From New York Times
"I'm not sure that's the example one wants to give," ... the 1990 law signed by President George H.W. Bush required U.S. EPA to auction about 3 percent of the cap-and-trade credits. Electric utilities got the rest for free based on their historical emission levels.
The president replied with a warning against giving away too many free allowances to industry for compliance with a cap-and-trade system.
"Now, the experience of a cap-and-trade system thus far is that if you're giving away carbon permits for free, then basically you're not really pricing the thing and it doesn't work, or people can game the system in so many ways that it's not creating the incentive structures that we're looking for," Obama said.
Nathaniel Keohane at the Environmental Defense Fund, said Obama was nonetheless hitting on an important point when it comes to the free credits in Europe, where companies nonetheless passed along costs for the allowances to consumers and reaped a windfall profit.
Haase - Sooo many issues on this, commenting would be futile and redundant.
Example: 'Extraordinarily complex issue'
...but lets jump right in throwing billions of tax dollars on an unproven market during the worst historical market place with "hope" it will work . Knowing it CAN NOT significantly lower foreign oil dependence or emissions but, will raise rates, use of coal and nuclear energy over the next decade.
Seriously, we are increasing, corn ethanol use, crop based biofuels and following Europe's market leads that make the U.S. markets look stable... is anyone paying attention?