Senator Gillibrand (D-NY) wrote in the Wall Street Journal about how plans to create a convoluted system of carbon emissions permits (likely corruptly distributed), which could then be traded among various companies and industries, coud be a boon to New York, since they’d get a cut from all of the transactions:
According to financial experts, carbon permits could quickly become the world’s largest commodities market, growing to as much as $3 trillion by 2020 from just over $100 billion today. With thousands of firms and energy producers buying and selling permits to emit carbon, transaction fees for exchanges and clearing alone could top nearly half a billion dollars.
If Congress establishes proper oversight of a carbon market, New York’s financial talent, expertise and institutions are uniquely suited to provide the tools and innovation for a new commodities market of this size. Firms wishing to invest over the long term will need to turn to our financial sector to create the emerging products and provide the capital that would allow them to make green energy investments.
It’s great for traders and those in the financial world to have more jobs and more to do. But that’s hardly a reason to support massive government intervention into the economy. And how does this help American families–particularly low-income families–across the country who are going to see rising energy costs and higher prices on everyday products as a result of cap-and-trade?