[greenyes] Costs of Reducing Greenhouse Gases

["Peter Anderson" <anderson@no.address>]

(Must have been junk science...obviously)

NEW YORK TIMES - 7/30/03
New Estimates on Senate Carbon Dioxide Emissions Plan
By JENNIFER 8. LEE


WASHINGTON, July 29 - An internal analysis by Environmental Protection
Agency economists has found that a Senate plan to reduce the carbon dioxide
emissions linked to global warming could achieve its goal at very little
cost, according to a copy of the analysis made available by a group
supporting the plan.

This stands in contrast to public statements by Bush administration
officials saying the environmental benefits of the plan, which sets limits
on emissions of so-called greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, would come
at a significant cost to the nation's economy.

The results of the environmental agency analysis, dated May 23, were never
completed and analysts were told not to continue with the study, employees
at the agency said. In June, Christie Whitman, who was then the agency's
administrator, sent a letter refusing to carry out the study to the
proposal's sponsors, Senators John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Joseph
I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut.

In the letter, Mrs. Whitman wrote that the Energy Department's independent
statistical office, the Energy Information Agency, was already doing an
analysis and "based on past analyses, I would expect that E.I.A.'s cost
estimates should not be significantly different from the estimates that
E.P.A. would have produced."

But the results do appear to diverge significantly. The Energy Department
projects economic harm dozens of times that projected in the internal
environmental agency results. The department study says the economy will be
reduced by $106 billion, or six-tenths of 1 percent, in 2025. The E.P.A.
results put those losses at from $1 billion to $2 billion, or one-hundredth
of 1 percent.

"..."
______________________________
Peter Anderson
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email: anderson@no.address