This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, November 7, 2007.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Presidential candidate and US Senator Hillary Clinton has outlined her energy plan, much of it tied to reducing carbon emissions. That includes billions

of dollars in subsidies for every run from energy companies to automakers to consumers.

Cato Institute Senior Fellow Jerry Taylor says some of the Senators' plans may work against the goal of reducing carbon emissions.

My overall impression is that Hillary Clinton's energy policies would increase the cost of automobiles,

automotive fuel and electricity as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Now you can make an argument for doing that, but you

can't make an argument that these sorts of policies will be free. But Hillary

Clinton is essentially suggesting that her energy plan is a grand free lunch.

Everybody wins.

Jobs are created, the economy's made better, people make money, the environment improves, nobody's

a loser except some guy who's a CEO of a big fossil fuel company.

That's just intellectually disingenuous. I mean if

there's merit to these policies they ought to be discussed honestly with some sort of

with something short of intellectual fraud but that's not what we're doing here.

We're trying to pretend that we can gain benefits

without incurring any costs and that everybody wins and I just think that's

intellectually dishonest. Among the specific ideas that she's rolled out a cap and trade auction system for

polluters what are the merits of that idea? Well there's a grand there's a great deal

of who and ha about whether we ought to embrace cap and trade or carbon taxes if we're going to do

something about greenhouse gas emissions. Most I think that conversation is

...