I expect (hope) 2016 will be the last GOP presidential primary where many — if not most — candidates feel compelled to publicly dismiss the potential dangers of climate change and need for action. The science rolls on. If I only had as much evidence for my prediction. That said, I’m sure there will be a bit of hubbub about some new Jeb Bush climate comments because he only downplayed the risks of a much hotter planet rather than summarily dismissing them as the products of a vast, left-wing, scientific hoax. Bush, via the Washington Post:
“The climate is changing. I don’t think the science is clear on what percentage is man-made and what percentage is natural. It’s convoluted,” he told roughly 150 people at a house party here Wednesday night. “And for the people to say the science is decided on this is just really arrogant, to be honest with you. It’s this intellectual arrogance that now you can’t have a conversation about it even.” … Bush said that climate change should be just “part of, a small part of prioritization of our foreign policy.” He suggested that the United States should encourage countries that have higher carbon emissions rates to reduce them. But, he added, “We’ve had a pretty significant decrease and we’ll continue on, not because of Barack Obama, but because of the energy revolution.” He credited hydraulic fracking, horizontal drilling and an increased use of natural gas for helping cut American carbon emissions. “I don’t think it’s the highest priority,” he said of climate change, “I don’t think we should ignore it, either.
Now that stance — encourage other nations to lower emissions by fracking, I guess — as I read it, seems a step backward from where Mitt Romney was during his last presidential run. Here is Romney on the stump in 2011: ”Do I think the world’s getting hotter? Yeah, I don’t know that but I think that it is. “I don’t know if it’s mostly caused by humans. What I’m not willing to do is spend trillions of dollars on something I don’t know the answer to.”
Not much there that’s different from Bush today. Yet in his campaign book, No Apology, Romney spent considerable time explaining the pros and cons of a carbon tax-payroll tax swap — a plan favored by economist and Romney adviser Greg Mankiw and many other Republican-leaning economists — before concluding “a great deal of work needs remains to be done if it is to become a viable option.” I can’t imagine that take is a viable option for GOP 2016ers today, much less supporting a cap-and-trade plan like John McCain did in 2008.
But if some Republican wants to break out of the existing policy box (the climate is changing, man’s contribution is uncertain, China won’t act so why should we?) a few of my AEI colleagues just released a budget plan that does include this version of a carbon tax, a kind of carbon tax-energy regulation/subsidy swap:
Subsidies for ethanol and other alternative fuels would be abolished, but basic research on renewable energy would be funded on the same stringent terms as other basic research. As we have discussed, business and household energy tax credits would be abolished. Regulations designed to lower greenhouse gas emissions would be repealed. In place of these measures, a tax on greenhouse gas emissions (“carbon tax”) would be imposed. The tax would take effect in 2018 at a rate of $4 per metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent. The tax would thereafter increase at the rate of increase of the chain-weighted CPI plus 2 percent per year. The tax rate is intended to approximate the domestic social cost of carbon. In the absence of a binding and operative international agreement to curtail emissions, the United States should curb only those emissions that can be eliminated at a cost below the domestic social cost of carbon. For this reason, the rate we propose is significantly lower than commonly proposed by others.
I also recommend this Vox piece, “The arguments that convinced a libertarian to support aggressive action on climate.”
from AEI » Latest Content http://ift.tt/1Gs2FJf
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