PRG in the News

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The Washington Post: Advantages of a Carbon Fee

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The No. 1 reason that a carbon fee (or tax) has political potential is that it offers Congress flexibility. Lawmakers could opt for the Shultz and Summers’s proposal and treat all their constituents to a quarterly dividend. Or they could use the sizable revenue such a fee would generate to reduce the high corporate tax rate or some other tax. Yet another option is to plow that money into infrastructure, aid for coal-dependent communities, clean energy and other priorities.

Like Congress, the business community can also see value in such a fee, as illustrated by the support of General Motors, ExxonMobil, Procter & Gamble and other major corporations. Its simplicity, efficiency and reliance on the free market make a carbon fee superior to other climate-change solutions, and business executives are not in denial about the changing climate. Let’s hope that the business community will use its influence to convince Congress that pricing carbon is not only good for Americans’ health but is also smart economics and smart politics.

William C. Eacho, Washington

The writer is co-founder of the Partnership for Responsible Growth.

 

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E&E Daily: Renewables, carbon tax feel the love at D.C. march

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Marchers carried tiny wind model turbines to the White House on Saturday, along with banners supporting solar energy, carbon taxes and pipeline resistance.

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Climatewire: Exxon and a Carbon Tax

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Exxon Mobil Corp. commands attention and gets it.

So energy and climate experts naturally took notice last week when CEO Darren Woods said charging a fee on greenhouse gases across the United States is a good idea.

"A uniform price of carbon applied consistently across the economy is a sensible approach to emissions reduction," Woods said in a statement (Climatewire, Feb. 24).

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Washington Post: The Crisis of Climate Change

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Dear Editor,

If the president is open to taking the advice in Todd Stern’s Jan. 25 op-ed, “The deal of the century on climate,” he should do so by pursuing the one option that would also help him deliver on tax reform and infrastructure. That option is a carbon fee, which a large majority of economists (and our incoming secretary of state) say is the quickest, most efficient and most potent solution to climate change. If Congress finally puts a price on carbon emissions, the free market will drive down the use of carbon. That’s what Canada is doing

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Washington Post: Carbon Taxes Do Work

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Dear Editor,

If letter-writer Blane Morse wants to give nuclear power a boost, he should be singing the praises of a carbon tax instead of criticizing it [“Nuclear power, not a carbon tax, can stop global warming,” letters, Nov. 1]. Today, nuclear power is not cost-competitive in part because we subsidize fossil fuels, which do not cover their external costs. Impose a carbon fee at a significant level ($30 or more) to remove that subsidy, and nuclear would become competitive again.

Minneapolis Star Tribune: Climate Change: 5 Reasons Why the U.S. Should Enact a Carbon Fee

The paper is piling up at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan is in the cross hairs of half the states, and judges are plowing through briefs filed by more than 1,000 trade associations, lawmakers, advocacy groups and others with a point of view.