If I understand the objection, it's that they (4.00 / 2)

identify themselves as EPA employees, which the EPA states that in spite of their disclaimer, could potentially mislead viewers into thinking this is the EPA's official view?

That's enormously disappointing but, given the amount of resistance to cap-and-trade (which I also oppose, and for similar reasons - I think there should be a carbon tax because IMHO, cap-and-trade gives gross polluters a way out of paying the penalty for their pollution), I guess the EPA doesn't want to further alarm businesses large and small.

But the EPA wants to know about any future communications they might issue before they issue them? That's downright Bushian.

Attention, lobbyists! Ownership of other persons is not legal. You must release all elected officials immediately!

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by: OtterSpotter @ Sat Nov 14, 2009 at 20:25:06 PM UTC

As Ruch Put It To Me (4.00 / 2)

Message control and transparency are diametrically opposed to each other.

As I see it, however, that doesn't mean they're always in equal tension--the more you respect the results of a transparent process, the more in harmony with it your message will be.

On the subject level, though, for me it's really just as simple as "polluter pays."  Why try to get all fancy when you really don't have to?

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Sat Nov 14, 2009 at 20:40:08 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Self-fulfilling prophecy? (0.00 / 0)

The real problem, of course, is that--just like with health care reform--there's way too much money being made and to be made by those who are causing the problem in the first place.  So actual solutions are not really wanted--so much so that they are simply dismissed as "not politically feasible."

I'm really not intending to be picky, but we've barely just begun on the climate change debate. What advantage is there of saying now that this is not politically feasible?

Seems to me these people offer an extraordinarily good and realistic solution. Perhaps progressives can build on it.

Perhaps those in positions to do so will learn from the error of health care reform. I am referring to the early abandoment of single payer.

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by: Upward and Onward @ Sat Nov 14, 2009 at 21:01:37 PM UTC

Not Really (4.00 / 4)

The climate change bill is as far along as the health care bill.  It's just received far less coverage.

In both cases, the superior general framework was excluded from consideration early on.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Sat Nov 14, 2009 at 22:09:18 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Cap-and-Trade, Offset Confustion -- Picking the Right Battles (4.00 / 3)

Everyone who thinks this through realizes that offsets are a bad idea.  I'm glad this video clearly separates cap-and-trade from offsets, but I think many still confuse the two.  People need to realize that offsets have nothing to do with cap-and-trade.  Offsets are in the bill due to the wishes of industry.  If the bill were a tax like the couple prefer, odds are congress would still put in offsets, which could easily work in exactly the same way.  Despite their separation, the video overall adds to this confusion.

The most annoying aspect of the tax versus cap-and-trade debate is a real cap-and-trade bill is before congress, with all the flaws real bills have, but carbon tax advocates get compare that bill to idealized version of their preferred solution.

At this point, I think pushing back against cap-and-trade is highly unproductive.  Instead, we should be pushing against the two fundamental flaws these bills have:

1) Carbon vouchers cannot be given away like they were in Europe.  Giving the vouchers away still raises the price of energy, but do little to curb carbon production.  Economists understand why this is and it has been proven in the field; I still don't get it, personally, but facts are facts.

2) Offsets must not be allowed.  As this couple apply demonstrates, they do not work as advertised.  In fact, they often make other carbon reduction plans harder to implement.

I encourage activists focus on these two points, but not get distracted by cap-and-trade itself.  These are the reason why cap-and-trade doesn't work that well, but they are fixable.  Starting from scratch with a carbon tax would have its own set of flaws that would need to be fought, thus accomplishing very little other than lost time.

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by: Mark Matson @ Sat Nov 14, 2009 at 21:11:30 PM UTC

This is exactly right (4.00 / 1)

the real argument is about whether or not we should monetize carbon, and how much we do so.  Whether the mechanism for this is cap and trade or a carbon tax, to me, is pretty immaterial.  Both of these proposals could be written very, very badly, and both of them could include pretty toxic loopholes.  Let's get the best cap and trade bill we have, rather than tilt at this stupid windmill, since a carbon tax could end up just as bad anyway.  

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by: Valatan @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 00:46:31 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Best Real Arguement For Carbon Tax (4.00 / 3)

Despite what I wrote above, I'd like to point out this video makes the base real case for a carbon tax over cap-and-trade I've heard.

Their argument is a carbon tax produces easy to understand pricing, which makes it easy for investors to calculate the value of a new technology.  Investors can calculate exact date that a new technology will be cost effective compared to carbon fuels.  Cap-and-trade, however, leaves prices more volatile, making investment less assured.

That is a real argument that gets at the heart of the real difference between the two techniques and it is worth thinking about.

Almost every other argument, though, gets back to comparing an idealized plan to a real plan.  Most of the advantages they give for a carbon tax could be implemented in cap-and-trade as well.  For example, review could be redistributed back to the people in a cap-and-trade just as easily as in a tax.  

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by: Mark Matson @ Sat Nov 14, 2009 at 21:21:28 PM UTC

This Comment I Agree With Much More Than The Former (4.00 / 3)

The carbon tax is actually a far superior market-supporting mechanism.  Cap-and-trade not only fails to produce the same level of clarity and certainty about future price structures, it actively invites the formation of destabilizing speculative markets... which already have been problematic for existing cap-and-trade systems.  (That's part of the story of what happened to RECLAIM, for example.)

