Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Mike Maguire – The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a government body led by Republican appointee Heath Tarbert, has just recommended imposition of a carbon tax.
Climate change is huge risk for the American financial system, a major new bipartisan report says
Last Updated: Sept. 12, 2020 at 11:34 a.m. ETFirst Published: Sept. 9, 2020 at 2:34 p.m. ETBy
Rachel Koning Beals
A carbon tax features in CFTC report that aims to unite disparate federal efforts
The U.S. financial system, including banks, agricultural and oil interests, as well as regulators and investors, requires a unified front in accounting for climate-change risk, says the first comprehensive government report on such efforts.
Notably, the report released Tuesday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and an affiliated panel representing several sectors revives a call for taxing carbon pollution.
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“As we’ve seen in the past few weeks alone, extreme weather events continue to sweep the nation from the severe wildfires of the West to the devastating Midwest derecho and damaging Gulf Coast hurricanes. This trend — which is increasingly becoming our new normal — will likely continue to worsen in frequency and intensity as a result of a changing climate,” said CFTC Commissioner Rostin Behnam, one of two Democrats on the five-member body.
“Beyond their physical devastation and tragic loss of human life and livelihood, escalating weather events also pose significant challenges to our financial system and our ability to sustain long-term economic growth,” he said. While wildfires and hurricanes occur for myriad reasons, their frequency and intensity has factored into the climate-change discussion.
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Read more: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/cftcs-groundbreaking-climate-change-report-sounds-a-bipartisan-alarm-on-costly-risks-for-u-s-financial-system-11599676452
The commission report, MANAGING CLIMATE RISK IN THE U.S. FINANCIAL SYSTEM, is available here.
From the report;
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This report begins with a fundamental finding—financial markets will only be able to channel resources efficiently to activities that reduce greenhouse gas emissions if an economy-wide price on carbon is in place at a level that reflects the true social cost of those emissions. Addressing climate change will require policy frameworks that incentivize the fair and effective reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. In the absence of such a price, financial markets will operate suboptimally, and capital will continue to flow in the wrong direction, rather than toward accelerating the transition to a net-zero emissions economy. At the same time, policymakers must be sensitive to the distributional impacts of carbon pricing and other policies and ensure that the burden does not fall on low-to-moderate income households and on historically marginalized communities. This report recognizes that pricing carbon is beyond the remit of financial regulators; it is the job of Congress.
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In addition to the absence of an economy-wide carbon pricing regime in the United States, other barriers are holding back capital from flowing to sustainable, low-carbon activities. One involves the misperception among mainstream investors that sustainable or ESG (environmental, social, and governance) investments necessarily involve trading off financial returns relative to traditional investment strategies. Another is that the market for products widely considered to be “green” or “sustainable” remains small relative to the needs of institutional investors. In addition, lack of trust in the market over concerns of potential “greenwashing” (misleading claims about the extent to which a financial product or service is truly climate-friendly or environmentally sustainable) may be holding back the market. And policy uncertainty also remains a barrier, including in areas such as regulation affecting the financial products that U.S. companies may offer their employees through their employer-provided retirement plans.
These barriers can be addressed through a variety of initiatives. For example, a wide range of government efforts—through credit guarantees and other means of attracting private capital by reducing the risks of low-carbon investments—catalyze capital flows toward innovation and deployment of net-zero emissions technologies. A new, unified federal umbrella could help coordinate and expand these government programs and leverage institutional capital to maximize impact and align the various federal programs. Climate finance labs, regulatory sandboxes, and other regulatory initiatives can also drive innovation by improving dialogue and learning for both regulators and market innovators, as well as via business accelerators, grants, and competitions providing awards in specific areas of need. In addition, clarifying existing regulations on fiduciary duty, including for example, those concerning retirement and pension plans, to confirm the appropriateness of making investment decisions using climate-related factors—and more broadly, ESG factors that impact risk-return—can help unlock the flow of capital to sustainable activities and investments.
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Read more: MANAGING CLIMATE RISK IN THE U.S. FINANCIAL SYSTEM
Climate risk backed by a carbon tax would be a dream product for commodity traders, because the underlying problem doesn’t actually exist. Profitable companies could be hit with an endless series of terrifying shakedowns, from risk traders in smart suits offering protection from SEC demands for more disclosure of climate risk exposure. Traders could bundle and sell subprime climate audit risk insurance products to pension funds. The products could be financed indirectly with soft loans, which are also part of the commission recommendation. No end of fun.
The only people who would suffer from this brutal climate rent seeking proposal would be ordinary people, who would shoulder the ultimate cost burden of all these expensive new risk products through higher prices and poorer quality of life.
The pressure on politicians standing in the path of this gigantic bipartisan money printing scheme must be utterly immense. Billions of dollars for the taking. All they need is for one man, or one small group of people, to say “yes”.
Climate Change Policy is huge risk for the American financial system, a major new bipartisan report says
There are only two mature ways to skin the middle class and gain institutional capital gain at the same time:
1) Carbon Tax
2) Witch Hunt
/All of the above has sarcastic undertones, but attempt to reveal the underlying truth.
So the Commodity Futures Trading Commission wants more commodity trading.
Wow, I would not have expected that.
Exactamento
Heath Tarbert is a prototypical highly educated idiot.
Well yes. if all 165 countries in the world would only introduce the exact same amount of carbon tax it would probably work – but isn’t that a very big if???
Australia already sacked one prime minister who did a backdoor deal with greens to bring one in and I doubt anyone will be in a hurry to try again for a while.
The RET is a much more subtle and effective means of taxing the poor people in the population who cannot afford rooftop solar or who do not even own a roof.
It is an effective way to make the poor poorer and improve the lot of the middle class while enriching government and those underwriting weather dependent generating projects.
Work for what? Doing the wrong thing 165 times does not help! 165 times more theft for no environmental gain, a 165 time more great corruption, which is attracted to tax like steel to a magnet. 165 times more real jobs lost.
I don’t think you’re officially insane until you’ve done it 1000 times, expecting a different result.
Although, I don’t know if that counts individually or as a group.
And I don’t know if there’s a qualifier, if they started out nuts.
Of course, David A, that is the second big if. All 165 countries must unanimously agree that the reason for it is a necessity!
