do this; their purchase was a contract to cut, and if they refused to do so the timber would be re-sold to someone else.

It's perverted for someone (like the Reagan and Bush administrations) to claim to support markets on one hand and the work to defeat them when they don't yield the result that they've pre-ordained.