A confidential economic analysis by the White House -- recently released by the House Commerce Committee -- suggests that the measurable benefits from policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would never outweigh their costs, and the environmental benefits are too difficult to quantify.

Reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases would be required under the Kyoto protocol on climate change. Such gases are claimed to be causing global warming.

The cost of reducing emissions could be lessened dramatically, says the White House study, by using flexible implementation policies -- particularly by trading emissions permits between countries and among domestic industries.

The cost of a one-ton carbon emissions permit would run about $171 under the unratified Kyoto treaty, but with full emissions trading among industrialized countries, the price would drop to $48.

• If trading were allowed worldwide, the cost could drop to as low as $10 a ton.

• However, the cost would still be above monetized benefits -- with costs of $6 billion in 2010, but benefits of only $1 to $2 billion.

• Without trading permits, the treaty could cost $51 billion in 2010, but only produce $15 billion to $29 billion in benefits.

The White House claims it is difficult to quantify such benefits as averting rising sea-levels, flood and heatwaves. However, critics question the extent to which these will occur with or without the treaty, and some suggest the costs of projected warming have been greatly exaggerated. The Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Energy and Power is investigating the analysis.

The Energy Department's official forecasting branch has issued an extraordinarily pessimistic forecast of steeply rising energy prices if the U.S. fights global warming by clamping down on fossil fuel emissions. The study assumes that new energy taxes would be imposed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

• The Energy Information Agency predicts gasoline prices of $1.39 to $1.91 a gallon, and electricity price increases of 20 percent to 86 percent by 2010.

• Natural gas prices would rise significantly and coal prices would soar, the report stated.

• The country's overall energy consumption would decline by more than 17 percent, while gross national product dropped 4.1 percent by 2010.

• The study is scheduled to be presented to Congress today at a hearing by the House Science Committee.

Environmental advocates -- who appear to have been caught off guard by the study -- were outraged by the warnings of significant economic disruptions which would result from the Kyoto agreement's stringent requirements. Joseph J. Romm, a former assistant secretary at the Energy Department, called the research "one of the most flawed, biased, intellectually dishonest analyses ever produced by a supposedly unbiased analytical organization."

The chairman of the House Science Committee, Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), is a leading critic of the climate change treaty.