Cap and trade and the Wall Street Journal

Yesterday I wrote about an egregious mistake made by the WSJ editorial page. While the error, confusing the carbon footprint of production with the carbon footprint of consumption, is substantial, it is a fairly nuanced subject. I talked with Evan and others about it and most people just assumed that some intern grabbed a chart of the WRI web page without really thinking about it. While the data were misleading, I didn't really think the deception was intentional.

Which is why Dallas and I wrote a simple letter to the editor, explaining the nature of the mistake. Here's what we sent:

In the Journal's March 9 editorial "Who Pays for Cap and Trade?" the editors offer readers a bait-and-switch argument to assert that carbon cap-and-trade regimes would take from "working class" America and give to "affluent" citizens.

The editorial correctly notes that the cost of the cap would be borne mainly by consumers, not producers. It then includes a chart showing a large disparity in per capita emissions between states. But it fails to point out that the data relates to economic production, not consumption. This is a big mistake. Every household in Wyoming would have to pilot a private jet to reach carbon consumption of 154.4 tons. The truth is that while there is some variation in the carbon intensity of consumption across states, it is orders of magnitude smaller than what the editorial claims - thus severely overstating the degree to which cap and trade will burden some states and benefit others.

-Dallas Burtraw and Richard Sweeney, Resources for the Future, Washington, DC

Our communications department was also in contact with the editorial desk.

Then an hour ago we were informed that the Journal would not be running our letter. Apparently the editors either disagreed with our comment or simply did not think the mistake was important enough to alert the readers. I'm not sure which is worse.

This isn't quite George Will wrong, but its prettyfrigginbad. Please disseminate.