WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF GOVERNMENT SANCTIONED CARBON TAX
House passes “bailout bill”, with Carbon Tax credits and an entire buffet of pork attached.
See Yahoo News
See who voted yea or nay on the Emergency Economic Pork Stabilization Act of 2008 here:
H R 1424 YEA-AND-NAY
See the Carbon Tax language as of yesterday, no word yet on if it changed today. UPDATE: Final language posted below:
SEC. 117. CARBON AUDIT OF THE TAX CODE.
- (a) Study- The Secretary of the Treasury shall enter into an agreement with the National Academy of Sciences to undertake a comprehensive review of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to identify the types of and specific tax provisions that have the largest effects on carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions and to estimate the magnitude of those effects.
- (b) Report- Not later than 2 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the National Academy of Sciences shall submit to Congress a report containing the results of study authorized under this section.
- (c) Authorization of Appropriations- There is authorized to be appropriated to carry out this section $1,500,000 for the period of fiscal years 2009 and 2010.
More….
SEC. 115. TAX CREDIT FOR CARBON DIOXIDE SEQUESTRATION.
- (a) In General- Subpart D of part IV of subchapter A of chapter 1 (relating to business credits) is amended by adding at the end the following new section:
`SEC. 45Q. CREDIT FOR CARBON DIOXIDE SEQUESTRATION.
- `(a) General Rule- For purposes of section 38, the carbon dioxide sequestration credit for any taxable year is an amount equal to the sum of–
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- `(1) $20 per metric ton of qualified carbon dioxide which is–
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- `(A) captured by the taxpayer at a qualified facility, and
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- `(B) disposed of by the taxpayer in secure geological storage, and
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- `(2) $10 per metric ton of qualified carbon dioxide which is–
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- `(A) captured by the taxpayer at a qualified facility, and
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- `(B) used by the taxpayer as a tertiary injectant in a qualified enhanced oil or natural gas recovery project.
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- `(b) Qualified Carbon Dioxide- For purposes of this section–
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- `(1) IN GENERAL- The term `qualified carbon dioxide’ means carbon dioxide captured from an industrial source which–
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- `(A) would otherwise be released into the atmosphere as industrial emission of greenhouse gas, and
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- `(B) is measured at the source of capture and verified at the point of disposal or injection.
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- `(2) RECYCLED CARBON DIOXIDE- The term `qualified carbon dioxide’ includes the initial deposit of captured carbon dioxide used as a tertiary injectant. Such term does not include carbon dioxide that is re-captured, recycled, and re-injected as part of the enhanced oil and natural gas recovery process.
- `(c) Qualified Facility- For purposes of this section, the term `qualified facility’ means any industrial facility–
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- `(1) which is owned by the taxpayer,
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- `(2) at which carbon capture equipment is placed in service, and
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- `(3) which captures not less than 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide during the taxable year.
- `(d) Special Rules and Other Definitions- For purposes of this section–
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- `(1) ONLY CARBON DIOXIDE CAPTURED AND DISPOSED OF OR USED WITHIN THE UNITED STATES TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT- The credit under this section shall apply only with respect to qualified carbon dioxide the capture and disposal or use of which is within–
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- `(A) the United States (within the meaning of section 638(1)), or
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- `(B) a possession of the United States (within the meaning of section 638(2)).
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- `(2) SECURE GEOLOGICAL STORAGE- The Secretary, in consultation with the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, shall establish regulations for determining adequate security measures for the geological storage of carbon dioxide under subsection (a)(1)(B) such that the carbon dioxide does not escape into the atmosphere. Such term shall include storage at deep saline formations and unminable coal seems under such conditions as the Secretary may determine under such regulations.
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- `(3) TERTIARY INJECTANT- The term `tertiary injectant’ has the same meaning as when used within section 193(b)(1).