That said, of course I agree entirely that's unfair to compare an ideal version of one approach to a politically compromised version of another.  But given that cap-and-trade is inherently less desirable, with a built-in invitation to speculation, it also seems much more vulnerable to being compromised in the first place.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Sat Nov 14, 2009 at 22:07:18 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I am sure that progressives, if they governed, could write a cap and trade bill that works. (0.00 / 0)

The problem is that we are not governing in the largest sense. We are only negotiating with psychopaths and sociopaths for solutions that do not kill us all right now, as opposed to kill us all later this week.

I cannot discern a system of carbon taxes that is inherently more fair, more effective and less capable of being used as both: a cudgel to beat us all into financial submission, a way to avoid meeting necessary atmospheric levels at points of time in the future.


--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

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by: HousesofProgress @ Sat Nov 14, 2009 at 22:17:15 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Cap-And-Trade Inherently Adds Another Level of Speculation (0.00 / 0)

There's just no way around that.  You can make it more difficult to speculate, as some regulators have done. But the financial sector nowadays knows that you don't have to speculate directly if regulators make that too difficult.  What you're doing, essentially, is giving them a foothold that they wouldn't have with a carbon tax system.  You're making it easier to game.

Sure we could make it a much better system than it's headed toward being, but even at its best it would be second best.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Sat Nov 14, 2009 at 22:37:00 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Speculation (0.00 / 0)

Cap-and-trade ... actively invites the formation of destabilizing speculative markets... which already have been problematic for existing cap-and-trade systems.

Paul Krugman did an effective job dismissing this argument last July:

But there's also, it seems, growing opposition to cap-and-trade from people who should be on the side of progress - but whose reaction is basically "Eek! Markets!Wall Street! Speculation! Bad!"

We don't need this.

So let me talk a bit about why this reaction is 99% wrong, and bad for the planet...

So, should fear of speculation lead us to ban trading in wheat? Nobody would say that. Yes, sometimes speculators will get it wrong - but the advantages of having a wheat market vastly overshadow the possible harm that may sometimes come from speculation.

Now substitute "emission permits" for wheat. It's exactly the same story. Why should you address it any differently? Yet as Joe Romm tells us, Sen. Byron Dorgan - who I suspect kind of favors allowing the market in wheat to operate - warns against cap and trade because it would offer too many opportunities to the "Wall Street crowd." And that same line is, unfortunately, being echoed by a number of progressives.

This is really bad - it's not a case of the perfect being the enemy of the good, it's a case of the perfect being an enemy of the planet.

But wait - don't we have examples of energy markets being manipulated by speculators? Yes - but the proposed cap-and-trade system would NOT reproduce the conditions of those markets...

By all means keep a watchful eye on speculators and regulate derivatives - and make market manipulation illegal, as Waxman-Markey does. But don't apply standards to emissions trading that you don't apply to any other market.

The solution to climate change must rely to an important extent on market mechanisms - it's too complex an issue to deal with using command-and-control. That means accepting that some people will make money out of trading - and that yes, sometimes trading will go bad. So? We've got a planet at stake; it's crazy to cut off our future to spite Goldman Sachs's face.

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by: Mark Matson @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 02:32:00 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Krugman's Fine As A Teacher Here (4.00 / 2)

But I already know that stuff.

What he's not looking at is more along the lines of institutionalism--which is as much sociology as economics--and culture, which is more anthropology.

And the simple fact is that (a) wheat futures have been around a lot longer, (b) they derive from an inherently less volatile underlying commodity, (c) their markets were not first established in a time of rampant speculative excess beyond the bounds of criminality, and--most important of all--(d) there isn't an obvious alternative for them that's analogous to the carbon tax.

Believe me, if there had been a serious crackdown on Wall Street as soon as the Dems took over last January, I'd feel a whole lot less nervous about this whole idea, but given the history of the last three decades--from the S&L crisis onwards--I'd still have serious doubts.  And (d) would be the clincher for me in finding Krugman's arguments wanting, not for being wrong, but for being off point.

Still, all of this would be secondary to my argument below about why a carbon tax is superior--because of how much better it can handle its most likely failure mode.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 02:59:59 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

The rebate and other comments (0.00 / 0)

You are making excellent points. I wholeheartedly agree with your first comment that activists should not push back, if I'm interpreting you correctly, on the cap and trade bill that passed the House. Instead we should begin an educational campaign explaining flaws in the bill, with the primary flaw being the inclusion of offsets.

I also like this in your second comment:

Their argument is a carbon tax produces easy to understand pricing, which makes it easy for investors to calculate the value of a new technology.  Investors can calculate exact date that a new technology will be cost effective compared to carbon fuels.  Cap-and-trade, however, leaves prices more volatile, making investment less assured.

If we make investors, or energy producers, the enemy, we will lose. They are an important ingredient in the overall change we seek. We must, instead, seek cooperation with the overall goal of reducing our reliance on fossil fuels.

Finally, the video's suggestion to offer rebates to energy consumers, paid for by the tax, is what jumped out at me as most problematic. This can be construed as redistribution of wealth.

