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The U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on the Climate Crisis is requesting information around policies that Congress should adopt to solve the climate crisis and adapt to the impacts of climate change. Committee staff told us they would welcome feedback from OEP experts. Four specific questions from the committee’s request for information are outlined below. We will compile and send to the committee substantive comments posted to this discussion by November 11. U.S. electricity generation from wind power is more than 7 times higher today than it was in 2017, and U.S. solar power generation is 100… [more]
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From attempts to bail out coal and nuclear to a Green New Deal, 2018 was an interesting year for energy policy. With a newly divided Congress taking office in January, it seems likely that disagreements regarding the future of the energy industry will continue in 2019, though there may be areas with potential for bipartisanship. Outside of the federal government, it can be expected that 2019 will continue the trend of many state and local governments, as well as private organizations, being active in shaping the direction of our energy sector. A major trend of 2018, which will continue into… [more]
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Senior Fellow
Niskanen Center
Conservative and progressive policy wonks agree: a carbon tax is the most promising of all tools to fight climate change. Such a tax would spur investments in green energy and encourage motorists to buy more electric cars. It would minimize the role of regulatory bureaucrats and maximize that of markets. What is not to love about a carbon tax? The sticking point is what to do with the billions of dollars of revenues such a tax would generate. Conservatives favor using the money for a revenue-neutral tax swap. Lower taxes on capital would encourage investment, lower payroll taxes would encourage… [more]
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Founder & CEO
The Idea Logical Company, Inc.
Although there is a broad consensus that we need to “price carbon” to enable markets to account for the external costs of burning fossil fuels, no proposed national carbon tax legislation has received significant traction since the failure of the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill in 2010. One formula, long advocated by the non-partisan Citizens’ Climate Lobby but never proposed as legislation, is to simply refund the tax revenue in equal shares to individuals. CCL proposed starting at $15 per ton (which equates to 15 cents per gallon of gas) with an annual increase of $10 a ton forever. CCL has been… [more]
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Consultant
Independent
The United States and world are facing a crisis of enormous magnitude if the global warming problem is not addressed properly. Every country in the world, except the current U.S. administration, supports the Paris climate agreement goal limiting the rise in global average surface temperature to 2°C (3.6°F). The consequences of failure could be a catastrophic future: Flooding from rising sea levels, more severe hurricanes/heat waves/wildfires, crop failures and droughts, and greater stress on an already aging infrastructure. Climate scientists generally agree carbon emissions should be reduced to near zero by mid-century to avert catastrophic global warming. But the voluntary… [more]
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President
Reishus Consulting, LLC
With American federal climate policy in retreat after President Trump announced his intention for the US to withdraw from the Paris Accords, where will climate change activists focus their efforts? While recent announcements coming from local politicians indicate that cities from Portland to Pittsburgh, plus many states, are intent on moving forward with strategies to decarbonize, corporations form a key sector whose willingness to embrace strategies to avoid corporate climate risk matters greatly. Do shareholder activists play a critical role in forcing large businesses, especially those firms holding fossil fuel assets, to acknowledge risks and adopt strategies that directly address… [more]
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Managing Director
The Roda Group
Climate change poses a threat to the safety and prosperity of America’s and the world’s citizens. Every major scientific academy agrees that global warming is real, is mostly caused by humans, and requires urgent action. The signs of climate change are all around us. For example, the volume of the summer Arctic sea ice has dropped about 70% in the past 30 years and global temperatures have set records for the past 3 years in a row. And while most world leaders and climate scientists agree that we should not let the world warm more than +2ºC, we are on… [more]
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Member
U.S. House of Representatives
Climate change is a threat to our environment and our economy, and we cannot afford the risk of inaction. With our free market economy, the best solution is a simple, transparent tax on carbon that unleashes the power of the market and enables America to lead the way toward a new, clean energy economy. Importantly, a carbon tax produces revenues that can be used to help American businesses and families. But there are many options for how to use these revenues. Critics of carbon taxes frequently cite slower economic growth, increasing taxes on the poor, and hurting coal workers as… [more]
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Principal
Perelman Group
Jesse Jenkins (MIT) and Matthew Stepp (Center for Clean Energy Innovation) are among a number of policy analysts who have called for a “tax and invest” strategy to combat global warming. That is: A modest tax on carbon emissions would be invested in government research, development, and innovation-promotion programs to commercialize new alternative energy technology. But in a recent article I have argued there are at least four reasons to question whether typical government technology programs would be as cost-effective an investment as Jenkins and others claim: 1. The government role in innovation is neither necessary nor sufficient. Of the… [more]
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Visiting Fellow
Hudson Institute
A number of scholars, from the left and the right have floated versions of a carbon tax. Henry Paulson has also weighed in, favoring a tax. In theory, a uniform comprehensive carbon tax enforced among all major global emitters might have great advantages. Such a tax, if linked to a stringent accounting system, could be more transparent than any other approach to greenhouse gas control. In contrast to command-and-control schemes, a tax would target abatement resources to where they would be most cost-effective. A tax, unlike the 2009 cap-and-trade bill, would make it harder for proponents to falsely promise both… [more]
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