Energy: Wall Street's Next Bubble

Floor Speech

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Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, Europeans have had a market-based cap-and-trade system on greenhouse gas emissions for 4 years, and it has failed. The last recorded year, $60 billion in trades, that is added costs, and higher greenhouse gas emissions.

Now the House of Representatives wants to bring that European system here to the United States of America, despite its failures. Why? Well, the market-based approach is only a failure if your objective is meaningful and predictable real reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Perhaps something else is afoot.

Europe already has a carbon offset futures derivatives market, complete with credit default swap insurance. Is it AIG and mortgages all over again but now with carbon? We are going to bring that here to the United States. Wall Street is tingling with excitement. A trillion dollars speculative market.

Listen to this: Carbon will be the world's biggest commodity market, and it could become the biggest market overall, Louis Redshaw at Barclays. Oh, Wall Street loves this so much. A brand new Wall Street bubble on something as essential as energy. Deja vu all over again.

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