Photo: United States Congress (wikipedia)
8th district representative Brad Ellsworth (D) is running for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Evan Bayh.
U.S. Senate Democratic candidate Brad Ellsworth was in Indianapolis today making clear his opposition to cap and trade legislation.
Ellsworth says it’s a policy that he can’t support because of what he fears it may do to the state’s economy.
Brad Ellsworth, now a congressman for Indiana’s 8th district, was one of only 44 U.S. House Democrats to oppose cap and trade legislation when it was considered on Capitol Hill this June. He says instead, he supports incentive based energy policy, like legislation introduced by Senator Richard Lugar, which offers tax breaks for reducing energy consumption.
“Our state relies on, for our electricity, it’s about 96 percent coal driven and in my district, the 8th district, we’ve got about 95 percent of the coal in Indiana. So it’s extremely important to my district and our state and the reason people look to Indiana is because we do have affordable energy,” Ellsworth said.
Despite the costs, some researchers say there’s much for the economy to gain with cap and trade.
A 2007 study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change estimates that a cap-and-trade market would be worth $366 billion nationwide.
