News As for Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles’s CO2 Emissions Bill. Well…
posted by on February 12 at 16:41 PM
In my post below about Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles’s cool bill to bust businesses and illegal immigrants that are flouting work rules, Will comments:
Jeanne always does cool stuff. When you going to cover her emissions bill?
Will, I already covered Kohl-Welles’ emissions bill.
Here’s what I said:
It’s an okay idea, but it seems a bit timid in that it’s voluntary. Moreover, while there may be an economic incentive for companies to reduce, there may be a stronger economic incentive to pump out more CO2. After all, the more coal, natural gas, or whatever fossil fuels a given utility burns—the more electricity it can take to market. Those profits could outweigh the savings from cutting back production. (Ha! Plus: The more CO2 a company produces, the more tax breaks the company could get. Afterall, the more CO2 a company kicks out, the more there is to mitigate.)Furthermore, tax breaks sap state revenues.
Luckily, there’s a better approach that puts money into the public coffers. It’s called a cap and trade system.
Then, I slogged about Rep. Maralyn Chase’s excellent cap and trade bill, writing: “Unfortunately, I don’t see a senate companion bill.”
Sen. Kohl Welles?
And I’m not the only one who thinks cap and trade is a better solution than a carbon tax. The folks at Grist posted this analysis today.
The way companion bills work is someone does something in the House (a Senator) and another one does something in the Senate (a Rep), then they gut both and fill them in. Having a title move thru committee is more important than what it says at first.
And having a leadership name is more important than a backbencher name.
sorry, I flipped House and Senate int he above - my bad.
The Grist piece is remarkably misleading: Then Congress would have a whole new pot of subsidy money to pass out to industry. Would you trust them to give it the right companies?
I'd be hard-pressed to name anyone seriously advocating for a carbon tax who is looking at the revenues at a pot of money to use as favors. Al Gore advocates offsetting a carbon tax with a cut in wage taxes. The New York Times columnists who have supported a carbon tax haven't spoken of the proceeds as a new revenue stream that can be spent away either.
More Grist: Subsidizing one or two targeted technologies with a carbon tax would discourage investment in others that may turn out to be more effective... History has shown that the marketplace does a better job of developing new technologies, and a tax takes money out of the marketplace.
This is a weird jujitsu. The whole point of a carbon tax is to let the marketplace decide -- to just stay out of choosing one or two particular technologies to subsidize. Well, if John Kerry can get Swift-boated into appearing to be a war coward, then I guess a carbon tax can get Swift-boated and the reasons for it can be used as reasons against it. Never underestimate the chutzpah factor in American politics.
For those of you who want something other than misrepresentations: http://www.carbontax.org/
It is almost halfway through the legislative session and The Stranger has yet to say DIDDLEY SQUAT against the god damn NASCAR track that YOUR Legislators are trying to shove up Kitsap's ass.
I wrote about a cap-and-trade system a few days ago and why it is definitely the best idea:
http://liberalechochamber.blogspot.com/2007/02/most-efficient-solution-to-climate.html
Cap-and-trade targets the low hanging fruit in any sector. With cap-and-trade, there is incentive to reduce emissions from the easiest sector first. If they are under their allocated cap, then they can sell that to someone else, for whom buying credits is cheaper than trying to offset emissions. It is really difficult to reduce emissions in some areas, so this gets the easier stuff first. As the cap is slowly reduced over the years, the harder stuff is slowly taken care of. This allows technology to develop to help the harder sectors without unduly punishing them.
Either way, it is still better than subsidizing corn farmers and ethanol companies.
or we could just get rid of the Iowa straw poll and early primary and instead have a real state vote - that would kill the subsidies quickly.
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