Cap and Trading Your Job In for Unemployment Insurance

Title IV, Subtitle B, Part 2, Section 426 of the Waxman-Markey cap and trade legislation:

An eligible worker (specifically, workers who lose their jobs as a result of this measure) may receive a climate change adjustment allowance under this subsection for a period of not longer than 156 weeks…80 percent of the monthly premium of any health insurance coverage…up to a maximum payment of $1,500 in relocation allowance…and job search expenses not exceed[ing] $1,500.”

Climate change adjustment allowance? Seriously?

President of the American Energy Alliance Thomas Pyle’s response:

While the authors of this bill continue to insist that cap-and-tax will be a clear economic winner, several provisions buried deep in the text confirm their true belief that it will massively stimulate the unemployment rolls.

America is supposed to be a land of opportunity and prosperity – not a land where political elites work behind closed doors to ship jobs offshore,” continued Pyle. “And with only 24 percent of the American people even knowing what cap-and-trade is, I am convinced that when the public learns that the leaders of this government are indeed, purposely and knowingly outsourcing American jobs in the name of global warming, they will demand answers and hold them accountable.”

Compared to no cap and trade, average unemployment increases to 1,145,000 lost jobs under the latest draft of the bill. Peak-year unemployment losses rise to 2.48 million people. That’s a lot of people to be on the government’s tab for a bill that will make a change in the temperature too small to ever notice.

For full analysis of the bill’s economic impacts, go here.