Rolling back the hysteria: CBO estimates cap and trade bill will cost $175 per household

We've heard lots of scary estimates recently from opponents of the proposed cap and trade legislation being debated in Congress.  Some were transparently false. Others were fuzzier self-serving projections from companies that want to maintain their current pollution outputs.

Well, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has released its estimated impact for the Waxman-Markey cap and trade legislation.  Their analysis shows the costs for the average household will be...$175.

On that basis, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the net annual economywide cost of the cap-and-trade program in 2020 would be $22 billion—or about $175 per household. That figure includes the cost of restructuring the production and use of energy and of payments made to foreign entities under the program, but it does not include the economic benefits and other benefits of the reduction in GHG emissions and the associated slowing of climate change. CBO could not determine the incidence of certain pieces (including both costs and benefits) that represent, on net, about 8 percent of the total. For the remaining portion of the net cost, households in the lowest income quintile would see an average net benefit of about $40 in 2020, while households in the highest income quintile would see a net cost of $245.

Here's a breakdown by household income:

An estimated cost of $175 per household is a far cry from the more outrageous and extreme estimates provided by Roy Blunt, Blaine Luetkemeyer and others.  Blunt, you'll recall peddled bogus reinterpretations of a MIT impact study until he was called out by Fired Up! and in the pages of the Kansas City Star.  Luetkemeyer, on the other hand, still hasn't quit.

(Via Matthew Yglesias and Kevin Drum)