Steven Milloy reports that the Low Carbon Economy Act of 2007 "would cost taxpayers more than $1 trillion in its first 10 years and untold trillions of dollars in subsequent decades." Further, "This week, the EPA sent its analysis of the bill’s impact on climate to Bingaman and Specter. Now we can see what we’d get for our money, and we may as well just build a giant bonfire with the cash and enjoy toasting marshmallows over it." [Milloy does not examine the global-warming implications of the bonfire.]

Using IPCC formulas, Milloy estimates the implications of the EPA's estimates for the earth's temperature. (The EPA does't make these computations. Milloy suspects that's because the results would be embarrassing to the Act's authors.) Milloy's estimates:

Under the no-action scenario (718-to-695 ppm), the IPCC formulas indicate that the multitrillion-dollar Bingaman-Specter bill might reduce average global temperature by 0.13 degrees Celsius. Under the maximum regulation scenario (514-to-491 ppm), Bingaman-Specter might reduce average global temperature by 0.18 degrees Celsius.

Foreign Affairs carries the article, "Why Climate Change Can't Be Stopped," that suggests the approach with highest payoff: "Dollar for dollar, the most efficient way to cut global greenhouse gas emissions would be, in theory, to invest hundreds of billions of dollars to improve China’s energy efficiency. But Congress would never support such an approach." That last sentence might be the understatement of the century.