Guest essay by Eric Worrall
At least one Republican congressman believes the USA needs more taxes. Carlos Curbelo, U.S. representative for Florida’s 26th congressional district has introduced legislation to charge $24 / ton for CO2 starting in 2020.
Curbelo Receives Praise for Leadership on Market Choice Act to Address Climate Change
Washington, D.C., July 25, 2018 | Joanna Rodriguez (202-225-2778)
Representative Carlos Curbelo (FL-26), sponsor of H.R. 6463, “The Market Choice Act,” welcomed support of his efforts to move forward a market-based approach to valuing carbon from 34 diverse companies representing a wide cross section of the U.S. economy.
“I appreciate all the messages of encouragement in response to the Market Choice Act
filed earlier this week,” Curbelo said. “This new and innovative solution invests in American infrastructure, accelerates the transition to clean energy, repeals discriminatory taxes, and provides regulatory relief and stability that shows protecting our environment and strengthening the economy are not mutually exclusive. I look forward to the continued discussion around this proposal and thank all those offering support and adding to the constructive dialogue this bill has begun.”“We welcome your demonstrated commitment to finding common ground on federal policies that can mitigate the effects of climate change,” the business leaders wrote in a letter to Curbelo and original co-sponsor Representative Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-8). “Your recently introduced legislation, the MARKET CHOICE Act (H.R. 6463), represents an opportunity for both parties to engage in substantive dialogue on the risks and opportunities posed by climate change, and to craft legislative solutions that benefit citizens in many different areas of the United States.”
The letter was signed by: Aspen Skiing Company, BP America, Burton Snowboards, Calpine Corporation, Campbell Soup Company, Clif Bar & Company, Danone North America, DSM North America, The Dow Chemical Company, DTE Energy, DuPont, EDP Renováveis, Equinor US Gap Inc., General Motors, IKEA North America Services, LLC, Ingersoll Rand, JLL Levi Strauss & Co., Lyft, Inc., Mars Incorporated, National Grid, New Belgium Brewing Company, Outdoor Industry Association, PG&E Corporation, Schneider Electric, Seventh Generation Shell, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., Stonyfield Farm, Inc., Symantec Corporation Unilever, Vail Resorts, and Worthen Industries.
Environmental and energy groups across the political spectrum also praised Curbelo’s effort. Curbelo announced the introduction of H.R. 6463, the Modernizing America with Rebuilding to Kick-start the Economy of the Twenty-first Century with a Historic Infrastructure-Centered Expansion Market Choice Act at an event with Columbia University Center for Global Energy Policy on Monday. According to an analysis by Columbia University, Curbelo’s proposal would reduce carbon emissions by 27–32 percent in net greenhouse gas emissions levels by 2025 and 30–40 percent by 2030. The analysis also suggests the proposal would have little economic disruption, and that lowest-income households benefit from the proposal with 10% of revenues being used for transfers/dividends to offset higher energy prices.
A PDF of the legislation is available here and a legislative memo outlining the policies in the bill is available here.
A PDF of the letter is available here and the text of the letter is available below.
July 25, 2018
The Honorable Carlos Curbelo
The United States House of Representatives
1404 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515Dear Representative Curbelo,
As businesses that understand the critical nexus between environmental and economic interests and strongly support a collaborative, non-partisan solution to address climate change, we write to thank you for your leadership in advancing a constructive dialogue. This issue impacts our employees, our customers and the communities that we serve regardless of political affiliation—and of course, it impacts our businesses in very direct ways.
We believe that an economy-wide, market-based approach to valuing or pricing carbon, when carefully crafted, can both strengthen our economy and reduce carbon emissions by encouraging technological innovation and stimulating new investments in infrastructure, products, and services. A market-based approach provides companies, such as ours, with much-needed certainty to aid us in making long-term investment decisions that can further mitigate climate-related risks for our companies, supply chains, and the communities in which we live and work.
We welcome your demonstrated commitment to finding common ground on federal policies that can mitigate the effects of climate change. Your recently introduced legislation, the MARKET CHOICE Act (H.R. 6463), represents an opportunity for both parties to engage in substantive dialogue on the risks and opportunities posed by climate change, and to craft legislative solutions that benefit citizens in many different areas of the United States.
While we are not endorsing H.R. 6463, we appreciate your thoughtfulness, as a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, in introducing market-based legislation that will drive a robust, non-partisan dialogue on how valuing or pricing carbon and strengthening the economy are not mutually exclusive – something we, as businesses, have understood for many years.