Most of those 165 countries agree taking away your rights to fight the war against covid 19 as a necessity. So what would stop them introducing a carbon tax to ‘help’ the economy to recover from the planned-demic to help the poor. Who can afford to be against it.
Actually a carbon tax will add to costs and prices. It will hit everyone but it will hit the poor hardest. Also what is needed to help a country recover from the economic slowdown caused by Covid-19 is a reduction in taxes not an increase.
When the economy has got some way into recovery then some form of additional taxation may be useful. But it should be one that helps the recovery not one that is set solely and arbitrarily to protect an industry that is only economical because its more efficient competitors are being hit by this additional tax.
Anyone know what has happened to the fabiusmaximus site, sometimes posts here? Seems to have been totally silent for almost two months now…
Forget carbon in the “carbon tax” phrase. It’s just a tax, and any Govn’t will look to increase revenue streams no matter the reason or cause.
Exzackerly – and the Labor-Greens CO2 tax in Oz was applied to hydro power.
It was applied to Hydro Tasmania because they also burn fossil fuels to make power.
It has not been shown in any way that CO2, or any gas, can warm the climate, based on the junk science of the climate “scientist” alarmists. However, they do not want anyone to realize that a carbon tax will not cause their goal of decreasing CO2 emissions without it hurting people and thus changing their behavior. This is all about altering human behavior through punitive policies, the goal of social engineering.
like covid.
Big Government is a cancer.
It will eventually kill the body.
But you missed the point that not only is it a tax, but it instills an indulgence upon the holder to do something ecologically evil.
Exactly right. Besides, carbon is already heavily taxed.
Fossil fuels are taxed from the moment they are extracted, taxed during processing, taxed in transport, and taxed at the consumer level.
I sure wish someone would explain how more taxes on fossil fuels will fix the weather when the current taxes can not. It should be easy to explain, especially now that the science is settled.
Would Glass-Steagall not resolve some of the issues for the general population.
Production, work, infrastructure, etc. is something we all benefit from. I can live with some billionaires in the bank casinos may have to work as bricklayers.
The carbon tax is not helpful to material productivity and will only diminish the consumption among the masses. On top of that, it is still not proven that taxation can adjust the weather in any significant way.
Bricklayers are skilled tradesmen.
Agree. – I was more pointing towards salary.
But it is proven that Big Government is bad for freedom and therefor bad for the economy.
A ‘Carbon’ Tax will not reduce CO2 emissions but will only impoverish working people and ruin industry. Reducing CO2 would in any case not affect the climate as energy-heat balance is controlled by convection and cloud cover, not CO2 re-radiation. Reducing CO2 would handicap plants and agriculture. In all, this proposal for a ‘Carbon’ Tax is what could be called a Lose-Lose-Lose situation.
They know damned well this POTUS is not going to go for it. Enough of this crap! This is all about November 3rd! Fire them!
i agree
Yep, sounds like they just stood up and said “Mr. President, here’s another example of government waste!”
Sadly it’s not that easy. CFTC is an “independent” agency, while the President gets to appoint the members as each of their 5 years terms are up, only 3 of the 5 members can be of the same party. The President doesn’t have the power to fire them.
This subcommittee was formed lasted year from the Market Risk Advisory Committee (MRAC) that Democrat commissioner Rostin Behnam sponsors. Committees like these are the very definition of swamp creature habitat.
looks like Trumps got a serious Termite problem
he needs to fumigate
The Financial industry doesn’t care about a climate tax since they are the ones least likely to have to pay it. What they really want is the ‘credit guarantees’ and ‘carbon credit trading’, all those things that guarantee them a financial rake off at low risk. Not exactly rocket science. Now, if the proposed tax was to fall predominately on the financial industry we might see them singing from a different hymn sheet. Perhaps someone could sponsor a Bill charging financial business say a 20% tax on profit given that it is clear there can be no doubt finance is the bedrock of modern capitalism and capitalism is the bedrock cause of climate change. Yes, definitely a different hymn sheet then.
The transaction fee ….
Investment is investment. Gambling is gambling.
A proposed transaction fee always sends them into the altruistic investment discussion & they forget about the fact that they are really gambling.
Tax the people that believe in Climate change, and leave the rest of us alone.
Yes Bigus, it should be a voluntary tax or no tax at all.
Given that President Trump laughed at Governor Newsom when he blamed climate change for California wildfires I don’t see any way the President is going to sign anything like a carbon tax. Instead he may point out that the cost of new taxes are actually paid by the consumer, and then veto it. Next.
“It’ll start getting cooler. You just watch.”
https://twitter.com/IceAgeFarmer/status/1305594263053443073
picking cherries I’m certain that it can be proven.
Yes here we are
draw a line between the last temperature and 2016 that’s quite a fall just as POTUS says.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2020/09/uah-global-temperature-update-for-august-2020-0-43-deg-c/
Not has gotten cooler, will get cooler. It’s an educated hunch that will probably be proven right. “I don’t think science knows, actually”. He’s 100% right. Scientists don’t know, and the flux lines of scientific hubris emanating from them foretell they’ve probably got it wrong.
The distinction between present and future is too subtle for ghoulfont’s pay grade.
I love the “forest management alone” can’t solve it, the classic “red herring”. They haven’t tried “forest management” for 50 years, so who knows if forest management alone WILL solve it? This is a falsifiable primes, they just need to manage the forests as directed by non-politically driven forestry experts for 10 to 20 years and see what happens.
If they would throw some arsonists in jail and not release them, it would certainly help.
Oh, I would say hitting it hard for 5 years would show a difference.
It’s just a matter of time, but before I commit, I guess I would like to hear what Cardi B thinks.
” I don’t see any way the President is going to sign a carbon tax”. This President.
The Harris-Biden administration would sign it in a heartbeat.
Thus to fill Democrat politicians campaign accounts for years to come as per Obamacare.
Trusting, of course, that there’s still money to steal.
Progressives have a remarkable way of slaughtering any golden goose they can find, but still demand the golden eggs.
Biden would love to have some Cuties at the signing ceremony. I understand that pedophile Matt Damon is very interested.
