Cost Effective Climate Change Policies for Oregon and the United States

American Council for Capital Formation
By Margo Thorning, Ph.D., Vice President and Chief Economist
April 5, 2005

Testimony Before the House Committee on the Environment of the Oregon State Legislature

(Click for full PDF version)

(PowerPoint version)

Summary

The current U.S. climate policy is a measured approach that is flexible to adjust to new information and take advantage of new technology. It is one that acts to ensure continued economic growth and prosperity for U.S. citizens. This approach is likely to be much more productive than having individual states sacrifice their economic well-being and job growth to make emissions reductions that are too small to affect global concentrations of GHGs or have any discernable impact on global temperature. In any policies that Oregon considers, it should carefully evaluate the costs to its citizens and the benefits to its citizens, before enacting policies that could do more harm than good.

Climate Change programs with aggressive near-term emission reduction targets and timetables will inevitably be replaced by a new framework; one that encourages economic freedom and economic growth that will accelerate the trends towards reducing carbon intensity per unit of output and could lead to reductions in overall global carbon emissions ...

(Click for full PDF version)

(PowerPoint version)