According to the latest reports from Capitol Hill, House Democrats are busy gutting the Waxman-Markey energy tax bill ^[1] in an effort to keep its economic costs low. They have a lot of work to do. The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis has just completed their study of the March 20th version of the Waxman-Markey legislation and the results are not pretty. Waxman-Markey would:

• Reduce aggregate gross domestic product (GDP) by $7.4 trillion
• Destroy 844,000 jobs on average, with peak years seeing unemployment rise by over 1,900,000 jobs
• Raise electricity rates 90 percent after adjusting for inflation
• Raise inflation-adjusted gasoline prices by 74 percent
• Raise residential natural gas prices by 55 percent
• Raise an average family’s annual energy bill by $1,500
• Increase inflation-adjusted federal debt by 29 percent, or $33,400 additional federal debt per person, again after adjusting for inflation.

You can read the full report here ^[2].