Great idea! Sounds like quite a party! They should probably invite everyone’s favourite incestuous rapist fascist abortion procuring cheating lying thick as pig-sh!t conman, Fake President One-Term-Trump! And his hottie, dateable daughter! And his bought online Fake Wife – a woman with less charisma than her wooden statue.
Ahhh, special widdle snowflake having a tantrum! Ain’t that cute.
Doesn’t the fed have to also produce an economic impact document to go with proposed legislation? That’s where you evaluate the effect on ordinary folk. Such legislation always contains handouts for the poorest to sell the legislation so it moves up to the middle class.
The cronies make money on the scheme, which is how these things work. It’s such a well beaten path that Commodity Futures Trading Commission folk aren’t the least bit embarrassed about the obvious conflict of interest.
“economy-wide price on carbon is in place at a level that reflects the true social cost of those emissions.“
Nobody has ever said tax collected will be “carbon free” when spent in the public sector.
Even if there could be agreement that the private sector may be taxed at a supposed-SCC, the net impact to society would be suboptimal (less than the supposed-SCC) because of the supposed-SCC incurred by additional spending goods and services in the public sector.
The whole idea of some net societal “gain” from a transfer of spending from the private to the public sector is flawed. Hard to believe that anybody would put their name to this.
Too bad the Enron boys aren’t still around to run this scam.
some of prob are behind this..they didnt all die, sadly.
as it is most of the ecoloonie climate carbon scam could be from their playbook
if the hows n whys are so complicated your head spins..its an enron idea;-)
and YOU will be the loser!
Swamp critters gonna do what swamp critters do. And I suppose that the propaganda ministry will play it as Trump won’t even listen to his own “scientists”.
Doubtful that any of this crap changes a single vote.
Does Biden “have” covid yet? Only 13 days to the debate. He better get coughing! When’s the best time to pretend you have covid to avoid a debate?
” When’s the best time to pretend you have covid to avoid a debate?”
Oh, about Sept. 28, 2020. He could probably manage to miss all the debates, at least in person, by claiming to have caught the Wuhan virus. He wouldn’t fully recover until after the debates.
Trump will provide Biden with a ventilator.
If that’s the plan, it makes sense I guess, but I still think it will be a boycott based on manufactured outrage over something Trump tweets.
If Biden doesn’t participate due to covid, that reminds people of his feeble health and puts more focus on Harris. Is Harris then going to “get covid” too, so that her radical views don’t get ventilated? If they go with an OrangeManBad boycott, then logically Harris can just follow his lead.
Work for what? Doing the wrong thing 165 times does not help! 165 times more theft for no environmental gain, a 165 time more great corruption, which is attracted to tax like steel to a magnet. 165 times more real jobs lost.
Yes bring on the carbon tax and make it punitive. I like a good fireworks show. Losing House and Senate seats and state offices in mass requires bold policy stupidity. Just ask the Clintons and Obama.
Question: does “Republican Led Government Commission” mean that the majority in the commission is republican, or that the president of the commission is republican?
What are “regulatory sandboxes” quoted in the abstract?
From a quick google:
In most cases, a regulatory sandbox is a framework set up by a financial sector regulator to allow small-scale, live testing of innovations by private firms in a controlled environment under the regulator’s supervision. This allows them to test new products, services, business models, or delivery mechanisms without instantly having to follow all the rules normally associated with these activities
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is an independent U.S. federal agency established by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Act of 1974., It has a 5 members, 2 of whom are Democrats (only a maximum of 3 members may be of any one political party).
The report, however, is a product of the 34-member Climate-Related Market Risk Subcommittee of the Market Risk Advisory Committee which reports to the CFTC. These committees and subcommittees are the very definition of swamp creature habitats.
Here is the list of the members of the subcommittee.
You can decide their party membership…:^)
https://www.cftc.gov/About/CFTCCommittees/MarketRiskAdvisoryCommittee/mrac_subcommitteemembers.html
Wow, we are paying all those parasites to screw us. Ain’t that special!
when you get that deep into the swamp, it’s nolonger a matter of party, it’s a matter of the Deep State. There’a plenty of never-Trump RINOs to be found in the Deep State wallowing in the swamp waters next to the Deep State Dems, feeding off of the same government teet.
Much like the covid fail that’s still happening 180+ days after “let’s lockdown for 15 days to flatten the curve”, the carbon scheme will only enrich the already rich and well connected, and keep marginal businesses in business at taxpayer expense (think Tesla, which would likely be out of business by now if not for billions worth of carbon credits it sells to other companies, the cost of which is passed down to the consumer).
A carbon tax always causes inflation, which generally the poor people feel first, because it raises the base prices of everything that is a bare necessity. If there is a fear of deflation showing up, the FED might want to try and support a carbon tax along with a cabal of other desperate state actors to raise revenues. It’s a great little protection racket to those who would use the funds to get themselves reelected, which is what everyone does who collects carbon taxes, as they usually go into general revenues in the end and get spent by the ruling Gov’t of the day on anything they want, usually to get themselves reelected first and foremost. Just look at every jurisdiction that has done it.
Especially now with all the debt for Covid, the deficits are severe and tax flows are also severely restricted from shutdowns. It wouldn’t do anything whatsoever to change the weather/climate, which is a sham to think it would, but the temptation to raise that revenue is so great, that some people will believe and say anything to obtain this tax stream that is so lucrative to collect. It’s just free money for nothing, usually on the backs of the poorer consumer. The only hope against this going national is if President Trump would make a promise not to go down that rabbit hole. He has a near perfect record of trying to keep his promises once he makes them, something you rarely see in a politician. I would trust him on this, as he knows raising taxes is a good way to ruin an economy.
I don’t know if I would trust State Republican’s to want to follow this promise, as the temptation for new free money is high, and then it cascades from there. And it is so easy to just levy a small tax on every BTU of fossil fuel energy which everyone, especially the poor, require to survive. A carbon tax is financial heroin, increases the price of everything and is very addictive. So is a GST/HST/PST which I would also assume some politicians would be salivating about. These are the roads to Socialism, where hard earned wealth goes to die.
Taxes don’t cause inflation, even energy taxes. Inflation is only caused when the supply of money grows faster than the supply of goods.
An energy tax would cause those things that use a lot of energy to go up in prices, while those things that use little to no energy would go down in price.
