I'd also like to thank our expert witnesses for appearing before us today.  Your experience and perspective is especially valuable to us as we debate a potential carbon cap-and-trade system. 

Mr. Chairman, I found it troubling that the first hearing that we held in this subcommittee began with a discussion of private sector cap-and-trade proposals -- it appeared that we were pre-supposing the solution before we even examined the problem. 

Since that time, we have held a hearing on the science behind climate change, and still others to gather perspectives from various constituencies.  But we have still yet to discuss approaches other than cap-and-trade. 

While I absolutely believe that we should take into account lessons learned about the cap-and-trade mechanism, I believe that this discussion should wait until we have completed gathering information and have turned to evaluating legislative options. 

I also want to make a couple of points before yielding back.  First, I am concerned about the possible size and complexity of a cap-and-trade to regulate carbon dioxide.  The Sulfur dioxide program involved only about 120 emitters, whereas a CO2 regime could involve thousands of different entities. 

And secondly, I continue to be concerned about the increased costs in the U.S., relative to the rest of the world, should we implement this program.  As we've heard over and over again, it does not matter where the CO2 is emitted -- just that it is emitted at all.  If we implement a cap-and-trade regime, and the result is that American manufacturing -- and American manufacturing jobs - could move somewhere else that does not cap carbon emissions and as a result, overall emissions will not decrease. 

Again, I'd like to thank the witnesses for appearing before us today.  We greatly appreciate your thoughts on this important subject.

With that Mr. Chairman, I yield back.