A Free-Market Energy Blog

Real Politic: Carbon Tax Pessimism (Part I)

By Kenneth P. Green -- August 8, 2013

“The day after enactment, environmentalists will start calling for raising the carbon tax, decoupling it from revenue neutrality to finance more wind and solar boondoggles. And they’ll still want additional regulations to drive emissions down faster. If conservatives resist this, they’ll get the same ‘denier’ routine they get now.”

I first started working on climate policy in 1997, first in California, then Canada, and then in Washington, D.C. Having spent seven years inside the Beltway, I’ve now returned to Canada, working for the Fraser Institute on natural resource policy.

In the states, I watched the U.S. edge nearer-and-nearer to very bad climate policy, that being a mixture of cap-and-trade and ad hoc regulation. The inside-the-beltway “consensus” was that we were inevitably headed for national greenhouse gas (GHG) control legislation.

Study after study warned that national mitigation policies would cause significant economic damage, be regionally discriminatory, be economically regressive, and reduce U.S.

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Dear Australia: Replace the Carbon Tax with . . . NOTHING (don’t cream consumers at the credit casino)

By Viv Forbes -- August 7, 2013

“Australia’s proposed Emissions Trading System is a variable and unpredictable carbon tax…. ETS is complex in operation; encourages brokers, lawyers and speculators; and will drain our money to middlemen and into the European carbon credit casino. And it will create a growing army of vested interests who will forever oppose its abolition.”

Australia’s destructive carbon tax is in full political play this election season. “If this election is about anything, it is about the carbon tax,” opposition leader Tony Abbott stated this week. “Getting rid of the carbon tax is fundamental to our plan for a stronger economy.”

At his candidacy’s home page, Abbott states (and promises):

Repealing the Carbon Tax will ease cost of living pressures on families, help small business and restore confidence to the economy.

On day one, the Finance Minister will notify the Clean Energy Finance Corporation that it should suspend its operations and instruct the Department of Finance to prepare legislation to permanently shut-down the Corporation.

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Beyond Wind Spin: Miami Herald Should Get It Right

By Glenn Schleede -- August 6, 2013

“I would suggest that the owners of the “wind farms” that may not be able to sell all their output don’t deserve a lot of sympathy. They should have known the risks of investing in an industry that exists only because of massive tax breaks and subsidies and other unwise government policies.”

Mr. Graff: Thanks for your probably well-meaning [August 5th] story that bore the headline, “Newly Available Wind Power Often Has No Place to Go.” However, I wonder if you realize that the story was quite one-sided and likely misleading.

That tends to happen, unfortunately, when a “news” story is based heavily on information fed to reporters by lobbyists — in this case from the wind industry’s Washington-based lobbyists, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).

Please consider the following points:

Market Distortion.

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AWED Energy & Environmental Newsletter: August 5, 2013

By -- August 5, 2013
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Why U.S. Wind Installations Are Slowing

By -- August 3, 2013
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McCrory Cronyism: Republican Governor Saves Renewables Mandate

By Roy Cordato -- August 2, 2013
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Windaction News Issue: August 1, 2013

By -- August 1, 2013
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Milton Friedman on the Energy Crisis (and ObamaCare to come)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 31, 2013
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U.S. EPA’s Hyper Ozone Regulation: Deserved Pushback

By -- July 30, 2013
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Energy Tax Preferences: Rid Them All (Cato letter to House working group revisited)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 29, 2013
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