You would be correct about an increase in income tax rates – this will not cause inflation. If anything, it will lead to a lower rate of inflation. Higher income tax will reduce disposable income and therefore spending; this will cause a fall in aggregate demand. (plus help ruin the economy)
However, a carbon tax is an insidious form of taxation that causes basic increases in food, energy and housing, which is the bulk of the expenditures for the majority of the population that are below a certain income threshold. I would agree that income and a basic consumption tax doesn’t lead to inflation, but the carbon tax gets multiplied on everything from the ground up…so much tax on inputs that get passed on down the line and then tax on tax in many cases. Which leads to higher food prices, energy prices and housing prices, which is the vast majority of expenditures that the population that needs to just stay fed, clothed and sheltered. Especially when you get state/provincial consumption taxes, and then a national type of goods and services tax on top of that, if that applies. Of course, this also reduces disposable income to spend on non essentials, but the inflation in basic survival requirements for majority of lower income people is very real. CPI inflation is also another mugs game, just the way it all gets calculated.
Inflation can be viewed either as an indirect taxation on the people or as a devaluation of the value of the USD, both over time. It fundamentally reduces the spending value of any saved money over time.
This is the fundamental reason that the US Government, via the Federal Reserve, targets annual inflation (specifically CPI-U, if I remember correctly) to be 2% and not 0%. Almost all Government obligations that are made at any time are not adjusted for inflation (there are exceptions, like Social Security with its COLA, which is not really tied strongly to CPI-U), so the effective pay-out cost of these Government obligations is reduced by 2% each year if the 2% inflation goal is sustained.
Financially, the US Government/Federal Reserve is not the US citizen’s friend.
E2, you seem to be conflating two different concepts.: taxes and inflation. While the end result will be the same (less money in the people’s pockets/less spending power) they are not the same thing. Inflation is an increase in the price of goods and services/fall in the value of money. taxes are on top of that. The base price of the good and services/the value of money remain the same, it’s just that Uncle Sugar (or her Majesty, or whatever euphemism for your government tax authority applies) is then stepping in and stealing more of it, thus leaving you with less of it.
The fly in the ointment is that CPI core inflation does not include those from the food and energy sectors. Core Inflation is the change in the costs of goods and services of a specific basket of goods and services, but it is most often calculated using the consumer price index (CPI), which is a measure of prices for goods and services which is a fairly narrow selection that doesn’t include food and energy. Which is really weird when you include that issue trying to make sense of this.
My point that a carbon tax is a different kind of tax and much worse than a general tax, in that it does cause price increases to the basic necessities of life, which is food, shelter and fossil energy, with most of that is not even being calculated in the core CPI inflation rate.
It causes price inflation on these necessities of life to the vast majority of the middle class that are just trying to keep themselves fed, clothed and heat their homes/drive to work. It also reduces disposable income for other ‘luxury’ items and keeps overall CPI inflation lower, but there is real inflation in these items required for general survival for the majority of people that are not upper middle class in those jurisdictions that do go with carbon taxation. Just go to any jurisdiction that has implemented a carbon tax, and you will see that food, shelter and FF energy are all priced higher than non carbon tax jurisdictions. So it is even more deceptive using CPI inflation the way they calculate it, as food and energy aren’t even included in CPI inflation.
This hurts the poorer people much more than the more wealthier people. Not all jurisdictions even have a carbon tax, so it also skews the averaging of CPI inflation calculations. Much of the USA doesn’t have a carbon tax, but California does have a form of carbon taxation/trading, and food, shelter and FF energy are all much higher than other jurisdictions without carbon taxation. But it gets calculated nationally so is misleading, just as the way they calculate much of CPI inflation not including food and energy, when that is the cause for most real inflation for average folk.
Wealthier people can easily afford to pay more for these basic necessities because it is less of their percentage of income/wealth to pay for these basic essential items. Which is why a carbon tax is especially destructive to the lower and middle class because they have less disposable income to spend on non essential items. Which does keeps overall CPI inflation lower, except for the poorer folk who are just trying to make ends meet for basic food, shelter and energy. Which causes a huge economic disparity and eventually class warfare, when the majority of folks can’t economically feed, cloth, and shelter themselves with heat and or A/C. A carbon tax is the worst kind of taxation as it it is so unfair to most people from small business to the lower and middle class.
Republican is a meaningless word as is Democrat. According to Prager, you have: Islamism, Leftism, and Americanism. The members of this commission fall on the Leftism spectrum. The use of “Republican” is only to smear Trump who is NOT a Republican. He is an American.
Well put!
I’m a lifelong Republican and thank goodness he wasn’t. It took somebody who wasn’t to actually do all of the things that Republicans claimed that they would always do if they had the power. They lied.
Promises kept .com that is why they hate Trump.
Every time they had the opportunity they flatout refused to do what they have spent decades claiming they wanted to do. Every. Time.
There are five members on the commission. Three are “Republicans” appointed by Trump, but one of them was actually appointed by Obama originally, withdrawn by President Trump, and then somehow magically reappointed in the summer of 2017. It sounds like the work of people actively trying to undercut President Trump IMHO. McMaster just admitted to CBS News that these tools were in the White House.
The pressure from WallStreet, London, and the UN with Carney’s Green Finance Initiative not to mention the EU greenism, is enormous. why, because of the $1.5 Quadrillion derivative bubble about to implode. Even major hedge fund BlackRock is onboard, who actually runs the US economy right now.
As some mentioned above Glass-Steagall is a major part of the solution, but only a part . A national bank style credit system is needed , like FDR’s Reconstruction Finance Corp, with crash investment in fusion energy (no, not phasing out petro fuels), space.
That means cooperation with the 4 major powers, and China, to deal with the zombie finance system.
Notice the lengths Pompeo, et. al, are prepared to go to prevent this? Instead of a rational reorganization, they are preparing for thermonuclear war to protect the cancer. Military are even mumbling a coup.
High Finance has scared the brains out of any CO2 committee, it is a sign of complete disarray.
“Military are even mumbling a coup.”
There’s no evidence for that.
The commission fails to understand that a tax on CO2 emissions is supposed to replace ad hoc subsidies such as “credit guarantees and other means of attracting private capital by reducing the risks of low-carbon investments”.