Thank you again for your leadership and we look forward to constructive conversation with you and other Members of Congress on policy solutions to address climate change.
CC: The Honorable Brian Fitzpatrick
Source: https://curbelo.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=2103
This move does not appear to be representative of the Republican Party’s position as a whole. Reuters reports that Last week, the House voted 229-180 to approve a resolution expressing “the sense of Congress that a carbon tax would be detrimental to the United States economy.”
Nevertheless in my opinion this unfortunate move demonstrates that even Republican politicians are not immune to the lure of toxic tax ideas.
Taxes aimed at encouraging renewables have no hope of improving people’s lives. Legislation which unnecessarily drives up the price of energy almost always ends with voters rejecting the politicians who caused the pain – as just happened in Ontario.
The only genuinely viable alternative to fossil fuels is nuclear power. The evidence that renewables are useless is incontrovertible – even über green Google Corporation’s top engineers could not find an economically viable roadmap for the world to transition to renewables.
In voting districts where green policy support is strong, support for a carbon tax might be good for a quick political victory, but once voters discover there is no hope of renewables bringing energy prices down they tend to turn against the politicians who made their lives more difficult.
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RINO
Is this the kind of beast you’re talking about?
A reminder, RINO season is during the primaries, not in the general election when it would make room for more donkeys.
Unfortunately, Curbelo’s Republican challenger is Souraya Faas a pro-Assad pro-Putin nutter.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article212255584.html
It seems we’re stuck with this MeToo RINO for another 2 years.
We have exactly the same problem in the U.K. except here they are called Tinos (Tories In Name Only). Tory is another name for Conservative. There are currently millions of people disenfranchised here because we do not have a party of the Right to vote for. The Tories are led by Theresa May, a nodding dog non-entity of a politician and a disaster as Prime Minister. She and her fellow MPs are utterly ignorant about climate change science.
Meanwhile, that leftist organisation the BBC – where it is official editorial policy NOT to present balanced content about global warming – continues to misinform the public (this is the state broadcaster). Yesterday, this was a typical item on Today, the BBC’s flagship radio news and current affairs programme:
Justin Webb (presenter and profoundly ignorant on climate science): “Now these heat waves in the U.K., Asia, Japan and elsewhere are indicative of global warming aren’t they?”.
Some idiot (forgot his name) ‘climate expert’: “Yes they are”
Webb: “But if we had long spells of very cold weather next year, say, that would not mean that things were going the other way would it?”
Climate expert: “No it wouldn’t because this is all about long term trends”
My wife had to pull me away from the radio as I was bawling “The long term trend is the next glaciation period with ice 2kms deep over New York!!!”
John V Wright
There is another right wing party, the UK Libertarian Party. Small but promoting the right ideas. Small government, low taxes, freedom of expression, a free market economy, and the rule of law.
And the BBC’s Roger Harrabin today with a prominent article on their website predicting all the deaths causes by the inevitable future heat waves. We get one decent summer in goodness knows how long, all of a sudden it’s climate change and impending doom.
That simple really.
There’s an equivalent group of “skeptics” who swallow 90% of Greenshirt framing of the AGW premise as rational and have some nuanced resistance points but are basically Green enablers. They are as much to blame for the creeping social rot AGW agenda as the campus hipster on soap boxes blathering Marx and Engels under the “about science” logo.
In Australia, LINOs Liberals In Name Only.
They are characterised by being scared of the left and pandering to them to ensure a comfortable existence.
South florida is home to the RINO’s….Carlos is up for reelection and campaigning on ending the opioid crises
Please do not insult those noble beasts, via any association with carbon-tax dementia.
How many will vote to impeach should answer the question.
“RINO” is a severely debilitating communicable disease that once contracted renders one helpless and hopeless. It’s symptoms are an abiding belief in governments having extensive, virtually unlimited powers, just about all of which are imaginary and supernatural.
Seeing there wasn’t even a vote on impeachment, I conclude that almost all repubs are phony.