An important part of the educational campaign would have to explain how these rebates will help stabilize the market for producers/investors, as it keeps energy affordable to consumers. This is an argument beyond my state of knowledge, but no doubt someone could make it. The argument should also include, as the video states, that rising prices will remain as an incentive for consumers to conserve, but the rebates will help.

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by: Upward and Onward @ Sat Nov 14, 2009 at 22:09:40 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I am not happy with the censorship, but not convinced with their arguments. At all. (0.00 / 0)

There is NOTHING in the difference between the two methodologies that makes one or the other more progressive, more "green" or would make a greater difference in reducing carbon.censorship

Imagine that two pieces of sheet metal are held together with a bolt and nut
If one wanted to take the two sheets apart the screw and nut, or more technically for the well versed a "bolt" and nut, you would hold the nut in place, and turn the screw (bolt)until the two items were no longer conjoined and the twin sheets of sheet metal could be separated.

Arguing about which to turn, the "bolt" or the nut, is just as appropriate to this debate.

I support cap and trade in this description because it focuses directly on the polluter, establishes the "concept" of polluter pay and could easily be set up to transfer polluter paying directly to buying wind generators for example, and not general revenue.

The other benefit of cap and trade is that it sets specific points of accomplishment, reductions that can be measured, while taxation MAY reduce carbon use, it could onj the other hand set up lots of reduction avoiding price increases. To say the system of "rebates" for carbon taxes is without pitfalls of complexity and corruption is silly.

No system is barricaded against bluedogs or Exxon.

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

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by: HousesofProgress @ Sat Nov 14, 2009 at 21:59:34 PM UTC

please ignore the floating word "censorship" in the above first paragraph. (0.00 / 0)

There is NOTHING in the difference between the two methodologies that makes one or the other more progressive, more "green" or would make a greater difference in reducing carbon. censorship

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

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by: HousesofProgress @ Sat Nov 14, 2009 at 22:06:36 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Nice Metaphor, But It Doesn't Map (0.00 / 0)

As Mark notes above in his second comment, and I pound home a bit, carbon taxes create a much more transparent and stable price structure that provides a much better environment for promoting green energy investments.  Cap-and-trade credits, in contrast, are an open invitation to speculative distortions, on top of the speculation that already plagues energy markets in the first place. (And which will also plague carbon tax systems, too, of course.  I'm not trying to argue that there's any perfect system here, only one that doesn't add another layer of speculative volatility.)

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Sat Nov 14, 2009 at 22:15:44 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Agreed, with an emphasis on greed, that there is room for "speculation" and other (0.00 / 0)

nefarious tricks of asshats who control our finacial systems to bend whatever system is devised to their will, and not the will of the democracy.

I doubt, again, that either system is inherently walled off from such twisted misuse. Most importantly because they control far too many members of congress. With healthcare, as we know wjhat th3e issues are, we have been able to scrape "some" reform out of the hallucinatory circus in Washington, but when the not as well motivated congress, and the not as well informed progressive blogitovians, and the not as convinced general public have less influence over the kleptocracy, the result may not bge as pretty.

Citing older examples is less than useful in describing what doesnt work, unless you are merely citing the effects of corruption.

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

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by: HousesofProgress @ Sat Nov 14, 2009 at 22:25:38 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I do NOT have to watch or read anything. I PAY gov't (0.00 / 0)

employees to do their job.

I EXPECT American Citizens to do their job to petition government for redress of grievance, and, if those citizens have inside info from working inside, then it is even MORE important for them to petition for redress of grievance.

Of course some asshole bureaucrat tried to muzzle them!
I know, I'm warped cuz I don't define 'consent of the governed' the way some asshole bureaucrat does!

"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."

Can the UN-American muzzlers be found and shipped off to china to work for their government?

rmm.  

It is too full o' the milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way

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by: seabos84 @ Sat Nov 14, 2009 at 22:12:02 PM UTC

Europe is and has been moving on carbon levels for a long time, with cap and trade. (0.00 / 0)

"[W]e have had in the European Union now almost a decade and a half to two decades of reflection on what needs to be done on climate change. The Europeans made a deliberate choice not to go for carbon taxes. We had a discussion on carbon taxes. We have a standing tradition on energy taxation, but we were making a deliberate choice for emissions trading, emissions trading primarily among actors within the EU but also with an openness to link up with those mechanisms created under the Kyoto system and with those, wherever in the world, who would develop similar trading systems."
- Jos Delbeke, Director, Climate Change and Air, Delegation of the European Commission to Canada, House of Commons Committee on C-30, 13 February 2008

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

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by: HousesofProgress @ Sat Nov 14, 2009 at 22:46:50 PM UTC

So? (4.00 / 2)

Europe is not always right.

Anyone even vaguely familiar with French rappers knows that.

And Abba?

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Sat Nov 14, 2009 at 23:37:48 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Tip: (4.00 / 1)

Letting the most corrupt governmental body within a six light-year radius pick your policies is not the best idea.

European co-operation is a noble goal to strive towards. The European Commission is a monumentally corrupt body whose only aim is to foster a race towards the bottom.

Compare and contrast.

