Sky Trust by branalli

Good question! The answer is three-fold. First, obviously, this is only a sketch of a proposal, not a full proposal. Given that the end of the first phase of the contest is less than a week away now, I’m not considering this proposal a serious contender. If some other cap-and-dividend proposal (e.g., CCL’s) wins, I’ll be happy. Second, more to the point: Peter Barnes has developed the Sky Trust idea extensively in his writings (e.g., Who Owns the Sky?). Barnes’ Sky Trust is still the most well-developed climate cap-and-dividend proposal that has been offered. The CCL proposal talks a lot about the why, less about the what and the how. CCL’s website has a little bit more information; mostly it is generally compatible with what Barnes has proposed. Third: The vagueness of CCL’s proposal appears to be tactical. CCL’s mission is to get something done on climate mitigation, and based on what they say in the discussion of their proposal it looks like they want to leave things vague and open-ended now so there is remove to maneuver and negotiate when they take the idea of cap-and-dividend idea to Congress. There’s some sense to that tactic, I think, but it could also backfire unless they are very clear about core principles and components of a genuine cap-and-dividend program that shouldn’t be negotiated away.