There are obviously lots and lots of thinly veiled opinion pieces and stated opinion pieces running through the news with last Friday’s release of a ‘climate change’ study. It’s a yearly thing, as at least one Big Study is released shortly before the late November/early December UN IPCC Conference On the Parties meeting. The NY Times has multiple pieces, including Paul Krugman is yammering about the “depravity of climate change denial.” Hmm. In my opinion, if you haven’t given up your own use of fossil fuels but say you believe in anthropogenic climate change, then you’re actually a denier
The Washington Post has multiple pieces, including the Editorial Board of a paper which uses vast amounts of fossil fuels and has a big carbon footprint for their news operations, stating that future Americans won’t forget Trump and the GOP’s climate negligence. And then we come to Catherine Rampell pimping one of my favorites, the notion that carbon taxes are totes free market
Republicans say they want free-market innovation. Then they should want a carbon tax.
(lots of paragraphs of doom and gloom and what she calls “Republican excuse making”)
On NBC’s “Meet the Press,†Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) also acknowledged that “the burning of fossil fuels†isn’t the “healthiest for Planet Earth.†Asked if he supported a carbon tax, though, he said no. The reason: “If we’re going to move away from fossil fuels, it’s got to be done through innovation. And innovation can be choked out through excessive government regulation.â€
Here’s the thing. Taxing carbon is exactly how you get faster innovation. That’s kinda the point.
A carbon tax prices in, upfront, the hidden costs of burning fossil fuels, including pollution and the warming of the planet. In the near-term, a carbon tax disincentivizes the purchase of carbon-intensive products, of course. But over the longer-term, it also increases demand for — and thereby incentivizes the development of — cleaner, less-carbon-intensive technologies. If you want to accelerate innovation in batteries, electric cars, solar, wind, etc., a carbon tax is a no-brainer.
See? A carbon tax is totally free market! And it has nothing to do with Government trying to harm one sector while helping another!
Additionally, if Republicans truly want to walk the walk on reducing “excessive government regulation,†there’s plenty for them to do. There are tons of regulations and subsidies that  encourage use of fossil fuels — and slow down innovation in greener technologies.
There are, for instance, the enormous tax breaks and other subsidies for oil and coal. Or Trump’s proposed bailouts for failing coal plants. Or his tariffs on solar panels.
Policymakers could also take action to crush the NIMBYism that impedes offshore wind farms. Or they could discourage or even preempt lots of other stupid state and local rules and regulations. These include building codes that inhibit solar, or the unstandardized, jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction permitting process that makes installation more difficult.
All of which is to say that prioritizing innovation and the cutting of red tape are not actually an excuse for inaction on climate change. In fact, they’re key to the solution.
On one hand, she has a point: there are lots and lots of government rules and regulations at the federal, state, and local level that make things difficult for commerce. On the other, most of those tax breaks are the same ones other companies use. They aren’t specific for oil and coal. The tariffs are because China has been dumping cheap panels in the U.S. in order to undercut U.S. solar panel makers. Most of the wind farm NIMBYism comes from coastal elites who say they believe in man-caused climate change and vote Democrat.
Slapping massive federal regulations on states and municipalities doesn’t quite sound free market, does it? Nor does a government run carbon tax.