Forgotten Countries - a foreign policy-focused blog

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by: Englishlefty @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 14:33:34 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I do not suggest that Europe is Utopia (0.00 / 0)

I am saying that people who have been working on this, who are getting reductions, who have targets and are meeting them, are using cap and trade. It CAN work, switichi9ng to a carbon tax is not a panacea, and has its own uniquley lovely ways to screw us over. For example, since it makes everything more expensive, almost literally everything, the proponents suggest, rebates to the poor and middle class. What is Americas historical trend line with using taxes to transfer money from the rich to the poor?

I am saying that ANY system can be used to screw us over, under and dead.  

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

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by: HousesofProgress @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 21:33:48 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

The difference between cap-and-trade and carbon tax (0.00 / 0)

Just as a reminder, the difference between (idealized) cap-and-trade and a carbon tax is almost non-existent.  Both reduce carbon production by taxing carbon.  Most of the complicated implementation issues, like how to measure carbon output, for example, are exactly the same.  The only real difference is:

1) Cap-and-trade sets the total amount of carbon reduction and uses market forces to determine the price of carbon.

2) A carbon tax sets the price of carbon and uses market forces to determine the total amount of carbon reduction.

That's it.  Both use the free market to equalize the cost of carbon with the amount of carbon reduction.  Neither uses free markets more or less than the other and both have market speculations.

One can debate the value of one versus the other forever but they are almost identical in how they work.  Cap-and-trade is slightly better for international treaties as one can easily set the carbon production for specific years and the other is slightly better at stabilizing prices.  Real progressives, experts in how this work, have argued and debated back and forth for years on which is better.  Anyone looking will have no trouble finding people they trust on each side of the debate.

The biggest difference between the two is progressives have been promoting cap-and-trade for years and have a (yes, flawed) bill already passed in the House and another out of committee in the Senate.  A carbon tax, though, would require restarting the fight from ground zero.

Personally, I've changed my mind on which I prefer several times over the past year.  This video did a good job getting me to change back to preferring the carbon tax, whereas for the past few months I've come down on the side of cap-and-trade.  But this preference is mild, nothing compared to my preference of getting an actual bill passed versus doing nothing for another few years.

So I say again, we should spend our energy on the flaws of the bills, not the entire premise.  Even if we had a carbon tax, it would still have flaws almost exactly the same in nature as these bills.  There is no reason to waste time and energy on points that reasonable people can disagree on when there are huge flaws that need to be corrected where everyone should be in full agreement.

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by: Mark Matson @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 02:15:17 AM UTC

There's An Elephant InThe Room You Seem To Be Missing, Mark (4.00 / 1)

The only real difference is:

1) Cap-and-trade sets the total amount of carbon reduction and uses market forces to determine the price of carbon.

2) A carbon tax sets the price of carbon and uses market forces to determine the total amount of carbon reduction.

While (2) superficially appears to be superior, since it directly sets the carbon reduction goals, (1) is actually superior, because the tax phase-in can much more realistically provide a sound foundation for investments in clean energy.

In other words, if you set the reduction levels, but then don't get enough clean energy investment, you're either gong to have to abandon the reduction levels, or else have a really nasty fight (probably lots of them, actually) on your hands.

OTOH, if you set the price of carbon, and the incentives aren't producing investments quickly enough, you can tweak the price.

In short, while I think you're assuming that I'm taking an ideological position, the truth is exactly the opposite: In an ideal world, I would agree with you in supporting cap-and-trade (for GHGs, that is).  But given the nature of the most probable failure modes, I support carbon taxes because failures are much more readily fixable.


"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 02:49:42 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

cap and trade vs carbon tax -- not the same at all (0.00 / 0)

i'm so sorry i don't have the time to go through this now, but if you are interested, i'll give you a few links:

James Hansen's written testimony to the Committee on Ways and Means United States House of Representatives, 25 February 2009: "Carbon Tax & 100% Dividend vs. Tax & Trade"

Congressional Budget Office, February 2008" "Policy Options for Reducing CO2 Emissions"

lots more good info at hansen's website, but i highly recommend his written testimony above. it's a short, easy read and a great intro.

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by: selise @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 12:55:36 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Dividend (0.00 / 0)

This testimony focuses on the lack of dividend in the proposed cap-and-trade.  The other point boils down to what I put as my #1 thing to fight against in my original post:

1) Carbon vouchers cannot be given away like they were in Europe.  Giving the vouchers away still raises the price of energy, but do little to curb carbon production.  Economists understand why this is and it has been proven in the field; I still don't get it, personally, but facts are facts.

I almost put the dividend as the third point in my original post and see how it might belong.  (The alternative is to spend the money on alternate energy sources.)

There is nothing about cap-and-trade that prevents dividends.  That is a matter of how the revenue is spent, not the mechanism of collecting it.

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by: Mark Matson @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 03:20:02 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

not just dividend (4.00 / 1)

the cbo report shows how the tax is more efficient for lowering emissions for the same price. the more uncertainty, the more the tax shines.

tax and dividend is simple, easy to explain to the public. and more difficult for special interests to game.

with tax and dividend there are no financial products to mess with our already screwed up financial markets.

p.s. thanks for reading the link!