See my Beacon Blog post at https://blog.independent.org/2016/08/07/the-carbon-tax-welfare-triangle-or-welfare-obelisk/ .
Email sent to the Commission Office of the Inspector General
+++++++++++++++++
Dear OIG.
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has just issued a Report: MANAGING CLIMATE RISK IN THE U.S. FINANCIAL SYSTEM.
The Report discusses physical risks of climate change. “Climate change” is a disguised term meant to purport physical risks from human emissions of carbon dioxide, CO2.
Consequent to these surmised risks, the Commission’s first priority recommends that, “The United States should establish a price on carbon.”
However, there are no knowable risks from human CO2 emissions. The effects of CO2 on the climate, if any, are so small that they cannot be detected.
See “Propagation of Error and the Reliability of Global Air Temperature Projections,” Frontiers in Earth Science: Atmospheres, September 6, 2019
https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2019.00223
The RCP scenarios of the IPCC, including RCP 8.5 discussed by the COMMISSION, are without any predictive or scientific merit.
Please note the uncertainty envelopes in Figures 6, 7, and 8, as well as multiple Figures in the Supporting Information document.
The IPCC air temperature projections based upon IPCC RCPs are without any physical meaning.
One might also note that the various observables of the climate are not outside the range of natural variation.
Thus, the entire analysis of the COMMISSION that, “Climate-related physical and transition risks are already impacting, or are anticipated to impact, nearly every facet of the U.S. economy …” is entirely without physical merit.
The COMMISSION cannot have performed an independent research to reach this judgment, as such research validly done would have disproven the thesis.
I submit to you that the proposed carbon tax is the outcome of a gigantic fraud and abuse. It is a thoroughly false imposition on the US economy.
The enormous expense and offense against the economy and the citizens of the U.S. of a carbon tax as proposed by the COMMISSION is based on the worst abuse of science ever.
It must be stopped.
Yours sincerely,
Patrick Frank, Ph.D. (Chemistry, Stanford University)
Frank,
+42 thousand intergalactic credits. Well said!
“I submit to you that the proposed carbon tax is the outcome of a gigantic fraud and abuse. It is a thoroughly false imposition on the US economy.”
Well put, Frank. And thanks for going to the trouble of trying to inform these folks about the actual facts of the matter.
“Commodity Futures Trading Commission” So, this clown wants to create a new commodity to trade so he can continue enriching himself while hiding from a real job by remaining in government “employ”. He has never actually had a job, was in a law firm which does government related cases exclusively, then bounced around inside government sucking up our tax dollars and screwing us. Looks like we need a criminal and ethics investigation of this scumbag.
We have a “exhaling tax” here in British Columbia. It is an utter joke used for to line government coffers only – big surprise there right?! Of course it was instituted as a revenue neutral deal – that lasted a couple of years before the irresistible urge of all politicians to flees the taxpayers became overpowering.
Sooner or later, a climate activist Democrat president will occupy the Oval Office. When this happens, everything Donald Trump ever did while he was president will be quickly and completely erased.
Suppose, for purposes of argument, Joe Biden becomes that climate activist Democrat president.
If Biden wants to achieve an 80% reduction in America’s carbon emissions by 2050 — President Obama’s original goal — then massive spending on Green New Deal projects combined with a carbon pricing scheme cannot and will not get the job done.
Fossil fuels are just too convenient as an energy resource and too demand-inelastic for America to reach the 80% reduction target within thirty years using the plan the Democrats are now proposing.
If Biden is serious about an 80% reduction by 2050 — a.k.a. ‘net zero’ because it is really the same thing — then he must impose a government-managed system of carbon fuel rationing which directly limits the quantities of fossil fuels that Americans can import, produce, refine, distribute, and consume.
The only possible means of reducing America’s carbon emissions as quickly as climate activists say is necessary is to use the power of government in ways that make all carbon fuels as scarce and expensive today as they will be in a hundred years time.
How could this be done?
Here is an alternative plan for reducing America’s carbon emissions 80% by 2050. The plan is entitled the Supply Side Carbon Emission Control Plan (SSCECP).
The plan uses a series of Executive Orders which combine existing provisions of the Clean Air Act with existing provisions of national security legislation to create an integrated regulatory approach for increasing the cost of all carbon fuels and for systematically restricting their future availability.
In short, the SSCECP uses the power of the federal government to create and enforce an artificial shortage of carbon fuels while directly raising their prices and directly reducing their import, production, distribution, and consumption.
The SSCECP employs EPA-administered carbon pollution fines as the functional equivalent of a legislated tax on carbon. The plan supplies a powerful incentive for the state governments to participate in directly regulating America’s carbon emissions by assigning them the great bulk of the revenues produced from the EPA’s carbon pollution fines.
A joint interagency Carbon Fuels Control Board (CFCB) is established to manage a phased systematic reduction in the production and distribution of all carbon fuels.
In addition, the plan keeps the import, production, and distribution of carbon fuels in private hands. Rather than nationalizing the oil and gas industry, the plan enlists private corporations as contracted agents in managing the government’s energy rationing programs. The government also guarantees a steady and healthy rate return from the sale of all carbon fuels produced by those private corporations which choose to participate.
Here are the major phases of the plan. The start and end dates listed for each major phase assume a climate activist Democrat is elected president in 2020.
SUPPLY SIDE CARBON EMISSION CONTROL PLAN (SSCECP) — Major Phases:
Phase I: Establish a legal basis for regulating all of America’s carbon emissions. (2007-2020. Status complete.)
Phase II: Expand and extend regulation of carbon GHG’s to all major sources of America’s carbon emissions. (01/22/2021 – 12/31/2021)
Phase III: Establish a fully comprehensive regulatory framework for carbon. (01/01/2022 – 12/31/2022)
Phase IV: Implement the carbon pollution regulatory framework. (Year 2023 through the Year 2049)
Phase V: Declare success in reducing America’s carbon emissions 80% by 2050. (If complete by 2050 or some earlier date.)
Here are the details of the plan:
SUPPLY SIDE CARBON EMISSION CONTROL PLAN (SSCECP) — Detailed Description:.
