The Congressional Budget Office released an analysis yesterday of the climate bill recently passed out of the Environment and Public Works Committee, S. 1733, now known as the Kerry-Boxer Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act.
According to the report,
CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate that over the 2010-2019 period enacting this legislation would:
- Increase federal revenues by about $854 billion; and
- Increase direct spending by about $833 billion.
In total, those changes would reduce budget deficits (or increase future surpluses) by about $21 billion over the 2010-2019 period. (All estimated effects would be on-budget.) In years after 2019, direct spending would be less than the net revenues attributable to the legislation in each of the 10-year periods following 2019. Therefore, CBO estimates that enacting S. 1733 would not increase the deficit in any of the four 10-year periods following 2019.
So, clean energy and climate legislation will help the United States cut its deficit, will make our economy more efficient and competitive, and will create as many as 1.9 million net new jobs. Not bad for legislation chiefly aimed at cutting global warming pollution.