If the Acid Rain Program cannot be extended, what happens to the banked allowances from previous years?

I intend to join my colleague Senator Voinovich, who has taken the lead in drafting legislation that would provide EPA with narrowly tailored authority to implement CAIR, or its replacement.

Well, thank you for that preview, and actually for a very encouraging preview.

In the past, I have introduced legislation with others that has regulated mercury, including Senator Alexander, who has been a champion on this.

What are your thoughts about this particular allocation process? And could we do something similar for other pollutants? And what about auctioning the allowances?

Just a point of clarification in response to your answer to Senator Vitter's last question.

Not only did we get 100 percent utility compliance, we did so achieving greater emission reductions at a faster rate than we expected at about one-quarter of the cost.

I have no idea what the cost-benefit analysis of that would be, but it has got to be off the charts.

I do believe it was a tremendous success.

OK. Could you just briefly explain for us banked allowances? Just take a minute on that. Just talk to us about banked allowances please.

I am delighted you are here. Thank you for your great interest and leadership.

At the end of the day, I think we are going to get something done, and it is because of really the participation of everybody at this table.

there is absolutely no reason for such punitive cost burdens

trading makes a lot of sense with respect to nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide, but not with the neurotoxin mercury.

the cap-and-trade program should continue to use the reasonable free allocation of allowances

cap-and-trade and the Acid Rain Program have been an unqualified success, a stunning success

Well, good. Thank you. I think I understood that.

I hope, and I would echo what Senator Voinovich said, and I will ask a couple of questions.

So I think you have strong bipartisan support and interest from the Congress in a reasonable, effective CAIR rule.

I am just struck by how far we have come, and really struck by how cost-effective this can be.

We are going to do our best to make sure it does not get lost.

Do you believe that EPA can rewrite rule on their own that continues the Acid Rain Program for sulfur dioxide?

I appreciate and thank you for inviting me here today to testify on the work that we are going to do together to mitigate the impacts of emissions from power plants.

So we are about 12 years into this without regulations that are fully established.

We can no longer wait for clean air.