Is the Boxer-Kerry Cap-and-Trade Bill a Job Creator?
Global warming legislation has also been also touted as a green jobs measure, including the Senate’s pending Boxer-Kerry cap-and-trade bill. However, a Heritage analysis finds job losses from this bill reaching 2.5 million in some years, including 1 million in the manufacturing sector. These are net job losses–after any green jobs are taken into account. Cap and trade works by raising fossil energy costs high enough so that individuals and businesses are forced to use less of them. Cap and trade would contract the economy and destroy jobs. It is true that, in the wake of reduced use of affordable fossil fuels–the coal, oil, and natural gas that provides America with 85 percent of our energy–more expensive alternatives would fill the void, with the resultant increase in green jobs associated with them. But the increased energy prices would cost jobs elsewhere in the economy, cancelling out the increase in green jobs. There Are Better Ways to Create Jobs The solution is not more envir
