The Wall Street Journal asks "If Bag Fees Won’t Fly, Why Would Cap and Trade?"

Consider the fate of plans in bicycle-friendly Portland to slap at least a nickel fee on every plastic grocery bag. The plan has been scrapped because the cost would be too onerous during the economic downturn...Take California, a self-styled leader in environmental legislation. It just scrapped tough diesel-emissions standards for the construction industry to spare some pain for a troubled sector...It’s happening everywhere. Europe and Australia are having second thoughts about the full cost of their cap-and-trade schemes; Europe is scrambling to appease certain industries, while Australia is just rethinking the whole idea.

In the cold light of harsh days rigid dogmatic environmentalist are having a rough go of it -- perhaps because they spent years telling people it wouldn't cost anything -- but under the cover of bureaucratic darkness the EPA is still preparing to regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act, economic impact be damned. And blah, blah, blah, we are a bunch of "do nothing deniers", so don't take our word for it, here is the New York Times.

If the environmental agency determines that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant to be regulated under the Clean Air Act, it would set off one of the most extensive regulatory rule makings in history...Even some who favor an aggressive approach to climate change said they were wary of the agency’s asserting exclusive authority over carbon emissions. They say that the Clean Air Act, now more than 40 years old, was not designed to regulate ubiquitous substances like carbon dioxide. Using the law, they say, would capture carbon emissions from new facilities, but not existing ones, blunting its impact. They also believe that a broader approach that addresses all sectors of the economy and that is fully debated in Congress would be better than a regulatory approach that could drag through the courts for years.

My bold, and my point. Far from doing nothing, let's sit down and figure out the right thing -- for the environment and our economy.