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- `(4) QUALIFIED ENHANCED OIL OR NATURAL GAS RECOVERY PROJECT- The term `qualified enhanced oil or natural gas recovery project’ has the meaning given the term `qualified enhanced oil recovery project’ by section 43(c)(2), by substituting `crude oil or natural gas’ for `crude oil’ in subparagraph (A)(i) thereof.
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- `(5) CREDIT ATTRIBUTABLE TO TAXPAYER- Any credit under this section shall be attributable to the person that captures and physically or contractually ensures the disposal of or the use as a tertiary injectant of the qualified carbon dioxide, except to the extent provided in regulations prescribed by the Secretary.
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- `(6) RECAPTURE- The Secretary shall, by regulations, provide for recapturing the benefit of any credit allowable under subsection (a) with respect to any qualified carbon dioxide which ceases to be captured, disposed of, or used as a tertiary injectant in a manner consistent with the requirements of this section.
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- `(7) INFLATION ADJUSTMENT- In the case of any taxable year beginning in a calendar year after 2009, there shall be substituted for each dollar amount contained in subsection (a) an amount equal to the product of–
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- `(A) such dollar amount, multiplied by
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- `(B) the inflation adjustment factor for such calendar year determined under section 43(b)(3)(B) for such calendar year, determined by substituting `2008′ for `1990′.
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- `(e) Application of Section- The credit under this section shall apply with respect to qualified carbon dioxide before the end of the calendar year in which the Secretary, in consultation with the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, certifies that 75,000,000 metric tons of qualified carbon dioxide have been captured and disposed of or used as a tertiary injectant.’.
- (b) Conforming Amendment- Section 38(b) (relating to general business credit) is amended by striking `plus’ at the end of paragraph (32), by striking the period at the end of paragraph (33) and inserting `, plus’, and by adding at the end of following new paragraph:
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- `(34) the carbon dioxide sequestration credit determined under section 45Q(a).’.
- (c) Clerical Amendment- The table of sections for subpart B of part IV of subchapter A of chapter 1 (relating to other credits) is amended by adding at the end the following new section:
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- `Sec. 45Q. Credit for carbon dioxide sequestration.’.
- (d) Effective Date- The amendments made by this section shall apply to carbon dioxide captured after the date of the enactment of this Act.
SEC. 116. CERTAIN INCOME AND GAINS RELATING TO INDUSTRIAL SOURCE CARBON DIOXIDE TREATED AS QUALIFYING INCOME FOR PUBLICLY TRADED PARTNERSHIPS.
- (a) In General- Subparagraph (E) of section 7704(d)(1) (defining qualifying income) is amended by inserting `or industrial source carbon dioxide’ after `timber)’.
- (b) Effective Date- The amendment made by this section shall take effect on the date of the enactment of this Act, in taxable years ending after such date.
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And we’ve got one of these
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7650669.stm
Well, first we’re going to get AUDITED
(the “rescue bill” requires a CARBON AUDIT of the tax code)
Better get our records in order, start looking for all those CO2 receipts…
Vote on Senate Amendments:
<a href=”http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll680.xml Roll Call 608 Providing for consideration of the Senate amendments to H.R. 1424, Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. Vote of 223 – 204.
H.R.1424 Bill summary page
Final bill: H.R.1424 Emergency Economic Stabilization Act
SEC. 115. TAX CREDIT FOR CARBON DIOXIDE SEQUESTRATION.
‘‘Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008’’. GPO PDF
Before you know it, we’ll all have to file environmental impact statements for every activity that generates CO2.
I hope they don’t decide to tax me every time I exhale. I think some of them might like that idea.
Sorry for the rant…
I also posted this on the other thread about the bailout….
Click here for NYT video on one of the causes of the Financial Crisis.
My summary of the NYT video:
5 firms – Goldman Sachs, Merril Lynch, Lehman Bros, Morgan Stanley and Bears Stern, applied in Apr 2004, to change investment rules. Basically, they were allowed to use computer models to assess the level of risk in investments.
