A story from Greenwire in the New York Times summarizes the findings of the Energy Information Administration’s report on the costs of implementing the Kerry-Lieberman energy bill. It concludes that in a middle of the road scenario, adoption of the bill would result in a (basis point) reduction of GDP¹ by 2‰ (2 thousandths) over more than two decades of growth. Thus given a rate of 2.2% growth annually, the cost of insurance to help forestall greater costs is 17.5 hours of growth each year.

Although the bill arguably does not go far enough, and so has a lower cost, it compares favorably with the figures from the famous Stern Review that suggests a cost of 2% of gross global product to address global warming, or forgoing about one week of growth per year.

^{1. Itself a flawed measure, particularly when considering broader social and environmental issues e.g; All of the money BP is spending to clean the Gulf are considered gains in GDP, whereas most of the environmental losses are not counted.}