Welcome to the Unintended Consequences Hall of Fame, whose recent inductees include ethanol subsidies, legislation that fueled the subprime debacle, and a new law meant to rein in student loan companies.

But before we get to that, a new administration is poised to take office in November, and we at the Unintended Consequences Hall of Fame are excited to begin evaluating new candidates.

In the realm of energy policy, we are watching closely to see if Senator Clinton and Senator McCain succeed in reducing the tax on gasoline, to provide consumers with some relief come driving season. This proposal, aimed at making consumers (and voters) happy, is a strong candidate for the hall. About the only new energy supplies that America is finding today are those freed up by conservation. Reducing gasoline taxes would undoubtedly slow changing consumption patterns. We have high hopes for this one.

However, we are most enthused about various proposals to combat climate change. Senator Obama wants to introduce a cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions by 2050 80% compared to 1990 levels.

In a recent book, a former British energy secretary and chancellor of the exchequer, Nigel Lawson, takes issue with such a strategy. He is neither a fringe thinker nor a denier that man-made carbon emissions are causing some warming of the planet. But he does consider the projections of damage to the planet suspect.

Mr. Lawson points out that the climate change bible, also known as the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, makes two worrisome assumptions. The first is that, while the developed world can adapt to climate change, the developing world will be unable to do so (an assumption he finds “patronizing”). The second is that new technologies will not present themselves over the next century to combat effects from warming.

Importantly, Mr. Lawson points out that the cost to the world of significantly altering the increase in emissions may be higher than that of trying to adapt to a slight increase in global temperatures. He points out that the forecasts of calamity are based on models and trends that have recently proved fallible — he says warming, for example, has not occurred so far this decade, in spite of building emissions.

Mr. Lawson had a tough time getting his book published, a first for him, according the Financial Times. The newspaper reviewer quotes from one rejection notice that said: “My fear, with this cogently argued book, is that it flies so much in the face of prevailing orthodoxy that it would be very difficult to find a wide market.”

Mr. Lawson is concerned that Europe will increase its efforts to rein in emissions, and in so doing become even less competitive in world markets than it is today. The response will be to reinvigorate trade barriers, which will cut economic growth even more.

Could the cure for increasing carbon emissions turn out to be worse than the rise itself? Mr. Obama’s Web site hints at the expense of his cap-and-trade system by suggesting that monies raised by making “all polluters pay for every ton of emissions they release” will partly go to “helping American workers affected by this economic transition.”

Mr. Obama’s proposal seems an excellent candidate for the Hall of Fame, though it faces stiff competition. Happily, there is never a shortage of candidates.

As for the unintended consequences that we at the Hall of Fame have recently inducted, here is a sampling:

Ethanol subsidies — once again under discussion in the halls of Congress as yet another farm bill proposes to support the program — have entered the hall by unanimous vote. At one time considered a brilliant way to reduce oil consumption, the subsidies now are seen more appropriately as a way to reduce crops available for food. Influencing the jury were food riots around the globe and soaring food prices, which were, amazingly, not expected at all. Luckily, the precedent set by the wrongheaded American program has scared the daylights out of the European Union, which is quickly reconsidering its program to divert 15% of E.U. farmland to energy crops by 2020.

Also recently voted into the Hall of Fame are three acts of Congress that contributed to the subprime mortgage crisis. No less an authority than the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco has attributed the 1990s acceleration in subprime lending to two pieces of legislation passed in the 1980s. The first was the 1980 Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act, which eliminated states’ interest rate ceilings on home mortgages, thus allowing lenders to hike rates to compensate for the higher risk of poor credits. The second piece of legislation was the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which gave consumers an incentive to shift debt to home equity borrowing.

Also voted into the hall was the Community Reinvestment Act, passed in 1977, which “encouraged” banks to “help meet the credit needs of the communities in which they operate,” including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. This “encouragement” was not so gentle: Banks were to be subjected to periodic reviews of their accomplishments in this arena, and their record would be taken into account “in considering an institution’s application for deposit facilities, including mergers and acquisitions.” That probably got the banks’ attention.

A recent and compelling inductee to the Hall of Fame is the College Cost Reduction Act, passed by Congress last year. Surly about the unethical marketing practices of some student lenders, Congress moved to reduce federal subsidies fore traditional student loans by an estimated $20 billion. The plan called for an increase in direct federal outlays, paid for by the elimination of the sweeteners that had enticed private lenders into the sector. The upshot? Student lending became unprofitable overnight, causing more than 50 companies to exit the field.

Now Congress is gearing up to provide emergency relief. There is every reason to hope that these new measures will one day be candidates for the hall.

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