My commentary:
Gore says that climate models can be trusted, because Wall Street has used similar models for years.
Look how that turned out, on wall street, for these firms.
The weakness, or outright failure of each, is a major contributor to the financial crisis of 2008.
Now, my question to the believers of Climate Models:
Should we invest 40 trillion in these models?
My question to the SEC:
ARE YOU GUYS ON CRACK?!?!!?”
Back in 2004, the administration raised serious concerns about sub-prime lending practices, 100% no-doc loans, and what would happen when those loans reset. The concerns were vehemently rejected by Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and especially Barney Frank all claiming that the practices promoted their low-cost housing initiatives and home affordability by the underclass. Today, Hoyer praised Barney Frank for his “intelect,” insight, leadership, and expertise in dealing with this crisis.
Earlier in the week Pelosi killed the bill. The bill voted on today contained all sorts of earmarks and sneaky dealing from wooden arrows to the tax treatment for carbon offsets. And, of course, Barack Obama was central in bringing votes together. No mention of McCain.
This is political theater choreographed by the ringleader Pelosi!
M White (10:53:40) :
“And we’ve got one of these
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7650669.stm
Oh good, the UK government now has a Department of Climate…
so it’s not going to be a cold winter after all.
So how long is it now until we have a US Secretary of Climate ?
Well, when the government denies my CO2 exhalation permit, because they claim I am exceeding my CO2 allocations, well, I live in Texas, and I will know what will have to be done when they come to enforce their court ordered injunction.
Would I receive offsetting carbon credits for my actions? If I offset twice my allocation, guess I could sell the extra one, or, does that just mean I become eligible to have a child?
Seems like it would be rather easy to obtain offsetting credits – there are a lot of government officals, lots.
/sarc
I am making a bumper sticker: Save the Planet, Sequester Al Gore.
Sorry Les, but the premise of your post is wrong. I strongly doubt Gore has ever suggested that climate models are similar to economic ones because that comparison is completely bunk. Climate models, unlike market ones, are based on discrete physical laws. Essentially, a climate model is nothing more than a large ensemble of differential equations which are solved on a complicated solution space.
Please try reading this document to learn a bit about what a climate model is and how it works before you continue making false statements about them.
REPLY: Not quite Mr. Rothenberg, “a climate model is nothing more than a large (albeit incomplete) ensemble of differential equations which are solved on a complicated solution space that roughly approximate earth’s climate and energy balance. – Anthony
Are we prepared for the appointment of Algore as Secretary of the DOE after the 20 January 2009 inauguration?
Les Johnson (11:10:30) :
“Should we invest 40 trillion in these models?”
Are you doubting the validity of computer models? Computer models accurately depict the agenda, bias and foregone conclusions of the programmer and we all know that the axiom, garbage in, garbage out, is fallacious. Computers do not lie – their output is always the “truth” as related to the input.
Counters, regardless of how well climate models may work, they should not be used as predictive devices, but only as hypothetical test beds. Even then, if you’re saying that all aspects of global climate are well enough understood to accurately model, then you’re making a false statement, or are simply deluded.
Start keeping track of all your CO2 emissions, including exhalation.
You’re eventually going to have to declare them on your tax return, and it could be for this year’s taxes (there’s already a precedent for retroactive taxes).
What a future.
We can only guess what Obama would do, but from today’s report at:
http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed2/idUSN02296341
Skip to last two paragraphs
counters (12:08:40) :
“…learn a bit about what a climate model is and how it works before you continue making false statements about them.”
Geez, do you really need to defend climate models against libel, counselor?
Are they covered under campaign finance reform?
Is Les required to say he approved of his message?
counters (12:08:40) :
The essential point is that computer models — economic or climate — are often woefully inaccurate. The models are used to make decisions and sometimes lead to catastrophic, unintended results, despite warnings from intelligent people who recognize the weaknesses in the various models.