Moron. He wishes to continue one hoax by perpetrating another, carbon taxes. Further, the down steam fraud is enormous. “Buy these credits for my tree farm in the Congo, and I will throw in another 1,000 hectares. “
And in the Congo they are putting poor folks live’s in danger (especially children) by mining for cobalt in makeshift excavations that have been lnown known to collaspe and killing many. WaPo (to their credit) did an excellent story on the exploitation of these kids just to satisfy some greenie’s virtuous signaling. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/congo-cobalt-mining-for-lithium-ion-battery/
They are doing the same thing mining lithium rich soil to feed the electric car craze. Not a single Democrat globalist cares as long as it’s not in their neighborhood. Picture a 5-year old standing barefoot in soil rich enough in lithium to mine. Not one Democrat cares about this while kids crossing the border are to be handed over to people claiming to be relatives without proof. Kids don’t matter when they are racing to destroy America. Of course, Americans don’t matter either.
I call it a tax on “hot air”
Let’s see if this survives censorship: a carbon tax adjusted for the actual temperature and sea level change measured in the USA over the previous ten years can work better than the mess of subsidies, mandates, and fuel efficiency standards used over the years.
The key is to a) eliminate subsidies, and b) return the money collected to tax payers sending a quarterly check to each individual taxpayer. This will encourage energy efficiency, improve energy security, and get rid of the mess of regulations and subsidies which seem to pileup year after year.
Not sure why Fernando would be worried about censorship, unless he means getting downvoted. 😉
As for his idea, I don’t trust The Gatekeepers in charge of the thermometers right now. I really wouldn’t after they start getting paid a tax for how much temperature goes up.
Also, these ‘pay it back to the Taxpayer’ ideas are kind of stupid. They usually just result in such a large increase in the bureaucracy that they cost more then the supposed payout.
~¿~
Schitzree, it’s a form of projection. He knows that given the chance he would censor anyone who disagrees with him, so he assumes that everyone else would.
Censor…hmm, he must be going to the RealClimate or Tamino’s web site a lot…
They are the ones that cannot stand any dissent from their party line.
…you won’t find that at WUWT
Price already promotes efficiency.
No need to increase the price to solve a problem that never existed.
Fernando, please provide your data that ANY reduction in USA output of CO2 would cause the temperature to do down. Down where? Down how much? Do you also have proof of the other temperature excursions throughout the Holocene? Please publish. My state produces 0.7 percent of the USA output of CO2, how much of my money would you like? The whole scheme does not make sense, because it will never affect temperature!! Why don’t folks get that? Don’t help us get to the next glacial period please.
Just goes to show, ignorance knows no political boundaries. What an ill-informed Bozo.
I would say he’s angling for campaign contributions from the sort of companies on that list of supporters: cronyists and virtue-signallers. There are trillions of dollars in just the global-warming part of the Socialist scam; he wants his share.
Part of his district is Miami-Dade county?
He sounds like a “hanging chad”.
Trump needs this idiot like a hole in the head!
The Russian idiom for that expression is:
“I need that like I need teeth in my a$$hole.”
Fine with a tax on carbon. A long as its only way to be spent is on construction of new nuclear fission reactors for electricity generation. I am still waiting on “power so cheap it would be nonsense to charge for it”.
Could easily be the case; particularly in Australia.
Per capita we have more uranium, coal and gas than any other country.
Current coal power stations can generate electricity for under 1c per kW.h
Electricity should be free up to x-kW.h per month.
Instead Australia now has the dearest electricity in the World (ex Tax).
Our electricity retailers spend millions per day on advertising and commissions.
Coal stations are hit with massive renewables levies.
The electricity network operators are fleecing us via the retailers.
Asians own the majority of the entities we source our electricity from (in Eastern Mel):
Pacific Hydro = 100% communist China Gov owned!
Energy Australia = Hong Kong CLP Group.
AusNet Services (poles & wires) = 20% communist China Gov owned! 31% Singapore Power.
The old promise was “too cheep to meter”. There’d still be a service charge, like is common for home Internet access. That promise was also made before modern network tech which would make the cost of metering much less than it was.
A carbon tax just increases inflation for nothing which always hurts the poor. Much better is relaxing the regulations and let private industry build those nuclear plants like China is doing.
When you raise the price of one thing, people have less money to spend on other things. As a result the demand and hence price of those other things fall.
Some things up, some things down, the result is no net inflation.
The only way to cause inflation is by expanding the money supply faster than the supply of goods.
Curbelo’s district already gets nearly a quarter of its electrical power from the Turkey Point nuclear plant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Power_%26_Light
Going forward, nuclear fission reactors for electricity generation do not, I repeat, do NOT seem to be the _only_ answer given progress in the research on alternative fuels … NOTE WELL I did not say “alternate energy sources” e.g. wind or solar (sol) nor did I mean fusion, LENR or otherwise.
