Trade and Environment

The Economist reports the following on the latest "cap and trade" proposals in the U.S.: On May 15th Henry Waxman and Edward Markey, the Democratic point-men on climate change in the House of Representatives, unveiled a bill that would give away 85% of carbon permits for nothing,

There's a lot going on in this story about subsidies to U.S. pulp producers.  I'm not sure exactly what all the trade implications are, but it's interesting enough that I'm going to talk about it anyway.  As explained in the article,

She thinks they are likely to be unfair: ... if the United States decides to apply a carbon tariff, then it must decide how much carbon it gets to produce compared with other countries. The Boxer-Lieberman-Warner bill, for example, determines whether another country's environmental regulation is comparable to the

USTR Ron Kirk talks about trade and climate change: I would like to emphasize the Administration's view that global climate change is a priority and that our response includes asserting U.S. leadership to establish a domestic cap-and-trade system and put us on a trajectory to gradually reduce

Via Ben Muse, I see this Reuters summary of the trade aspects of the U.S. House draft carbon legislation: INDUSTRY REBATES/TRADE Authorizes U.S. companies in industries that use a lot of energy to receive "rebates" to compensate for additional costs of cap and trade. If

The EPA is proposing regulations to control emissions from large ships: The United States took a critical step towards protecting Americans from harmful ship emissions by becoming the first country to ask the International Maritime Organization to create an emissions control area (ECA) around the nation’s coastline, the EPA

In Forbes.  First, there's this: Those who assume that WTO rulings will be "anti-environment" have evidently not read previous rulings, or not realized their positive implications for global environmental protection. I think that's right.  It is no longer a GATT Tuna/Dolphin world (and

From their recent joint press conference: Question:  President Lula said that during their meeting they talked about energy, President Obama talked about a possible partnership for energy within the hemisphere. The question I have is can't this partnership get off-balance? Because there's a lot of interest

Not all trade and the environment conflicts result in protests outside the WTO.  The Economist reports on one success story: UNTIL recently, the glaze on most Mexican pottery contained lead. ... . [As a result,] products were banned from the American market, where their hand-painted beauty could fetch much higher prices than