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by: selise @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 09:44:41 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Allocation windfalls (0.00 / 0)

Economists understand why this is and it has been proven in the field; I still don't get it, personally, but facts are facts.

The basic idea is that if you're given a windfall allocation you still book it as an asset. (In his CBO days Orzsag said the government budget should have to account for free allocations as assets it simply gave away. I don't know if he still says that now.)

So if you use it to emit, you're still going to book some level of opportunity cost of not having sold it instead, and try to raise your prices to make up for that foregone revenue.

Here's a good Point Carbon study on what happened in Europe:

http://assets.panda.org/downlo...


http://attempter.wordpress.com

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by: Russ @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 14:07:20 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Size of Effect (0.00 / 0)

I get all that but remain unconvinced the difference is that extreme.  I believe the difference would need to be very extreme to warrant taking our eyes off the ball on what really matters: fighting offsets, primarily.  It is all a matter of prioritizing ones resources.  I think it is a very bad idea to spend effort and resources rejecting the gains already made in order to make a relatively marginal improvement.

Even in that video and linked interviews they spend very little real effort criticizing cap-and-trade.  Most of the energy is directed against offsets.

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by: Mark Matson @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 04:49:39 AM UTC

Opps, size of elephant (0.00 / 0)

That was supposed to be in response to Paul's "There's An Elephant InThe Room You Seem To Be Missing," above.

I've got several more debate points and ramblings on the subject, but I think I've made my point.  Paul and those who wish to denounce cap-and-trade have a very high bar to clear when convincing me or (I hope) the activist community that the opportunity cost of throwing away the gains we've made on cap-and-trade are worth it.

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by: Mark Matson @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 05:16:37 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

thanks for the diary, and the video did a good job of explaining (4.00 / 1)

1. the carbon offsets are a bad, bad, bad idea

it must be a carbon industry idea?

2. I like the rebating of the carbon tax
we can keep saying that to those that say 'energy costs will rise, people can't afford that'

3. one thing I didn't understand was this, the bold part:

To keep this affordable for the average consumer, the vast majority of the fees, and potentially all of them, could be returned to consumers, to individuals, in monthly per person rebates. And what this would mean is that if you only use the average amount of fossil fuels, you would not be in an economically worse position. But if you use more, you would be paying at a much higher rate. So people would have a huge incentive to cut back.

can someone explain me this incentive mechanism?

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by: The Big Hurt @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 05:21:14 AM UTC

Sure (4.00 / 2)

Basically, the government taxes X per pound of carbon produced.  They then take all the revenue generated from the tax, divide it by the number of people in the country, and send each person a monthly check.

You, the American citizen, pays more each month for energy and gets a monthly check.  If your carbon usage is exactly average then the check and the additional cost balance each other out; you are even.  However, if you cut back on carbon usage, you get a little extra money out of it.

The important point is these checks are not rebates for your particular usage, so you personally get more money if you use less carbon.

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by: Mark Matson @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 08:05:30 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

got it (0.00 / 0)

thanks!

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by: The Big Hurt @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 16:55:11 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Tweaks vs. Loopholes (4.00 / 1)

One problem with this, of course, is that some consumers have very little control, and could be heavily socked.  So it would be nice to be able to tweak some things.

But given the current political reality, the result would almost certainly (99.999999% probability) be loopholes benefiting perpetrators as opposed to improved equity.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 17:22:22 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

"not politically feasible" and " (0.00 / 0)

The real problem, of course, is that--just like with health care reform--there's way too much money being made and to be made by those who are causing the problem in the first place.  So actual solutions are not really wanted--so much so that they are simply dismissed as "not politically feasible."

i love this quote and plan to use it frequently, but i'm also reminded of something you, paul, wrote in your previous post:

...civility is not the answer.  Civility would be just fine, if accountability were for the wealthy and powerful and not just exclusively for the rest of us, along with more than our fair share of blame.

Rather than civilly adjusting our public expenditures to the private penury of the post-1973 world, we should be quite rudely fighting to restore--and even improve upon--the broad prosperity of the pre-1973 era.  Nothing less than that deserves to be called "progressive."  Nothing less than that deserves to be "justice."  Nothing less than that deserves to be "humane."  Nothing less than that should be our bottom line.

these two quotes and what i think you are saying we need to do, seem, at least to me, directly at odds with what we are actually doing here... what i'm referring to is the recent banning of people who were insufficiently civil in demandinng a fight for just and humane healthcare.

how can you write:

Nothing less than that deserves to be called "progressive."

and then not defend the people who were saying EXACTLY that?