In contrast to the Dems trying to hold on in a Red state, here we have a GOP candidate trying to tip toe across the aisle to garner progressive votes.
I hope the effort has more negative than positive impacts for this politician.
Too many of these modern Republicans are simply bean-counters trying to pay for the progressive agenda.
We often want to see craven idiots like this get torpedoed and blown out of the water in the next election. Unfortunately, their replacement is a Dem. and is far worse in every way.
You have to Primary them, and win, or you are stuck with them.
It’s a Pigovian tax, all of whose proceeds are returned to the populace as individuals, minus a trivial amount to pay for the processing. So it is not a “tax” in the usual sense, which is why many people refer to it by other names such as “fee and dividend,” to avoid confusion.
It’s wealth redistribution, like every other tax.
If you really believe that the amount that will be spent monitoring, administrating, and managing this tax will be ‘trivial’, then you don’t know how State Governments operate.
~¿~
Not just state government, but all governments.
Tom Dayton: “minus a trivial amount to pay for the processing”
The budget for the IRS is ‘trivial’?
Every government financial transaction needs to be monitored with checks and balances lest they be fraught with fraud. That’s every transaction, whether it be the government receiving or dispersing funds. I consider the cost of that monitoring to be non-trivial.
The collection side of this would be easier than that faced by the IRS. Add the tax at the refineries and power plants.
The distribution side is going to be a nightmare.
The IRS merely sends the refund to the address listed on the tax forms.
For this tax, the government will have to maintain a list of every person who is currently in the country legally and their current address and perhaps other contact information.
Yes, but it’s a fundamentally flawed Coasian “solution” because it has Keynesian knowledge conceit at its core. In order for the tax to not be distortionary (since the whole purpose is to correct for supposed externalities), you have to know EXACTLY what the cost of the externality is. And even better, this has to be a NET cost. If that CO2 “pollution” costs you $20 in sea level rise but provides you $25 in food cost reduction, then you don’t get to claim the $20 tort.
There is no way to know this, or to even come close.
To be blunt… what a jerk!
Needs to be voted out of office ASAP.
Except the problem is, barring some kind of miracle regarding his primary election opponent, this won’t happen in the primary, and a Democrat in the general election would only go harder left. https://ballotpedia.org/Florida%27s_26th_Congressional_District_election,_2018
What tomfoolery this is. This isjust another regurgitation of the Carbon Exchange from a decade ago and it was a failure. If this gentleman is serious about protecting the environmnet then he would advocate for improvements in our existing infrastructure and promote the re-use of wastewater and other energy derived from digesters and landfills. Anyone who is familiar with Miami-Dade County knows that overdevelopment is one of the key sources of wasting their energy and resources.
Disgusting virtue signaling from anther vapid RINO…
#walkaway:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pjs7uoOkag
CAGW is dead…
“The Honorable Carlos Curbelo…”
Once you contradict yourself, why should I read further?
My working model is that 90%+ of ALL Congressman — particularly those on the Left and the RINOs — are political whores; where, for a price, these Judases will sell down the river their morals and their constituents.
Following this model, my suspicion is that Curbelo is not doing this on his own; that he is not stupid/ignorant regarding such moronic legislation; rather, that, from some BIG DOLLAR special interest group, he is being PAID-OFF to sponsor this particular “screw-America” bill. If indeed true, I would not be at all surprised if this same special interest group is actually WRITING the specific legislative text.
IOW: THIS CLOWN IS JUST PART AND PARCEL OF THE DC SWAMP … where, as usual, the JOKE is on us, the middle-class taxpayer.
These Judases continue to do such things because they know that most Americans are so ignorant that, for them, there is almost no downside and that, with a few more pranks like this, their reelection is almost guaranteed.
PS: The corollary to my model is that if these representatives are not screaming, 24-7, about the rapacious DC corruption — and, they are not —then it’s almost a certainty that they have sold out to the big dollar lobbyists … and are part of the DC problem.
Governments as a rule, just want to collect more and more taxes. They are the legalized mafia, nothing gets done without them getting their cut of the money.
Governments as a rule, just want to grow bigger and bigger like a cancer.
All bureaucracies want to grow bigger.
In the private sector, companies that can’t control their bureaucracies will be out competed by those that can.
In government, competition is illegal and the bureaucracy has the power to compel others to support it no matter how inefficient it gets.