James Hansen’s model promoted in 1988 has not lived up to the hype after 20 years of direct observations. Michael Mann’s model has been discredited. Perhaps the failure of the economic risk models will give pause to the decisions based on the climate models since there are some very qualified workers in the field that recognize major shortcomings in the climate models.
Counters, the GCM’s start with physics and then all sorts of physical quantities which cannot be adequately described are “parametrised”. The models have been tuned to produce outputs which look like real weather patterns but diverge from reality after a few days. Then the assumption is made that the average of the model outputs describes the average of reality. This is a glib assumption and at first look sounds reasonable but as the later state of the system depends on the earlier states and errors will grow with time the best way to think about this might be a comparison with an inertial navigation system which is initialised at a known location and whose errors with time are a random walk. The system output always looks like a navigation solution but doesn’t describe reality even on average.
If it’s that accurate of a model, perhaps Al Gore would be willing to revisit the “bet on a climate model.” My guess is that he would pass.
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/3533/
Counters:
“I strongly doubt Gore has ever suggested that climate models are similar to economic ones…”
If he didn’t say it, he should have. The addage “garbage in, garbage out” about covers it.
Les Johnson:
Great video. Your comments are right on.
counters
Both physical and economic models try to approximate observed empirical data. The key issue is how well the models relate to the observations and the uncertainty in the parameters. Some physics models have uncertainties better than parts per 10^15. Others possibly within one order of magnitude.
e.g., See: CAM3 Documentation 5. Slab Ocean Model
“To ensure the CAM 3.0 SOM sea ice simulation compares well to the observed ice distribution, and to moderate sea ice changes in climate change experiments, the $ Q$ flux term is adjusted under the ice in a globally conserving manner.”
What is the uncertainty associated with “compares well”?
Lucia at The Blackboard is exploring uncertainties in the IPCC predictions.
Result of Hypothesis Tests:
Very Low Confidence 2C/century Correct.
To date, the “very low confidence” (1 in 10) of IPCC’s 2C/century projections, against the hard reality of declining global temperatures, does not appear to give sufficient confidence to justify $40 trillion expenditures into halting climate change (in a classic British understatement!)
No-Regrets options that make economic sense should obviously be invested in. e.g., energy efficiency measures.
Carbon sequestration per se appears to be the biggest hole ever conceived into which politicians can bury hard earned taxpayer savings with no observable economic benefit or return.
The most important issue we face is how fast we can develop alternative fuels to replace the rapid decline in world oil exports to keep our economy from collapsing. See Marienne Kah 2008, especially slide 6.
and Khebab’s
Peak Oil Update – August 2008: Production Forecasts and EIA Oil Production Numbers
We have the choice of investing trillions of dollars into alternative fuels or carbon sequestration.
Investing rapidly into alternative fuels might permit our economy to survive, though severely damaged. Pouring $ into carbon sequestration will cause very severe economic damage with the likelihood of hundreds of millions of people starving. Will we be led by strategic statesmen or pandering politicians?
Didn’t the National Academy of Sciences already discredit the hockey-stick graph?
I am mad as heck and I am not going to take it anymore.
No wonder the congressional approval rating is below 20%.
“Are you on crack?”
Maybe not crack and maybe not the SEC but cocaine dealers have often been crowing that their biggest customers are financial traders. A good deal of the high flyers were truly high much of the time:
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=430393&in_page_id=2
“The pressures were immense and everyone was doing it. You would hear sniffing in the toilets. We would start work at 6.30am, take our first line at 11.30am, then be entertaining until 2am”
For years the world economy has been manoeuvred by 25 year olds high on drugs.
Like the climate models, the financial models are merely a mathematical wrapper around two grossly poor human assumptions a) that a rising trend will surely keep rising (apart from a few ‘noisy’ fluctuations) and b) that ‘smart’ folk can tell why it’s rising.
Just as the earliest (and perhaps worst) NH winter in a generation gets underway.
Load ammo, cycle action, point firearm at foot, shoot.