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by: selise @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 13:05:48 PM UTC

Short Answer (0.00 / 0)

There's a big difference between disrupting your true enemies and disrupting those who would be your allies, if only you could stop demonizing them.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 16:12:28 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

difference (0.00 / 0)

i agree with your short answer. but i don't see what relevance it has to my comment. do you really think i've been demonizing anyone?

there are lots of people who tell me they are my allies, and yet again and again act like they are not. at some point i start listening to their actions. if you think i'm wrong about this, how do you suggest i discern the difference? serious question. i'm someone who wants to see, and looks for, allies among the tea baggers... and i want 1000x to see allies here. but where there is never any intellectual engagement to my serious questions other than occasionally lecturing me because apparently i'm so stupid it's not worth it to ever even make the case or explain it to me, what am i supposed to think?

do you have any idea how infuriating that is? if the stakes weren't so high -- literally life and death for tens, probably hundreds of thousands -- i'd be quoting john emerson a lot more: Republican populism is fake, but Democratic elitism is real.

where is the universal accountability? or does it only exist for those of us who can be banned if our incivility becomes uncomfortable? i think the only reason i haven't been banned also, is that i'm not yet quite as uncivil. it's not particularly my style, and like i said, i want to see allies and will go a long time before finally deciding to believe my lying eyes.

but as time goes on (it's been more than a year now), and nothing changes -- and i'm not talking about changing the policy that is advocated, i'm talking about taking the questions and challenges of people who disagree seriously and responding with the same kind of respect that is expected in return -- i may also become as uncivil as those who have been banned. after all, the way i read it, that's what you are recommending.

... ok, i'm done being argumentative for now. just some feedback on what i'm thinking in case it matters.

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by: selise @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 17:00:21 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

You Weren't Demonizing (0.00 / 0)

And you weren't banned, were you?

I do take what you're saying seriously.  And I wish I could say a lot more right now.  But I'm still chewing on what I have to say.  Pretty near the core, however, is my perception that the Left has deep structural/organizational problems, and that the exclusion of single-payer from serious consideration was very much a symptom of these deeper problems.

Much as I would like to wave a magic wand, and put single-payer front and center, I'd even more like to wave a magic wand and solve the underlying problems.

I know this is not an answer to you.  But I hope you can take it as a sign that I'm neither indifferent nor hostile.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 17:17:19 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

no magic wands... :( (4.00 / 1)

paul i do not think you are indifferent and certainly not hostile. i wouldn't have bothered to raise the subject with you today or originally when i appealed to you last spring (because i remembered that post of your's from a couple of years ago, Martin Luther King and The Moral Imperative For Polarization, although i see the problems as much deeper than i did then).

i know i said i was done being argumentative, and i'm going back on that for a moment to say that my beef is not the policy positions various people take. i have no problem with that whatsoever. it's the exclusion of the grass roots and how the grass roots continues to be treated (and let's face it, the grass roots was exclusively sp, po was a dem party elite position -- that's not saying anything about the relative merits of either policy position, just about who had them at a year or two ago).

my core objection, from which my other objections flow, is not about the policy that wasn't included, it's about the people who weren't included, and in fact were actively marginalized, and to this day are still treated like stupid people who should either stfu and get with the program or else go away... and what that says about who are we (are we even progressive?).

it should be no surprise the kind of reactions that elicits from those who have been marginalized.

anyway, i'm glad to know you are not just aware of, but are also thinking about the underlying problems (i've been trying to too, but i'm stumped). well, good luck. i'm really counting on you. please don't give up, or imo we'll be seeing a replay of this on every big issue.

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by: selise @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 18:00:03 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Magic wands aren't, I'd reckon, as tall an order as... (0.00 / 0)

Getting progressive elites to hold themselves/each other to account.

What was frustrating to me in OL's position on the healthcare bill...... was the lack of protest about the exclusion of "the superior general framework."

I never heard a good accounting for why "public option" and only "public option" was worth promoting and defending.

I never heard much of a critique of Obama, Daschle and company promising an open and transparent process that considered all options and then doing precisely the opposite.

And -- ironically -- "not politically feasible" was criticized on these very pages, but only insofar as it affected "public option."

Further, the "bait and switch" aspect of public option never seemed to worry much of anyone. It was "public option" or bust, whatever it was going to be.

Obvious dimensions of non-strength, non-robustness in the plan, notably how many people would actually have access to the "public option," were off-limits as discussion topics.

It's well and good  to heap invective -- and use the various other tools of marginalization -- on people who raise issues like this (as OL bloggers often have), but could some reconsideration of whether the bright lights of the left blogosphere and leading activist groups are properly using their relatively-bully pulpits possibly occur at some point?

Your critique of our establishment politics is, as usual, quite right. That said, there is a missing critique of our supposed anti-establishment.

A rarely asked and never answered question is whether our top bloggers and activists are now too close to the establishment to be our trusted opinion leaders.

The rush to declare Barack Obama "deeply progressive" and the rush to declare "public option" the only health-care agenda worth fighting for suggest the honest answer isn't a flattering one.

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by: vastleft @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 18:09:55 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

it's not a monolith (0.00 / 0)

vastleft, it's not a monolith -- no one person represents or is responsible for the actions of everyone else. and the goal, i hope/think everyone's goal, is not to beat each other up (and i'm really really tempted to want to too). the goal is to find a way to contribute to a better future for ourselves and for each other. even the people we're pissed off with at the moment.

i'm just trying to give some feed back where i think it might be of use -- and to get some feed back myself on what i could be doing/thinking differently... all with the goal we share in mind. that is all.

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by: selise @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 18:45:08 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Yet... (0.00 / 0)

Its (the blogosphere A-list's) behaviors are stunningly reminiscent of a monolith.

