Carbon trading has long been put forward as the most viable solution to “encourage” organizations to reduce their carbon footprints. Within a freely moving economy, it is said that should carbon have an effective price and the government artificially control its “availability,” then the markets would automatically control its level of use.

We’re yet to see the concept of carbon trading emerge in the United States, even though the United Kingdom, as an example, is already moving ahead aggressively. Within that country, the British government has introduced a scheme to force the largest emitters of greenhouse gas to trade. It will be sometime before we see the outcome and the success of the scheme, but many organizations and businesses around the world are looking at it carefully.

Pres. Obama has already shown his willingness to “get his hands dirty” when it comes to energy saving and carbon emissions. He has already issued a presidential order mandating that all federal agencies become sustainable and that, for the first time, these agencies calculate the actual size of the own carbon footprints.

Pres. Obama and his administration is somewhat critical of Congress as energy related legislation seems to be stuck in neutral. The House of Representatives certainly passed the ACES Act in 2009, but the Senate has so far been very slow to move its own version forward. Will the administration consider its own action, if Congress does not act by itself?

The Environmental Protection Agency has widespread powers under the Clean Air Act when it comes to the control of carbon emissions. When the Supreme Court found that emissions were a hazard to public health, this led many experts to believe that it might be possible for the administration to introduce some form of carbon trading scheme, whether Congress acted or not.

Very recently, the EPA’s senior policy analyst has said that the agency might “strongly prefer” that Congress deals with greenhouse gas laws, but reserves its position according to its own powers. This is being defined as an opening shot in the battle to introduce a cap and trade emissions trading scheme and has caused many organizations to focus.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision on the scope of the Clean Air Act in 2007 and subsequently, additional efforts have been made by the EPA. Currently, the budgetary request is before Congress with funds allocated to investigate the introduction of “market oriented mechanisms.”

Many feel that, should Congress not pass a cap and trade Bill in 2010, that the EPA will move forward with a carbon trading scheme of its own, even though it is fairly sure that there would be numerous judicial challenges to it.

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