The regulatory aspects are mind-boggling. All manner of U.S. businesses -- be they small pig farms, large power plants, or the millions of companies in between -- will be subjected to government rulemaking and standard-setting. EPA inspectors will literally have to visit five million American businesses in order to evaluate carbon emissions and figure out allowances for trading permits.

Think of it. Some sort of federal cap-and-trade department will send out 100,000 inspectors to comb through American corporations and calculate their carbon stories. This is total insanity. The Congressional Budget Office guesses it will cost at least $1 trillion. And a lot of that cost comes from the government’s willingness to give companies carbon allowances which then can be traded in some sort of after-market.

Later on, according to the McCain plan, the government will auction off these allowances, reaping a gigantic windfall. But so far there are no strictures on this revenue honey pot and the unprecedented federal spending it will fuel.

Some global warmers simply want to tax carbon. That at least would reduce the Gosplan effect. Responsible people like Harvard’s Greg Mankiw have even suggested taking the carbon-tax revenue and using it to cut income-tax rates. This is a much better idea -- that is, if you buy into global warming at all.

My friend Art Laffer tells me Al Gore wants a carbon tax, with the revenues being used to abolish the Social Security/Medicare payroll tax altogether. Laffer would prefer a big income-tax-rate reduction that would get us to a 13 percent flat tax. I agree. Either way, taxing carbon, when compared to cap-and-trade, is the lesser of two evils.

To be fair, Sen. McCain does favor nuclear power. But he is opposed to Tillerson’s idea of drilling offshore and President Bush’s idea of drilling in Alaska. That’s not good. And make no mistake about it, his cap-and trade plan will vastly increase the cost of doing business everywhere, including gas prices at the pump. And when you cap something like power, well before so-called alternative-energy technologies have been invented or commercialized, you put a cap on economic growth and prosperity.

That’s not going to make anybody happy.