Phase I: Establish a legal basis for regulating all of America’s carbon emissions. (2007-2020. Status complete.)
— File and win lawsuits to allow regulation of CO2 and other carbon GHG’s as pollutants under the Clean Air Act. (2007)
— Publish a CAA Section 202 Endangerment Finding as a prototype test case for regulation of carbon GHG’s. (2009)
— Defend the Section 202 Endangerment Finding in the courts. (2010-2012)
— Establish a recent precedent, the COVID-19 pandemic, for taking strong government action in response to a declared national emergency. (2020)
Phase II: Expand and extend regulation of carbon GHG’s to all major sources of America’s carbon emissions. (01/22/2021 – 12/31/2021)
II.A: – Presidential Actions, Phase II
II.A.1 — Issue an Executive Order declaring a carbon pollution emergency.
II.A.2 — Assign a joint task force of the US Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA), the US Department of Homeland Security (US-DHS), and the US Department of Energy (US-DOE) to manage the declared emergency.
II.A.3 — Create a joint interagency Carbon Fuels Control Board (CFCB) to manage a phased systematic reduction in the production and distribution of all carbon fuels.
II.A.4 — Issue a series of Executive Orders as needed to define and implement America’s carbon emissions regulatory framework.
II.A.5 — Establish a public relations outreach program to explain and defend the actions being taken.
II.B: – EPA Actions (Carbon Emission Regulation), Phase II
II.B.1 — Publish a Clean Air Act Section 108 Endangerment Finding which complements 2009’s Section 202 finding.
II.B.2 — Declare carbon emissions as Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs) under CAA Section 112.
II.B.3 — Establish a National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for carbon pollution.
II.B.4 — Use the NAAQS for carbon pollution as America’s tie-in to international climate change agreements.
II.B.5 — Defend the Section 108 Endangerment Finding, the NAAQS, and the Section 112 HAP Declaration in the courts.
II.C: – CFCB Actions (Carbon Fuel Rationing), Phase II
II.C.1 — Research and publish a provisional system for government-enforced carbon fuel rationing.
II.C.2 — Defend the provisional system of carbon fuel rationing in the courts.
Phase III: Establish a fully comprehensive regulatory framework for carbon. (01/01/2022 – 12/31/2022)
III.A: – Presidential Actions, Phase III
III.A.1 — Issue a series of Executive Orders as needed to further define and further implement America’s carbon emissions regulatory framework.
III.A.2 — Monitor and coordinate the activities the US-EPA, the US-DHS, and the US-DOE in response to the carbon pollution emergency.
III.A.3 — Monitor the activities of the Carbon Fuels Control Board (CFCB) in reducing the import, production, and distribution of all carbon fuels.
III.A.4 — Maintain and expand the public relations outreach program needed to explain and defend the anti-carbon actions being taken.
III.B: – EPA Actions (Carbon Emission Regulation), Phase III
III.B.1 — Publish a regulatory framework for carbon pollution under Clean Air Act sections 108, 111, 112, 202, and other CAA sections as applicable.
III.B.2 — Establish cooperative agreements with the states to enforce the EPA’s anti-carbon regulations.
III.B.3 — Establish a system of carbon pollution fines which is the functional equivalent of a legislated tax on carbon.
III.B.4 — Establish the legal basis for assigning all revenues collected from these carbon pollution fines to the states.
III.B.5 — Defend the comprehensive system of carbon pollution regulations in the courts.
III.C: – CFCB Actions (Carbon Fuel Rationing), Phase III
III.C.1 — Establish cooperative agreements with the states to enforce the government’s system of carbon fuel rationing.
III.C.2 — Establish a time-phased, hard-target schedule for reducing the production and distribution of all carbon fuels.
III.C.3 — Establish production control agreements with private sector fossil fuel producers and distributors.
III.C.4 — Establish a guaranteed profit schedule for the carbon fuels industry in return for production & distribution cutbacks.
III.C.5 — Defend the government’s system of carbon fuel rationing in the courts.
Phase IV: Implement the carbon pollution regulatory framework. (Year 2023 through the Year 2049)
IV.A: – Presidential Actions, Phase IV
IV.A.1 — Issue a series of Executive Orders as needed to further define and further implement America’s carbon emissions regulatory framework.
IV.A.2 — Monitor and coordinate the activities the US-EPA, the US-DHS, and the US-DOE in response to the carbon pollution emergency.
IV.A.3 — Monitor the activities of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in enforcing carbon emission regulations.
IV.A.4 — Monitor the activities of the Carbon Fuels Control Board (CFCB) in reducing the import, production, and distribution of all carbon fuels.
IV.A.5 — Maintain and expand the public relations outreach program as needed to further explain and further defend the anti-carbon actions being taken.
IV.B: – EPA Actions (Carbon Emission Regulation), Phase IV
IV.B.1 — Commence operation of prior agreements with the states for enforcement of the EPA’s anti-carbon regulations.
IV.B.2 — Commence the collection of carbon pollution fines and the distribution of fine revenues to the states.
IV.B.3 — Monitor the effectiveness of the EPA’s carbon regulatory framework in reducing America’s GHG emissions.
IV.B.4 — Monitor the effectiveness of renewable energy projects in reducing America’s GHG emissions.
IV.B.5 — Monitor the effectiveness of energy conservation programs in reducing America’s GHG emissions.
IV.B.6 — Adjust the schedule of carbon pollution fines upward if progress in reducing America’s GHG emissions lags.
IV.B.7 — Defend the EPA’s system of carbon pollution regulations in the courts.
IV.C: – CFCB Actions (Carbon Fuel Rationing), Phase IV
IV.C.1 — Commence operation of prior agreements with the states for enforcement of the government’s system of carbon fuel rationing.
IV.C.2 — Commence operation of production control agreements with private sector fossil fuel producers and distributors.
IV.C.3 — Monitor the compliance of fossil fuel producers and distributors with their CFCB production control agreements.
IV.C.4 — Monitor the profit levels of fossil fuel producers and distributors for conformance with the CFCB’s guaranteed profit schedule.
IV.C.5 — Defend the government-mandated carbon fuel rationing program in the courts.
Phase V: Declare success in reducing America’s carbon emissions 80% by 2050. (If complete by 2050 or some earlier date.)
