Earth Equity News

Sen. Corker's Making Sense. Commentary by Bradford Plume, The Nation, January 28, 2009. "I have to admit, one of the more compelling voices on climate policy these days is Bob Corker, the junior Republican senator from Tennessee… Corker doesn't go in for the traditional right-wing knuckle-dragging on climate change. When asked about the issue last year, he just shrugged and said, 'I choose not to debate with scientists'… [On Wednesday,] at Al Gore's hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Corker sounded more like a Greenpeace activist than anything else. He told Gore that his ideal emissions policy would be a carbon tax whose revenues were either returned directly to taxpayers or used to reduce the payroll tax -- a measure, Corker explained, that would be 'transparent' and wouldn't burden taxpayers. That's something Gore himself has backed. Now, over at Grist, Dave Roberts has lashed out against conservatives backing a carbon tax, arguing that cap-and-trade is the only viable climate legislation in Congress, and anyone supporting a carbon tax is just being disingenuous and trying to forestall action. Maybe that's the case here. But I'm not quite convinced. I say that because Corker then insisted that he'd be amenable to a cap-and-trade regime in which 100 percent of the pollution permits were auctioned off, rather than given away to companies for free… If we are going to rely on cap-and-trade to curb carbon-dioxide, then conservatives should, in theory, be demanding it be as simple and market-friendly as possible, without distortionary handouts for companies or devious offsets. Some liberals, like me, will counter that a price on carbon won't be enough, that we'll need additional regulations (for efficiency, especially) to meet our targets. There's ample room for sparring."