The Denver Post has a great summary of why cap-and-trade failed in this Congress:
Here’s why cap and trade failed: because of legitimate fears about its costs to consumers, inevitable damage to energy-intensive businesses, and a growing recognition that it wouldn’t even spur the technological innovation needed to sharply reduce the use of fossil fuels. Groundbreaking advances in clean energy aren’t exactly cascading out of Europe, after all, where energy is far more expensive and a cap-and-trade policy has been in place since 2005.
The logic could be taken a step further: other green policies, like subsidies for alternative eneries and a push for green jobs, have also failed to boost European economies. It shouldn’t just be cap-and-trade that should be pushed aside because it’s too costly, the federal government should also rethink all the subsidies being poured into the “green” energy industry, since they are also costly, ineffective, and could hinder real economic growth and innovation.