Treasury Department Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy and Environment William Pizer said Wednesday his office will play a critical role in designing a domestic emissions trading system, according to Greenwire’s Nathanial Gronewold.
Pizer, a former RFF senior fellow, told a carbon market conference in Washington D.C. the United States will learn from the mistakes of the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme as it structures its own system.
From Greenwire:
While the European Union should be credited for taking the initiative and for making adjustments and enhancements, Pizer said, crafters of the trading scheme should have thought "a little bit more about design."
At the start of the E.U. program, Brussels grossly overallocated credits to polluters, causing the price of emission allowances to plunge to almost zero before tighter allocations and auctioning of pollution permits were phased in.