None (or close to it, depending on where you make the cut) stood against the Obamamania truthiness and groupthink, and none stood against the "public option" truthiness and groupthink.

Given that no one supposes that the blogosphere is managed in a top-down way, that's quite striking, isn't it?

OL was an aggressive campaigner on behalf of public option, and its bloggers have thought nothing of using invective such as "asshole," "hysteric," and "deranged hate stalker" to put down those who challenge its various wisdoms.

Nonetheless, I'm not attempting to "beat [anyone] up." I'm asking for the zillionth time for some reconsideration of why the blogosphere does, on certain issues, in fact act quite monolithically and whether that's a contributor to the lack of change since the Democrats have taken the seats of power.

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by: vastleft @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 19:07:18 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Here We Go! (0.00 / 0)

OL was an aggressive campaigner on behalf of public option, and its bloggers have thought nothing of using invective such as "asshole," "hysteric," and "deranged hate stalker" to put down those who challenge its various wisdoms.

(1) We've campaigned on behalf of the public option when it represented the extreme left of the politically viable at the time--at a time when most felt that even it was dead.

(2) After being repeatedly attacked for motives falsely imputed to us, some of us have gotten quite fed up.  Not because those attacking us "challenge its various wisdoms"--which pretty much all of us have done ourselves (What part of "critical support" don't you understand?  Wait, wait, don't tell me!)--but because those attack us are attacking us rather than focusing on substantive and strategic issues.


"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 19:16:29 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

hold on a minute (0.00 / 0)

OL fundraised based on the po campaign, calling it the fight for universal healthcare. when i complained by email that i didn't care what position OL wanted to take, but the po wasn't even universal health insurance let alone healthcare, i got a response about political realism when all i cared about was honesty and telling the truth.

and when i tried, in the comments, to correct how costs were being reported (fed budget numbers were being confused/conflated with total healthcare costs) -- in three posts almost all in a row. i never even got a response.

when my questions were misrepresented in a mocking post and i corrected the content and nature of questions in the comments, i never got a response.

that is the kind of thing you are defending now.

i've tried very hard not to make it personal and to stick to substance. what has that gotten me or the conversation? exactly nothing. if there is something i should be doing differently, by all means point it out to me. otherwise please stop defending the marginalization by claiming OL was being attacked without substantive issues being raised.

really so sorry i even started the conversation. my bad.

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by: selise @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 19:52:27 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

At This Point In Time (0.00 / 0)

The public option represents the only path on the table that eventually gets us to universal health care.  What's more, the fact that it does represent such a path is the reason we're supporting it. While I, at least, remain open to arguments for defeating it instead, what's missing in those arguments is a plausible strategy for how get there faster by defeating it.

And don't forget, we also have to save the planet from global warming, too.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 22:56:40 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

universal healthcare (0.00 / 0)

i do not see the path from the current mandate / po system under discussion to universal healthcare. in fact, i think it's a step backwards.

really really wish you or someone would make the case for that path, and answers all the honest questions people like me would have.

i've spent most of the past year wishing i could support the plan put forward by the party elite. but the more i think about it, the more i read (i read the cbo reports, the cms reports, and lots of other stuff), the more holes i see in  the posts on healthcare reform i read from po advocates and also the more i think it will be a massive fail. i would LOVE to be convinced otherwise.

it's too bad that no one seems to think it's  important to make the case (with no bs, i get enough of that from another source) to peons like me. and yes i'm being obnoxious -- insert john emerson quote here -- but i've od'ed on being treated like not only don't i get a say, i don't even get to understand and challenge the reasoning behind the decisions and the claims. frankly, i've tentatively concluded that the case can't be made -- that if it was made and challenges treated with enough respect to respond to all of them -- there would be no case. how else am i supposed to understand why, after more than a year, there is no case laid out for getting to universal healthcare? or even how this reform measure is supposed to work in any kind of a sustainable way (and it's not like i haven't asked).

please prove me wrong.

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by: selise @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 01:55:20 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

p.s. (0.00 / 0)

from my pov, universal healthcare is not a little bill that can be treated as business as usual. it's a long term struggle that requires social movement politics over many years. treating it only as business as usual, something for insider compromise and electoral politics based on the dem party elite policy proposals, is a betrayal of the grass roots. by ignoring the grass roots (i mean, how much would it hurt to cover some sp stuff too, just as news?) the social movement politics have been harmed.

and the decision to do that -- to keep sp off the front page -- was taken before any random commenter dissented with less than acceptable deference.

how can you expect the grass roots would not be 1) furious and 2) feel betrayed?

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by: selise @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 02:04:20 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Your post states critically: (0.00 / 0)

"So actual solutions are not really wanted--so much so that they are simply dismissed as "not politically feasible."

Yet, you simply won't have any questioning of Open Left's determination of what the "extreme left of the politically viable" was on health-care reform.

Also, your insistence that the crux of the criticism you've received is personal, and not substantive, is a handy way of (again, even at this late date) Open Left avoiding answering even the most basic questions, like how many people will have access to the "public option."

At a bare minimum, it wants for the creativity of Chris's curious "this is journalism" defense.

