Americans whose eyes glaze over whenever they see the phrase "cap-and-trade legislation" should sit up and try to pay attention.

The changes that are speeding toward enactment in Congress will affect the lives of ordinary Americans in profound ways.

For starters, the Congressional Budget Office projects that the changes called for in the bill will cost the average American household about $175 a year by 2020.

There's much more.

The bill also would require local governments across the country to undergo drastic rewrites of their local building codes in order to meet new federal standards.

The bill would require new homes to be 30 percent more energy efficient by 2012, 50 percent more efficient by 2016 and 5 percent more efficient every three years after that.

States that don't comply would face the loss of federal funds and the carbon credits that will be traded under the terms of the legislation. Potentially the federal government could move in and enforce the federal code.

The National Association of Home Builders says the bill puts too much pressure on the building industry to meet energy goals. "The market is not geared up to supply the necessary materials and equipment," said NAHB Chairman Joe Robson.

The House bill also calls for restrictions on trade with countries that don't reduce their carbon emissions.

The intent is to help U.S. companies remain competitive when they start paying the higher costs required under the legislation. If trade partners reduce their emissions, there would be no problem. But if trade barriers go into place, the effect would be sudden chilling of the global economy. Forty percent of American jobs are dependent on trade.

No one can accuse farm groups of being asleep at the switch. As columnist Steven Pearlstein pointed out in a column carried in the June 28 Journal Star, farm states were able to use their leverage to allow farmers to sell credit offsets to power plants and other sources of greenhouse gases. Farm states also were able to weaken a provision that could have imposed penalties on ethanol produced from corn.

Still, there's reason to be concerned that the bill may be full of unanticipated consequences.

The bill, which was almost 1,000 pages long in its original version, underwent considerable rewriting. About 500 additional pages were added, raising the question of whether the measure had received adequate study.

Most Americans presumably are aware that the aim of the bill is to slow global warming that experts say will have negative effects ranging from raising ocean levels to harming Midwestern farming.

The goal may be worthy, but Congress should try to ensure that the cure does not merely substitute another set of problems.