Suddenly, ‘Climate Change’ Groups Are Against A Revenue Neutral Carbon Tax

For several years now, many ‘climate change’ groups and individuals have been calling for revenue neutral carbon taxes, whereby citizens are reimbursed to cover the cost of living increases caused by the carbon taxes – you know, that cost if living increase which they said wouldn’t happen due to carbon taxes. Such big wig members of the Cult of Climastrology as James Hansen and Michael Mann have called for revenue neutral carbon taxes. What happens when someone tries to actually pass one? Well…

In twist, environmentalists fight proposed carbon tax – because it doesn’t grow gov’t

On paper, it looks like a big win for environmentalists: a ballot initiative in Washington state to make it the first in the nation to impose a tax on all carbon emissions.

Yet green groups are united almost in lockstep against the proposal – all because it includes tax cuts, to offset the tax hike.

Yoram Bauman, who authored Initiative 732 and generally sides with environmental groups that have claimed for years that greenhouse gasses are responsible for climate change, now says he’s shocked at the pushback he’s facing from these same organizations.

Huh. How about that

The turn of events has highlighted a curious aspect of the environmentalist coalition in the region: as much as these groups want to fight carbon emissions, they also want to make sure the money from any carbon tax is used primarily to boost the government’s clean-energy programs.

In other words, they really want the money funneled back to their own groups as well as increasing government control of the energy sector.

The tax would start out at $25 per ton and rise each year until hitting a cap of $100 a ton. Initially, it is projected to add 25 cents to the cost of every gallon of gasoline, increase air fares and raise utility bills — costing $2 billion a year. But this would be offset by cutting the state’s sales tax by 1 percent, lowering taxes for 400,000 working-class families and eliminating a tax on businesses that manufacture in Washington.

So, doing it this way would offset for citizens and small businesses, reducing economic harm. But

“It’s not only about reducing carbon,” said Rich Stolz of One America, a group that advocates for poor minorities. “It’s how we do it, and developing the kind of clean-energy economy we need.”

Stolz said he would have backed I-732 if it were a tax increase, funding government programs and new regulations on polluters.

So, wait, it’s not about reducing “carbon emissions”? It’s all about growing government? Well, that’s strange. If only someone had been writing about this.

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7 Responses to “Suddenly, ‘Climate Change’ Groups Are Against A Revenue Neutral Carbon Tax”

  1. Hank_M says:

    It’s always been a scam. And they’ve now admitted as much.

    Yup, the science is settled and it’s all greed and control.

  2. john says:

    World carbon pollution seems to have peaked in 2015.
    Teach if you ever travelled to Europe would would see that their roads and highways are in MUCH better condition than ours.
    We used to have the best. The only way they are going to get better is with massive money investments. Unless you and others are going to volunteer free labor.
    The USA is EXCEPTIONAL …… bit in a bad way. every pothole not fixed costs us money
    raise the taxes and fix them !!

  3. drowningpuppies says:

    …every pothole not fixed costs us me money
    raise the taxes and fix them !!

    Types the retard who drives a truck for a living.

  4. Dana says:

    John wrote:

    Teach if you ever travelled to Europe would would see that their roads and highways are in MUCH better condition than ours.

    I don’t know what part of Europe you were in, but I got back from Italy a month ago, and the roads sure aren’t better there than even in Pennsylvania, where we have some of the worst roads in the country.

    The roads in Italy are winding and narrow. The S2 highway out of Florence, which ought to be the equivalent of one of our interstates, does not have shoulders, only the occasional emergency pull-off. It’s narrow.

    On the ‘country’ roads, the Italians do not mow the grass along the side of the road, the result of that being that you often cannot see down the crossing roads at intersections.

    In cities, the roads are narrow and individual lanes unmarked; only the center line is marked. As a consequence, Italian drivers simply make their own lanes, and you get bottlenecks at intersections. About the only thing they do better are with roundabout intersections, and even some of those can be hairy.

  5. david7134 says:

    John,
    I am glad you made that observation and actually agree with you. In fact, I just got back from Korea and saw a third world country, that is the US. Now, consider that neither country has to spend that much on their military, though I would put the Korean military against the US any day with the Koreans likely winning, they don’t tolerate pussies. But, most of the time you only see primary roads as Dana has indicated. Now, where did the trillion dollars go that Obama spent on infrastructure? I can answer that, it was pay off to Dem politicians. Why are the Dems so crooked, like lyin, crooked Hillary?

  6. Dana says:

    Mr 7134 asked:

    Now, where did the trillion dollars go that Obama spent on infrastructure?

    I can at least tell you where it went around here! Mansion House Hill on US 209 was repaved, along with the addition of some new catch basins, in late 2009 with porkulus plan money. Thing is, that part of US 209 would have been repaved anyway, in another year or two. Thus, the porkulus plan funds paid for the job to be done one or two years early, which I suppose “created” a few jobs then, but then the jobs which would have been created to repave in 2010 of 2011 weren’t, because the work had already been done!

  7. david7134 says:

    I can give another experience with government spending. I have a friend that does highways. He built much of I49. In building it, he was discussing the issue with the Federal engineer and told him that the specs that they provided for the road would not work in Louisiana due to the swamp conditions, he was promptly told to build it anyway. In 5 years, the road was crumbling.

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