The demonstrable fact that I'm a terrible person notwithstanding, where are the answers to basic questions like:

1. Do you expect that this "public option" will be "strong" and "robust"?

2. How many people do you expect will have access to it?

3. Will it substantially "help keep insurance companies honest"?

4. Will it bring America anywhere in line with other countries on health-care costs?

And, importantly, how did the blogosphere consensus develop that "public option" was "extreme left of the politically viable," and why was it treated as a hate crime to question that unyielding consensus?

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by: vastleft @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 22:41:19 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

when will the primary wars end? (0.00 / 0)

every time you bring up the primary wars you completely lose me. that was not an example of the a-listers or whatever you want to call the elite bloggers taking a position at odds with years of progressive grass roots activitism and then proceeding to marginalize said activists.

as far as i could tell (and i may have it all wrong since i tried to avoid the primary wars as much as possible) it was tribalism at it worst. it was a big useless energy suck for activists who could have been working and/or caring about things like ending the wars or any number of other progressive issues.

imo it was a big circus devised by party elites to distract progressives from issues. in so far as progressives let themselves be distracted, the party elite won and progressives lost.

really, if there is no way for me to bring up the issue of grass roots marginalization without someone making it about the primaries, i'm going to bow out of the whole conversation.

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by: selise @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 19:36:35 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

There are so many reasons to serve STFU... (0.00 / 0)

To anyone who wants to learn anything from the primaries. Congrats on serving up another one.

I would say that blunting criticism about:

* The fact that Obama is anything but a progressive
* His postpartisanship platform being disastrously retrograde
* The classism, ageism, and anti-feminism that pervaded his support network
* The truthiness, groupthink, bullying, and instrumentalism that reigned supreme in the march to coronate him

...is precisely "an example of the a-listers or whatever you want to call the elite bloggers taking a position at odds with years of progressive grass roots activitism and then proceeding to marginalize said activists."

Your mileage, evidently, varies.

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by: vastleft @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 22:26:36 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

nonsense (0.00 / 0)

i didn't support obama, i didn't vote for him. you're arguing with the wrong person.

i'd just like every once in a while to have a conversation with you that didn't have to be about the primary. it doesn't matter now, because paul has gone into unwarranted defense mode, but i was trying to have a conversation with him about another topic. my desire not to have you hijack it is in no way a stfu message. be my guest, just count me out because it's not a topic that interests me. you'd have every right to expect me to be willing to have that conversation with you if i'd been a part of the primary wars. but i wasn't then and i don't want to be now.

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by: selise @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 22:54:04 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I'm arguing with what you wrote (0.00 / 0)

Not imputing some sort of unsavory support of Obama onto you.

You have an allergy to the topic of the primaries, which is what our opinion leaders want you to have. OK.

Evidently, you believe if the special protocol about not discussing the primaries hadn't been breached, Paul would have been receptive to criticism, and wouldn't have repeated the house tradition of pretending away sustantive questions and arguments. Your own accounting of your history with OL shows this to be completely untrue. There have never been acceptable grounds for questioning our progressive betters on "public option," dare I say it, just like there was never a way to stem the groupthink, etc., that pervaded through the primaries.

Paul was right to criticize excessive "civility." Obedience to STFU protocols is not a path to change.

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by: vastleft @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 00:33:04 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

more nonsense (0.00 / 0)

Evidently, you believe if the special protocol about not discussing the primaries hadn't been breached, Paul would have been receptive to criticism,

not true.

You have an allergy to the topic of the primaries, which is what our opinion leaders want you to have. OK.

so what? i find somethings interesting and others a big waste of time. each to there own.

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by: selise @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 02:15:19 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Perhaps I misunderstood you (0.00 / 0)

I took it that you thought my "hijacking" the topic (i.e.,  daring to consider it in the taboo context of the primaries) had contributed to Paul's defensiveness.

On a second reading, I'm less sure that's what you meant.

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by: vastleft @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 12:29:51 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

But... (4.00 / 1)

Your critique of our establishment politics is, as usual, quite right. That said, there is a missing critique of our supposed anti-establishment.

A rarely asked and never answered question is whether our top bloggers and activists are now too close to the establishment to be our trusted opinion leaders.

The rush to declare Barack Obama "deeply progressive" and the rush to declare "public option" the only health-care agenda worth fighting for suggest the honest answer isn't a flattering one.

That never happened here at Open Left.  In fact, Chris, David and I have all been savagely attacked for being "anti-Obama."  (I'm sure Matt was too, though I can't recall specifically right now.)  And we've argued with other bloggers who were so uncritical.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 19:09:31 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Though I wasn't a frequent reader of OL at the time (0.00 / 0)

I have made the point here often in comments, that from what I saw OL was one of the least Kool-Aid soaked of the major blogs. (Sirota's writing, especially on other blogs, certainly oozed of a visceral hate of all things Clinton, and he had his moments of gushing Obamamania, but even he was at times weirded out by the over-the top Obama uncriticality), so I don't disagree with you here.

Doesn't negate the widespread phenomenon I (and Eric Boehlert) described, though, nor history repeating itself -- with even fewer exceptions -- when it came to the groupthink/truthiness/bullying/instrumentalism about "public option."

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by: vastleft @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 22:47:59 PM UTC

[ Parent ]