— The President issues a proclamation that the target of an 80% reduction has been achieved.
— The President, the US-EPA, the US-DHS, and the US-DOE assess the need for continuing the EPA’s anti-carbon regulations and the US Government’s mandatory fuel rationing program as necessary to maintain the 80% goal.
— If a determination is reached that the government’s system of carbon control measures must continue beyond 2050, existing agreements with the states and with private sector fossil fuel producers and distributors are extended with appropriate modifications.
— Defend the government’s anti-carbon measures against emerging lawsuits if these measures must continue beyond 2050.
Remarks:
Once again, a key point here is that not another word of new legislation is needed to enable this plan. The entire plan is implemented through a series of Executive Orders covered under existing environmental and national security legislation and under constitutionally legal Executive Branch authorities.
However, the elephant in the room is this …. Would the voting public accept the personal and economic sacrifices which go with imposing government-mandated, strictly-enforced anti-carbon measures?
If the Democrats are truly serious about greatly reducing America’s carbon emissions by 2050, they must acknowledge that it can’t be done without using the full power of the federal government in coercively forcing those emission reductions.
So you are saying Americans will have to go black market with our energy industry? Cool! Look how well Prohibition worked out for the control freaks.
A major point I’m making here is that if an aggressive approach to enforcing anti-carbon measures is structured to both maximize state and federal government incomes and also to guarantee the oil industry high profits in the face of declining fossil fuel production — then the prospects are good that both the state governments and the oil industry itself would have great incentive to come on board with implementing an exceptionally aggressive carbon control plan.
The other advantage for the oil industry is that climate change lawsuits being brought against them no longer have standing, because the industry would be producing carbon fuels under a tightly managed production control agreement with the federal and state governments where production volumes are already being systematically reduced.
Moreover, it would be hard for climate change activists to criticize the oil companies for being greedy capitalist environmental destroyers if those private companies are making their high profits under the contractual supervision and control of the federal and state governments; and if the oil companies are already paying what could be thought of as restitution for alleged past environmental damage through the EPA’s system of carbon pollution fines.
Sooner or later, a climate activist Democrat president will occupy the Oval Office. When this happens, everything Donald Trump ever did while he was president will be quickly and completely erased.
Not everything. Pardons can’t be erased, for example. and EOs can’t erase his judicial appointments. But yes, just like Obama’s “Pen and Phone” actions, Trumps EOs can be erased. As would the EOs of your hypothetical (hopefully to remain that way) climate activist Democrat president when the next sane president is elected. Biden is no Climate Activist ideologue. Unfortunately, should he get elected, Biden is also in no condition to remain in office for very long and the people running him are.
John Endicott, please see my reply to 2hotel9 above. The SSCECP is structured in a way that supplies great financial incentives for the fifty state governments and for the oil industry itself to come on board with enforcing a highly aggressive regulatory approach to reducing America’s carbon emissions.
The way the plan is structured, the only means for the average American consumer to reduce the ever-growing burden of their ever-increasing carbon fuel energy bill would be to systematically reduce their fossil fuel consumption. The financial consequences for any individual person or for any privately owned business for not reducing their fossil fuel consumption would be huge.
In any case, the revenue income streams for the fifty states and for the oil industry produced by the SSCECP could be of such a magnitude that regardless of what public opinion might be in the four or eight years following the election of the climate activist president who implemented the plan, neither the states nor the oil companies would oppose ending it.
Beta Blocker, you own point against Trump is against your plan. Anything that is implemented through “pen and phone” can be taken down by “Pen and Phone” as Obama has since learned. As for “oppose ending it”, Trump has faced nothing *but* opposition to every “pen and phone” move of Obama’s that he’s ended, hasn’t stopped him from doing it though.
John Endicott, the SSCECP would never see the light of day except under a Democrat climate activist president. And even then, for any president to take such a course of action would be to engender the risk of substantial political blowback.
Historically, the EPA and the Executive Branch have been assigned the difficult and complex task of reducing widespread emissions of pollutants while also balancing the upfront costs and risks of aggressive near term action versus the long-term value of the benefits and rewards to be gained.
If rising CO2 concentrations are truly as dangerous as climate activists say they are, and if the courts have already ruled that the EPA can legally regulate CO2 as a pollutant, then why would, and why should, the task of reducing America’s carbon emissions be handled any differently than any other pollution control program the EPA has implemented in the past?
As long as a highly aggressive carbon reduction plan such as the SSCECP is equitably applied with equal force across all sectors of the American economy, and with equally distributed impacts against all major sources of America’s carbon emissions, then the plan can withstand any challenges being made to it in the courts.
At any rate, had Barack Obama done all the things he was allowed to do under current environmental and national security legislation, then after his reelection in 2012, he could have used executive orders to enforce a highly aggressive carbon emission reduction plan similar in size, scope, and effect to the SSCECP.
By the beginning of 2013, a strong legal framework was in place to support just such an aggressive GHG reduction plan. But President Obama and the EPA never moved forward with one. Nor was Obama ever called to account by climate activists for not doing all that he could have done to reduce America’s GHG emissions.
So the question becomes, if Joe Biden is elected president in 2020, are we likely to see history repeat itself? Will he, or will he not, take actions which are fully consistent with his claim that GHG emissions are dangerous and must be quickly reduced?
The GOP is a feckless lot. But some are worse than others.
Fortunately, the only glue holding this party together (Trump) doesn’t buy into the mass marketing and isn’t afraid to say so. He seems to have had some influence, as the GOP’s pre-election platform makes no mention of “climate” or “carbon”.
https://republicanleader.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/CTA-OnePager-Final.pdf
It’s sure preferable to the alternative!
“Sooner or later, a climate activist Democrat president will occupy the Oval Office.”
Let’s hope that we at least get 4 more years of President DJT and he gets 2 more appointments to the SCOTUS, and numerous more lower appointments to the Federal Courts. That is is the only possible longer term check and balance on future carbon initiatives that may be decreed by Executive Order. Although there could be a lot of damage to the industry and economy while the EO’s stand that might make any future reversals a moot point.
