I’m not defending the Republicans; just pointing out that the “market-based” characterization isn’t entirely accurate.

Gar:
And starting from a higher level of SOx pollution than the U.S., the EU dropped their pollution further and faster!

I’m not familiar with the specifics of the case, but that’s almost certainly because the EU had a lower target emissions level, and not because they used a different method. No one’s saying that cap-and-trade reduces emissions more than command-and-control. The claim—and this is pretty much mathematically provable—is that for any given target emissions level, cap-and-trade will require less deadweight loss to reach that level than traditional regulations will will.

Another example: CAFE regulations end up costing over the life of the car a tiny amount per gallon of gas the car purchaser buys compared to how much the price of gas would have to be raised to get the same reduction.

That’s not a meaningful comparison. A gas tax is mostly a transfer. The money that consumers spend on gas goes to the government, and ideally back to consumers in the form of lower income or other taxes, such that it’s more or less a wash (albeit with some deadweight loss). When gas mileage mandates make cars more expensive, there’s no transfer. Resources are being flat-out wasted on making cars more expensive than people would like them to be.

Frankly, in the 1980s the Republicans were right. All else held equal, it’s better to use market mechanisms to cut carbon (or other needed changes) rather than issuing inflexible and crude regulations.

This is a piece of conventional wisdom that drives me nuts. So called “command & control” has a record of often succeeding better than so called market based means. For example, what is the poster child for tradeable permits? Acid rain SO2 system. But at the same time the U.S. instituted SO2 trading, Europe used old fashioned C&C. And starting from a higher level of SOx pollution than the U.S., the EU dropped their pollution further and faster!

Another example. Most homeowners could insulate their homes, put in place more efficient appliances and so on, and lower their monthly energy bills by more than the payments on the additional money they would borrow. There are all sorts of reasons why this is not just stupidity on the part of homeowners, and even more obvious reasons for renters not to do this. But it is an example about how in many cases response to price changes is not as fast or as deep as expected.

Another example: CAFE regulations end up costing over the life of the car a tiny amount per gallon of gas the car purchaser buys compared to how much the price of gas would have to be raised to get the same reduction.

And it is not even true that command & control is all that inflexible. Many nations in the EU have standards for how much energy a residential or office building should consume per square foot, while leaving compliance details to the person.

Let me add that James Galbraith noted some of this in a chapter of his book “The Predator State”. Frank Ackerman dealt with it more extensively
“Can We Afford the Future? Economics for a Warming World” (Zed Books, 2009). Just so you know this not just something I came up with.

Now let me add that this has almost nothing to do with the Republican argument. Republican leaders oppose cap-and-trade because that is what is on the table. They will oppose Renewable Energy Standards, eficiency requirements, public investment, a carbon tax if those come up. They will oppose whatever is actually being considered, possibly bringing up alternative to blow smoke. I’m not speaking about honest ordinary people who support Republicans. But the leadership is almost universally dishonest, astoundingly ignorant and irrational or both .