Since the enactment of the private federal reserve in 1913 government (R & D) has been ruled (corrupted) by those who print the money and not by We The People.
The swamp. That’s why elections don’t change a thing.
Paranoia, it isn’t pretty.
We have another saying in Australia “ the longest economic suicide note”
Those companies endorsing the letter? Well I’ll keep them in mind beginning now. There is more than one brand of soup, fuel, chemical based products, etc.
Peter will always for Paul to pay more taxes … that will be given to Peter. Any claims thta this will end up a revenue-nuetral, evenly and equitably distributed system can look at how the Social security system revenue was used, misused, and abused starting with the democrats in the 60’s when they saw all that money not being spent by them on their voters.
And a supposed graduate student in economics – who can’t get any better job than a part-time bartender in NYC – is now the national press corpse’s latest darling.
The sponsors of the “letter” are not earning their income in Florida.
The letter was signed by:
Aspen Skiing Company,
BP America,
Burton Snowboards,
Calpine Corporation,
Campbell Soup Company,
Clif Bar & Company,
Danone North America,
DSM North America,
The Dow Chemical Company,
DTE Energy, DuPont,
EDP Renováveis,
Equinor US Gap Inc.,
General Motors,
IKEA North America Services, LLC,
Ingersoll Rand,
JLL Levi Strauss & Co.,
Lyft, Inc.,
Mars Incorporated,
National Grid,
New Belgium Brewing Company,
Outdoor Industry Association,
PG&E Corporation,
Schneider Electric,
Seventh Generation Shell,
Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.,
Stonyfield Farm, Inc.,
Symantec Corporation Unilever,
Vail Resorts, and
Worthen Industries.
The carbon tax will be DOA . But by all means Democrats put increased taxes out as the November election rolls around .
Then trot out the NY Communists as the new face of Democrats .
Game over . Go Bernie go !
The Democrat Plantation is about to implode .
How much Soros cash?
“strengthening the economy”
This guy is an idiot.
Argues strongly for Term limits.
House: 5 and done. (10 years)
Senate: 2 and done. (12 years).
Time for a Constitutional amendment.
An AZ Republican (CD2).
– .Joel
Term limits would probably just mean the incumbents groom their successors sooner.
I prefer voir dire for Congress. Every 2 years, opposing parties get 3 peremptory challenges each for House members, and 1 for a Senator. No explanations required, just a vote tally and they’re gone. Banned from all future politics and lobbying. And as for the states deprived of representation in this manner, try harder to find someone more suitable.
Given the nature of politics, both parties would strike the best of the other side, not the worst.
EDIT: Perhaps we could change this around a bit, and instead of striking the other sides players, the parties get to strike their own? Also make striking mandatory, you don’t get to decide not to this year.
Just like pick/ban in high-level DotA or League of Legends. Games often become battles of everyone’s third-best characters. 😐
How about we make voters who accept federal welfare recuse themselves so they can’t vote themselves OPM.
Joel,
We don’t even have to do that. We simply repeal the 17th Amendment and make Senators go back to being appointed by the State legislatures, as was originally in the Constitution. It is the Senate that has clogged things up by inaction. The threat of being booted out after 6 years because you do not represent what is best for your State would be incentive enough to get them off their keisters.
Yes! Before the 17th Amendment was ratified, State Legislations could yank a federal Senator back and replace them mid-term. I don’t know if it was ever used, but the risk ensured that Senators represented their State as directed by the State Legislators.
And you wouldn’t have the possible odd couple situation of a state legislature with a majority in one party, and the Senators of another party.
There is something fishy here. The guy is a under 40 never-Trumper. His is not a lawyer. His 2016 election platform does not mention anything directly about environmental issues or global warming. This is some kind of back door deal or favor for some ex-business partner, or manipulation, triangulation or something he wants in his history. Someone needs to ask him why, in his own words, he wants to been seen as a tax increaser. Or why he wants to tax cheap energy, or air.
What a maroon.
IF CO2 was the issue it is claimed to be THEN taxing CO2 would have been a hugely better way to reduce it than subsidising ‘Renewables’ and would have led directly to all-nuclear electricity grids.
Coal is about 1kg CO2 per KWh (thermal) so that tax would add – at say a 30% conversions rate – around 0.8c per electricity unit..
That’s a nice amount when raw costs are around the 5-8c mark.
Mind you CO2 is worth about $40/tonne as an industrial gas…