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1 - Global warming
2 - Dependence on
foreign energy
3 - Trade deficit
4 - Pollution from non-
renewable fuels
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Cap and trade - a way to say they're making progress
This entry was posted on 8/31/2008 10:05 PM and is filed under Tax Shifting,Elected representatives,Economy.
Compared to a federal tax shift from income to non-renewable energy, carbon trading is a joke. It's overly complex, has a terrible track record in the European Union, is too broad to work as sulfur dioxide trading did, and will raise energy prices on energy just like a tax shift. Another problem? Taxpayers WON'T be getting these extra costs back in the form of lower income tax rates.
Why is it complex? Our elected representatives like it that way. It's a way to say they are making progress, but they (we) are not. To date, no representative I know of has had the cojones to say that a tax shift to begin paying the external costs of our energy use is needed to actually conserve and provide the needed stimulus to the renewable energy industry. If you know of any, please write.
An LA Times op ed from April 2007 by a Dartmouth College professor - Carbon trading won't work. Excerpts:
"The idea of trading pollution rights was part of the reauthorized 1990 Clean Air Act. The program successfully reduced the amount of sulfur dioxide emissions, which cause acid rain, largely because the sources were few enough (about 2,000 smokestacks in the Midwest) that they could be monitored effectively and because there was a national system, administered by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, to enforce the legally required limits, or caps.
Researchers at Open Europe, an economics think tank in Britain, recently issued a report on the [EU] experiment. They concluded that the EU Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme represents 'botched central planning rather than a real market.' As a result, the report said, carbon trading has not resulted in an overall decline of the EU's carbon dioxide emissions."
But, California, six other states and three Canadian provinces are working on a carbon trading program anyway........ from the LA Times about two months ago (article title is the one from early July) - California air board announces plan for carbon-credit trading. Excerpts (with comments):
"The price tag for individual industries has yet to be calculated, and some companies fear it could be exorbitant. But Nichols said that overall, the benefits to the state’s economy, including healthcare savings from fewer breathing ailments, would slightly outweigh the costs. (the benefits come from higher energy costs leading to reduced energy consumption - just like a tax shift)
Given the projected fallout from global warming, which include increased wildfires, water shortages and illness from heat-induced pollution, 'The potential costs of implementing the plan pale beside the cost of doing nothing,' the document asserts. (yep - we can pay now, or pay a lot more later)
Many public workshops and meetings with industries and civic groups, as well as more detailed economic modeling, remain before the board would adopt the plan, slated for November. It would take another two years to develop regulations to lock the goals in place, officials say. (terribly slow for such a pressing problem -- carbon-trading complexity IS the problem.)
Moreover, it added, the plan could save taxpayers $2 billion in medical and other costs by 2020, by reducing harmful air pollution that would otherwise cause 340 premature deaths and 9,400 cases of asthma, it estimated. Energy-efficient buildings would save money for their occupants, and clean cars would cost less to drive, the board noted." (carbon trading just gets to these benefits in a ridiculously convoluted way that threatens actually having any action taken)
   
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