US Senate CLEAR Act

Full Text here: http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/copenhagen2009/climate_cantwell_bill.pdf

The bill in question is the newest attempt to provide a hard cap on carbon reductions, culminating in what is being called a 'cap and dividend' system, as opposed to the already know and understood 'cap and trade' scheme of carbon emission reduction.
The main difference between cap and trade and cap and dividend is that three quarters of all government revenue from carbon share auctions would be returned to the citizens in the form of a monthly dividend cheque. Independant analysis indicates that these dividends could reach as high as twelve hundred dollars a month per qualifying individual. The remaining twenty-five percent of the proceeds would be held in a government trust which could be used to finance targetted infrastructure upgrades meant to decrease carbon dioxide emissions and act as a form of economic stimulus.
This is the kind of proposal that we should be getting behind and focusing on for ourselves in the NDP. It most assuredly accomplishes our progressive aims to lower carbon emissions in a safe, economically viable method, and its almost impossible to tar this as a cap and tax regime, considering that the vast majority of people will receive some kind of rebate without having to pay any initial fee. Furthermore, this type of policy, with its reinvestments in the community, gives the party a chance to put some actions to our rhetoric on standing up for middle and working class British Columbians.
The most important part of this bill would be what is done with the money from the carbon share auctions; if the NDP were to champion such a bill it would be necessary to focus on the rebates that would be given to individuals, which could be far higher than rebates from the carbon tax.