This report offers a comprehensive analysis of a suite of climate policy initiatives associated with a cap and trade program with the goal of identifying those empirical and design issues that most influence the economic consequences of their enactment. Empirically, present-value policy costs heavily depend on the actual outcomes of household consumption-saving and labor-leisure decisions, the magnitudes of and any induced changes in sectoral demand elasticities and technological trends, and the resulting time paths of permit prices and market interest rates.

Virtually every aspect of economic activity results in greenhouse gas emissions, so meaningful climate policies will need to alter the fossil fuel foundation of economies over the long term. Climate change policy will likely cost more, benefit more, and require more changes in behavior by firms and individuals than any other environmental policy. The magnitude of this challenge has drawn attention to the potential use of market-based or economic-incentive instruments

The objective of this report is to illustrate insights into alternative policy options and the potential impact nationally and explicitly at the state level associated with a modest GHG control policy. Differences in the structure of the economy across the United States are likely to cause these impacts to diverge from those estimated for the country as a whole.