Carbon Tax Continues to Gain Cred. Deniers Worried. March 13, 2013

There are a few remaining rational actors in the Republican party, and they have a problem.

They recognize that, as tarnished as their brand is now with young people, another 5 years of unmitigated climate change will cement the party’s place in history alongside Nero, if that’s not a done deal already.

For that reason, there is a lot of casting about for some kind of face-saving sideways approach to the climate issue, and one that has been steadily gaining currency is the “revenue neutral” carbon tax, or “fee and dividend” – in which taxes collected at mineshaft, port, or wellhead pass through instantly to citizens in the form of a monthly or annual “dividend” check. Former Secretary of State under Reagan George Schultz recently appeared on capitol hill in support of the idea.

NYTimes:

For the past few years, Mr. Shultz, an economist, has been studying energy policy at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He recently traded his hybrid car for an all-electric one, and he advocates a carbon tax to pay for the research and development of alternative energy sources. .. he said that Congress should pass a fee-and-dividend carbon tax that would remit revenues to consumers. The tax would be revenue-neutral, covering the cost of research and development for alternative energy sources without generating extra income for the government. But in Washington, where Republicans and Democrats are deeply divided over the size and scope of government, talk of new taxes and regulations is toxic. A carbon tax like the one Mr. Shultz supports has been proposed by Senators Barbara Boxer of California and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, although Mr. Shultz did not endorse their measure. Mr. Shultz, 92, spoke at an event sponsored by the Partnership for a Secure America, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington that wrote a letter warning Congress of the “staggering” cost of inaction. The letter included 38 signatures from a broad spectrum of former lawmakers, Cabinet secretaries, military and intelligence officials, and national security experts, including Mr. Shultz; Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state; and Richard G. Lugar, the former Republican senator for Indiana. Mr. Shultz was also a labor secretary, a budget director, a Treasury secretary and an adviser to President George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign. He is one of a trickle of Republicans who are challenging the party’s stance on climate change. He said that Republican presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to George Bush signed off on major environmental policies, like the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Clean Water Act. “Good work on conservation and the environment is in the Republican gene,” Mr. Shultz said. “We’ve been the guys who did it. So we’ve just got to get back to that

SFGate:

The Hill:

The oil industry, conservative groups and House GOP lawmakers will ramp up opposition to proposals that would strip industry tax breaks and impose taxes on industrial carbon emissions. – Their Capitol Hill press conference will feature lawmakers and groups like Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform and Americans for Prosperity, and discuss the “harmful impacts of a carbon tax on American families and small businesses,” an advisory states. The House lawmakers will introduce a resolution “opposing efforts to implement a national carbon tax.” — In a separate briefing Wednesday, the American Petroleum Institute will announce new efforts to ensure its tax incentives are protected in fiscal policy negotiations. The group, which is the oil-and-gas industry’s largest trade association, will announce a new TV ad campaign. The White House and many Democrats have for years been pushing to strip the petroleum industry’s ability to claim several tax deductions, calling them a multibillion-dollar taxpayer handout to an industry that doesn’t need it. But industry officials and their allies have beaten back the efforts thus far. They say that higher taxes on energy producers would slow what has been booming oil-and-gas production, harm job creation and unfairly single out their industry

.