Comments on: Senator Graham shouts “Play Ball!”

By: BillyT

BillyT — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 21:10:28 +0000

On the one hand, the ‘fee/cap and dividend’ approach is attractive because it has real populist appeal (overall). On the other hand, the structure of the US economy and political system means that it can’t pass in its simple form. Because of the disparities in fossil fuel production across states (eg some regional economies are much more dependent on coal-fired electricity), a national cap-and-dividend will result in money flowing out of those states to people elsewhere. Not only that but electricity will be more expensive. So those states (and their senators) are definitely not going to support a national dividend approach.

By: redsox

redsox — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:34:53 +0000

@ Greenhead:

There’s an old joke about a New England farmer who dies and goes to Hell. Satan is trying to devise the worst punishment imaginable, and–based on this guy’s life history–assumes that his worst moments were shoveling frozen manure and slush out of a barn on dark, sleeting mornings. So Satan creates this environment, turns the farmer, and says: “Welcome to Hell.” The farmer starts jumping for joy, shouting: “The Red Sox won the World Series! The Red Sox won the World Series!”

Well, the Red Sox *have* won the World Series. Twice. So Hell can freeze over.

And many Republicans know full well that the Permanent Fund is more popular than $2 beers in Alaska (home of one Sarah Palin).

Just sayin’–let’s not dismiss cap n’ dividend (and possible Republican support of same) out of hand.

Post Carbon Institute makes a good case for CLEAR as a potentially viable alternative.

By: neoavatara

neoavatara — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:36:55 +0000

Yes. If you are going to be honest about it, a straight forward carbon tax may be the best way forward. Of course, that will inhibit the economy in the short run…not exactly what we want during a recession.

Frankly, as bad as prospects were a year ago for this…they are much worse now, with all the fraudulent research from the AGW community. The publics confidence in the science must be rebuilt before we can go forward with such a massive tax plan.

http://neoavatara.com/blog/?p=10123

By: Greenhead

Greenhead — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 01:25:09 +0000

Did Sen. Graham sign on to the Cantwell/Collins cap and dividend bill? If not, he’s playing bait-and-switch, not ball. As for a carbon tax, when a Republican signs up for that, it’ll be a sign that hell has frozen over, or that the climate has started to resemble hell.

By: MichaelOHara

MichaelOHara — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 21:23:12 +0000

Mr. Miller makes an excellent argument for CLEAR (cap and dividend). It addresses the concerns about “gaming the system” and provides an individual payment to reduce the negative effects of increased costs to energy users.
However, I prefer the simplicity of the carbon tax – imposed at the point of extraction (well-head, mine) or import. Capping and tracking compliance with tens of thousands of distinct energy using/polluting facilities will require some significant administrative overhead. Tracking the production of a few hundred oil, gas and coal producers is much more straight-forward – perhaps requiring one full time clerk to administer – and would be much harder to “game”.
Either way, we need to move on with some mechanism to support the movement towards a low-pollution, high employment society. Either of these methods would be a great step in that direction.