Too good to be true right? Well, that bill does exist. And not only does the bill create 200 thousand jobs per year for the next decade & cut the deficit by $19 billion over the next decade, it also cuts greenhouse gas emissions. This bill is the American Power Act, and it has no chance of passing.
From the CBO (PDF File):
CBO and JCT estimate that enacting this legislation would increaserevenues by about $751 billion over the 2011-2020 period and direct spending by $732 billion over that 10-year period. In total, CBO and JCT estimate that enacting the legislation would reduce future deficits by about $19 billion over the 2011-2020 period (see the following table). CBO estimates that enacting this legislation would not increase the deficit in any of the four 10-year periods following 2020 because additional direct spending would be less than the additional net revenues attributable to the legislation in each of those periods.
This is a better deficit reduction than the ACES bill that passed the House of Representatives last year. That bill would reduce the deficit by $9 billion. It does not perform as well as the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, passed by the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. CEJAPA reduces the deficit by $21 billion.
Of course, the "moderates" in the Senate have said the only bill that can pass is an energy only bill. But when they push this approach, they leave out an important fact: the energy bills are not paid for. In fact, the ACELA bill pushed by Sen. Jeff Bingaman would increase the deficit by $13.5 billion dollars over the next decade according to the CBO (PDF File). And part of the money generated by ACELA would come from increased oil drilling. As Bingaman himself has admitted, there would need to be taxes added to his bill by the Senate Finance committee, the group that almost killed the health care bill. How fun that would be.
There could be a 3rd alternative-a utility only carbon cap. Sen. Olympia Snowe has been working to gather support for such an approach (yeah, I know). And there have been signs of support for such an approach from the White House. Such a program already exists in the Northeastern United States in the form of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cap and trade program made up of 10 states. This program is cited by Senator Snowe as a model for a possible national program. Wanna hear something really funny? Senator Scott Brown of MA voted for the RGGI when he was a state senator. But I'm sure he'll create some reason to oppose it on a national level.
It's too bad the American Power Act has no chance of passing, considering it would address 2 issues that are supposedly of great importance to both parties in Washington. But, it's much easier to talk about fixing a problem than it is to actually fix it.