Kudos for the editorial on the success of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative program and endorsing it as a model for a national program ("A case for cap and trade," Sept. 1).
Your editorial could also have mentioned that states participating in RGGI recovered from the recent recession better than the U.S. average.
You also should have discussed the main failing of RGGI; it involves guesswork. The states participating in RGGI must guess at a goal for emissions reduction. When they set their first goals, they severely underestimated. Emissions were lowered 23 percent, which was more than twice the goal they had set, and it was six years ahead of schedule.
Before endorsing a RGGI-style, cap-and-trade system, consider that President Barack Obama supported a cap-and-trade system in 2009. Congress trounced on his efforts.
Consider endorsing a national, revenue-neutral carbon tax, which involves no guesswork, has been endorsed by Republicans as an equitable market-based system, and is preferred by the oil and gas industry over cap and trade.
Judy Weiss
Brookline, Mass.