Environmental economist John Whitehead explains why he won’t sign the economists’ petition arguing for a 100 percent auction of carbon emission credits, rather than giving some of them away for free:

Why won’t I sign? I agree with everything in the statement except for the 100% part.

100% auctions seems like a guarantee that some sort of incentive-based climate policy will not be implemented. A policy with 100% auctions will be opposed by industry almost as much as a comparable carbon tax.