I think that the politics of gas-prices are playing into the discussion of a cap-and-trade system, and that is the reason why cap-and-trade is not filtering into discussions of the gas-tax-holiday issue. Mainly, many people, including reporters, don't understand that the intent of the idea of a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system is to make polluting more expensive relative to cheaper alternatives, and therefore reduce the demand for the polluting activities. People are still generally under the silly mis-conception that rising energy costs are a "bad" thing; so the politicians are trying to pass a necessary piece of environmental legislation (cause everyone loves protecting the environment) without alerting the people that the same laws will cause that same "bad" thing (higher price at the gas pump). It's a quasi-hoax with lots of politicians and environmentalists trying to talk real quietly about the direct effect of the legislation, and your post on the silly contradiction between claiming to support a gas-tax-holiday and also support cap-and-trade will be met with mainly confusion from the half of the population that doesn't understand this issue. That half also unfortunately seems to include a great many reporters. What's funny to me is that I support taxing greenhouse gas emissions (through whatever means are deemed appropriate), I just don't like the deception behind how it's being presented.