Earth Equity News

A Carbon Tax Not a Cap-and-Trade. By Chuck Kleekamp and Barbara Hill, BGlobe, October 18, 2009. "The Waxman-Markey bill on climate change that recently passed the House is a train wreck waiting to happen. Intended to reduce global warming and achieve energy independence, it is totally inadequate in its reliance on a flawed cap and trade system, and the recently released Senate version called the Kerry-Boxer bill follows the same track. Like the House bill, the Senate version represents the further transfer of wealth from taxpayers to the nuclear and fossil-fuel industries -- a result of their immense power and influence... The fatal flaw in Waxman-Markey is the misguided government giveaway, for free, of 85% of all allowances, particularly to coal-related industries... A lesson is to be learned from the 2005 European Union Emissions Trading Scheme that likewise gave away 95% of its emission allowances. The result was that EU electric utilities earned windfall profits while continuing to pass on higher energy costs to industrial and residential consumers. The EU told the US Government Accountability Office that 'it could not be certain [the trading scheme] resulted in any reduction of emissions'...
"To successfully confront the climate change crisis and the nation's addiction to fossil fuels, we at Clean Power Now endorse a straightforward carbon tax instead of the cap and trade schemes. To neutralize the impact on consumers, revenue from the carbon tax would be used to reduce payroll taxes, increase Social Security benefits, and fund renewable energy efforts that create new jobs and new industries particularly in the wind and solar sectors. This would amount to a tax shift with enormous societal benefits. Others are supporting this as well. Elaine Kamarck, chairwoman of the US Climate Task Force and a former adviser to Al Gore, recently said in Politico, 'Congress can go back to Al Gore's original idea about how to deal with climate change: Raise taxes on carbon, and cut taxes on work. A carbon tax shift is one of those rare ideas that can take a political liability and turn it into a political asset; it allows Congress to vote for a tax cut and a tax increase while putting into place the financial incentives we need to transition to a noncarbon future.''' Chuck Kleekamp is the president and Barbara Hill the executive director of Hyannis-based Clean Power Now.