[Note: This post has been superceded by Under Further Review …]

ExxonMobil’s new corporate position in favor of carbon taxes, reported today by the Wall Street Journal, is not entirely unexpected. It is the result of a policy drift of recent years toward compromise and appeasement with the company’s political critics.

But I doubt that ExxonMobil has bought into alarmism. Back at Enron, where I was director of public policy analysis, we didn’t necessarily buy into climate alarmism but we welcomed the public’s concern because we had seven profit centers (see pp. 3–4) that stood to benefit. ExxonMobil, the anti-Enron, has not set itself up as a rent-seeker, but it apparently wants a seat at the policy table given the perceived choice between a carbon tax and a carbon cap-and-trade scheme.…

Today’s Houston Chronicle has two takes on the recent decision by hometown Dynegy to pull back from participating in the construction of new coal plants and concentrate on expanding capacity at its existing plants.…

An article in today’s Houston Chronicle, “Debate Flares over How to Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions,” compares the relative merits of a carbon tax and cap-and-trade. We will be hearing a lot about these two approaches in the weeks and months ahead.

But the Chronicle article did not consider the other major alternative: neither a tax nor a cap-and-trade program.…

After agreement was reached in December 1997 on the Kyoto Protocol, its supporters pronounced that major carbon reductions were feasible and probable. Just do it, as the Nike commercial said. Build it and they will come, as the Field of Dreams movie said. And during the eight years of George W. Bush, Kyoto supporters complained mightily that we were leaving dollars on the ground, so to speak, while running out of climate and time.

Now under Obama…