Or even better, let’s hope we get 4 more years of DJT, and then 8 more years of President Pence. He hasn’t so much as even been accused of harming a fly and is completely scandal free and a steady hand on the tiller with the full backing of the religious right which is a huge demographic. If the next 4 years can be turned into prosperous stability, law and order, and the Democrats splinter into their leftist and centrist separate parties, then there is a hope that we could survive 12 more years before the socialist/marxist hordes are at the gate. By then, we will have more climate data which will explain things better, and better technologies that will naturally progress. One can hope.
Well, that, and there is always claymores and drums of fuogasse along side those gates. People are getting a real good look at what the leftists want to do to them and it is not going to end well for the leftists.
Or even better, let’s hope we get 4 more years of DJT, and then 8 more years of President Pence. He hasn’t so much as even been accused of harming a fly and is completely scandal free
That would of course change the second he throws his hat in the ring. All the crap the left has tried to pull on Trump & Kavanaugh & anyone else they feel threatened by would immediately start to be pulled on Pence. And this crap will continue as long as the American people let them get away with it by continuing to vote Dems into any kind of position of power.
They should instead impose a “Hydrogen Tax” so that they can tax anything containing hydrogen. Water gets double the tax, and fossil fuels are taxed into oblivion – only natural gas with a 4x tax might survive.
Next would be an “Oxygen Tax” so they can tax the air we breath and raise the taxes on water (again). This would cover CO2 but at twice the tax rate.
I really wish they would create a “Stupidity Tax”, but then the government would go broke trying to pay for itself.
This is akin to those sacrifices used to appease the Gods, of yesteryears. In this case it the satanic CO2 God that controls the temperatures which needs appeasement.
I suppose a carbon tax is better ethically than a virgin or two; but equally useless.
According to the first boxed quotes given in the above article, CFTC Commissioner Rostin Behnam (DEMOCRAT) is arguing that a tax is necessary on things that “. . .pose significant challenges to our financial system and our ability to sustain long-term economic growth”, in this specific instance it’s “climate change”.
WOW, you just can’t more obvious in publicizing your self-serving position to tax, tax, tax.
Coming soon, using this criterion and logic:
— a pandemic tax
— a dollar devaluation tax
— a recession/depression tax
— a Government entitlements tax
— another tax for Social Security
— another tax for medical care in the US
— a tax on the tax needed to fund any GND
— a tax for overtaxation.
It’s also interesting that Rachel Koning Beals states “A carbon tax features in CFTC report that aims to unite disparate federal efforts.” So, by logical extension, taxation is a basic way of unifying “disparate federal efforts.” Who knew?
Lord help us, with these sorts running amok.
Instead of a “carbon” tax, I propose an Unaffordable Unreliables tax, for the harm they do to the grid, and for forcing electricity prices up. Fair is fair.
Bet you they failed,once again,to define this “Climate Change”.
While they seek to impose ever more restrictions and up their rate of theft.
Funny how no matter what the “Coming Doom” is the solution is always the same.
The phrase “conflict of interest” rattles around in my suspicious mind.
How about a commission to determine if man made CO2 is a problem? How about a commission to determine if a commission is needed to determine whether commissions are ever right about anything? Do we need more taxes…more debt….more government….more socialism….more communism….more commissions?
“How about a commission to determine if man made CO2 is a problem?”
There we go! That’s just what we need.
The CFTC is putting the cart before the horse. They are trying to fix a problem that has not been shown to be a problem. First things first!
Carbon taxes, Goldman Sachs, Al Gore and I’ve expressed my opposition to this unscientific proposal.
Any full analysis of the social cost of carbon (dioxide) would find more positive outcomes than negative.
Without fossil fuels over the past century I doubt there would be a tree left for the tree-huggers to hug.
Here is what I would like to see. Do away with U.S. income tax system (which is paid for by the consumer) and replace it with a national sale tax (POS and open to sun shine).
Do away with U.S. income tax system (which is paid for by the consumer)
correction:
paid for by the working citizen. You can be a consumer but not an income tax payer.
and replace it with a national sale tax (POS and open to sun shine)
That has the benefit of making everyone pay (rich and poor, citizen and non-citizen alike) and eliminates “loopholes” that can lower peoples taxes to zero or even negative (there’s no loophole to a sales tax – you buy something that is taxable you pay the tax, period).
The left, however, will howl. sales taxes are “regressive”. But they’re also completely fair in that they treat everyone equally, they don’t care who you are or how much or how little you make. You want to buy X you pay Y in tax. They’re also completely voluntary in that if you don’t want to pay Y in tax, you simply choose not to buy X. (you find a cheaper alternative, or do without. not everyone needs the latest and greatest iPhone, a cheaper older model or a cheaper android model or just plain keeping with your current one and not getting a new one at all will do for most people for example).
From the article: ““As we’ve seen in the past few weeks alone, extreme weather events continue to sweep the nation from the severe wildfires of the West to the devastating Midwest derecho and damaging Gulf Coast hurricanes. This trend — which is increasingly becoming our new normal”
No, this is the *old* normal. All these things and worse have happened in the past when CO2 was not considered a factor.
CO2 should not be considered a factor at any time, now or in the past, seeing as how there is no evidence that CO2 causes the Earth’s climate to change in any way. Making such claims just shows the ignorance of that person.
From the article: “The pressure on politicians standing in the path of this gigantic bipartisan money printing scheme must be utterly immense. Billions of dollars for the taking. All they need is for one man, or one small group of people, to say “yes”.”
Somebody ought to ask President Trump what he thinks about a Carbon Dioxide tax. Before Republicans start getting on board this train, they should ascertain what their leader thinks about it.
My guess is Trump would be deadset against a Carbon Dioxide tax. Only a fool would be in favor of it.
The article talks about how they want to keep the Carbon Dioxide tax from harming poor people but there’s no way they can accomplish that if they raise taxes on fossil fuels, which is what a Carbon Dioxide tax will do.
If you raise the cost of transportation, then you raise the cost of *everything* in the economy and those price increases affect poor people more than anyone else. The government is not going to reimburse poor people for their total out-of-pocket costs, so the poor people will suffer.
The only people a Carbon Dioxide tax will benefit are governments and bureaucrats. They love spending Other People’s Money.
HEY! American REPUBLICANS! AUSTRALIA! National referendum on CAGW. nuff said.