Carbon tax is unpopular

Well, I think there are three reasons I think there is a certain hesitancy amongst the Democrats for a carbon tax. And it’s not generally a lack of appreciating the economics because you know, my profession is loud and clear on that. Number one is, President Biden promised not to raise taxes on anyone earning under $400,000 a year. And the economic incidence of a carbon tax would fall on individuals that include people who make less than $400,000 a year. Now, obviously you can use the revenue from a carbon tax to redistribute that in a progressive way, but I guess they’re feeling like that’s not part of their pledge. Second is, there are folks on the progressive left who really think the climate challenge is too big to rely on market forces. And you know that we’ve got to go straight to, you know, keeping it in the ground. Adele Morris (37:18): And then also there are folks in the environmental justice community that don’t support carbon pricing because the belief is that regulatory approaches on carbon are more likely to help air quality in their communities. And I’m sure it’s much more complicated than that, but I think there is a tepid support if any, on the far progressive left for carbon pricing, even if there is some lukewarm support among some Republicans for carbon pricing. I think the challenge though is, okay, you don’t want to do carbon pricing, you want to do regulation, well, what’s the environmental equivalent in the regulatory world and we’re not anywhere near close to that. I mean, even if they come up with a clean electricity standard, what are you doing for the rest of the two thirds of our emissions inventory? Are we going to do standards in every sector? How’s that going to work? And, you know, you might say, okay, well, a clean electricity standard is an easier legislative lift, but it’s not environmentally equivalent. You got to have that plus additional legislation to target the whole rest of the emissions inventory. So I still think a carbon price has a chance. It should be given a chance. I wouldn’t give up without trying, but then I’m not a political advisor. So maybe they’re listening to smarter people than me.