We need a carbon tax on gasoline
How to best police emissions? Economist and commentator Andrew Samwick argues that only a flat tax on carbon will truly cut consumption across the board.
Andrew Samwick (Andrew Samwick)
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TEXT OF COMMENTARY
Bob Moon: Can you put a price on pollution? That's the question Congress takes up this week as they begin debate on the Climate Security Act of 2008. The legislation would enact a cap-and-trade system, whereby large polluters would buy and sell emission permits.
Commentator and economist Andrew Samwick has taken a look at his carbon output and his family's. He says if we're serious about cleaning up our act, we should consider a straight tax on carbon.
Andrew Samwick: I learned something about global warming on a family trip to Hawaii. We flew from Boston to Honolulu by way of San Francisco. I calculated the amount of jet fuel it took for the four of us to make the trip. The answer was 850 gallons of jet fuel. Is that a lot or a little?
Well, if you drive your car 12,000 miles a year and get 20 miles per gallon, you use about 600 gallons of gasoline. So one glorious trip to Hawaii used more fuel than we use to power our cars... with corresponding amounts of carbon dioxide emitted.
This comparison shows us why our efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions should focus on a carbon tax. A tax on emissions provides an incentive to reduce them everywhere -- in the sky as well as on the road, at the thermostat as well as the gas pump. The more we can reduce emissions from jet fuel and home heating oil, the less we need to reduce them from automobiles.
But a carbon tax is also the best way to reduce emissions from motor vehicles. Instead, Congress uses CAFE standards for new cars to discourage fossil fuel consumption. CAFE standards are like a tax on fuel inefficient vehicles at the point of sale -- they encourage people to buy more fuel efficient cars, but here's what they don't do: they do nothing about fuel consumption by old cars. They may get you to buy a Prius, but they don't encourage you to drive it less or use it for a carpool and they don't encourage you to maintain your vehicle or adjust your driving behavior to get better mileage.
But if we taxed gasoline directly, we could overcome these weaknesses in the CAFE standards. The reason the tax works is that it encourages us to conserve in every way we possibly can. Nobody likes to pay higher taxes, but if we are serious about reducing emissions, a carbon tax is the most fair and comprehensive way to get the job done.
Moon: Andrew Samwick is a professor of economics at Dartmouth College and a former chief economist for the president's Council of Economic Advisors.
Comments
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From merion, PA, 07/23/2008
we need to get to no emmissions
Ways to Improve My Gas Mileage!
From Stone Mountain, GA, 06/03/2008
I was incensed to hear Andrew Samwick’s commentary on reducing carbon emissions by implementing a broad-based gasoline tax. The average American is already straining, if not, buckling under the weight of $4/gallon gas prices and Mr. Samwick’s proposal clearly illustrates a lack of understanding of how a capitalistic economy works and how a change in one part of the system directly impacts another. Under his proposal, some Americans could be faced with choosing between putting gasoline in the car to get to work and food on the table. But, then again, perhaps not. With Mr. Samwick’s proposed gas tax increases, food could easily rival gas as a luxury item.
Perhaps a better solution would be to use our free-market system to stimulate the development of affordable alternative fuel sources instead of applying more taxes to our already slowing economy and overburdening our human resources.
From NEW BOSTON, NH, 06/03/2008
TO MR.SAMWICK SURE LETS TAX CARBON ESPECIALLY CARS THAT GET POOR MILAGE. THOSE CARS ARE THE SAME ONES TAHT THE WORKERS AT MY WORKPLACE ($8-$11/HR) CAN AFFORD. SO THEY WILL HAVE TO PAY MORE FOR GAS AND PROBABLY BE FORCED TO GIVE UP THEIR JOBS.WHAT A HAIRBRAINED IDEA.PERHAPS THEY COULD TAKE THE TRAIN OR BUS FROM BOSCOWAIN OR NEW LONDON TO CONCORD. OH I FORGOT THERE ARE NO TRAINS OR BUSSES. HERE ARE SOME ALTERNATIVES TO SOLVING THE GLOBAL WARMING PROBLEMS FOR YOU TO PONDER. A) CONVERT EVERY FOSSEL FUEL BURNING PLANT TO NUCLEAR. HOW MANY TONS OF GREEN HOUSE GAS WOULD NOT GO INTO THE ATMOSPHERE??. B)CONVERT MERCHANT SHIPS TO NUCLEAR POWER(REMEMBER NS SAVANNAH) HOW MANY TONS OF GREEN HOUSE GAS WOULD NOT GO INTO THE ATMOSPHERE?? C)INVEST $10 BILLION IN THE EFORT TO PREFECT THE GALLIUM-ALUMINIUM-WATER SYSTEM TO PRODUCE HYDROGEN FOR FUEL(ITS AT PERDUE NOT AN IVY LEAGUE SCHOOL)D)COLOCATE ETHANOL PLANTS NEXT TO NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS TO UTILIZE THE HEAT PRODUCED BY THE PLANTS COULD BE USED TO DISTILL ETHANOL. YOU WANT TAXES HERES ONE THATS A REAL INCENTIVE I CALL IT THE NIMBY TAX. ANY COMMUNITY THAT DOESN'T WANT NUCLEAR POWER NEAR THEM WOULD HAVE TO EITHER POWER ITSELF BY ALTERNATIVE METHODS(WIND,SOLAR,GEOTHERMAL,HYDRO) OR PAY $1 PER TON OF GREENHOUSE GAS THEY PRODUCED, BASED UPON THEIR POWER UTILIZATION.
From West Chester, PA, 06/03/2008
The total world human production of CO2 is less than 1% of CO2 in the atmosphere (Check data in the Kyoto proposals). Furthermore most of that amount will be dissolved in the oceans not added to atmospheric CO2. Complete cessation of CO2 production in the industrial world will have no effect on gglobal warming. Human production is completely insignificant when compared to the exchange of CO2 from oceans and biomass.
While global warming seems to be occurring, it is now as always related to sun activity not human activity. It is hubris to believe that political policy can affect average temperature, but much worse than that, such policies will have economic conseguences with no positive effects.
From Pasadena, CA, 06/03/2008
We absolutely need a carbon tax. This need not, however, create a higher level of overall taxation. Far from creating "socialistic taxes" as Mr. Read commented, it could result in a lower overall tax burden and create greater long term energy savings resulting from fewer strategic military burdens and less U.S. financial support for problematic nations.
Why not lower income and payroll taxes across the board and raise tax credits to low income families and shift the tax burden to a resource of which we are all better off using less?
Why not, in tandem with higher carbon taxes, increase the child tax credit so large families that require larger cars are insulated?
Truckers and Transport companies could pay more in fuel costs and less tax on their income - driving innovation in fuel efficiency for all modes of transportation.
If we talk more of shifting versus raising taxes it will be far more palatable for those not wed to the oil industry. I don't want to impede anyone's freedom to drive, but we need to align what we pay to the true cost of using the resource.
From Phoenix, AZ, 06/02/2008
While I agree that a solution is needed to carbon emissions I have serious doubts about a carbon tax. A carbon tax would neither be fair nor stop pollution. Those with less income would be affected while it would be negligible to those of greater means.
From Garland, TX, 06/02/2008
"The power to tax involves the power to destroy." So said one of our Supreme Court Justice John Marshal. This obsession with taxing and carbon footprinting has got to stop. For one thing, the earth is no longer 'warming'; it has warmed, and is in the process of moderating.
Working people traveling to work cannot 'limit' their travels, else they will be terminated and someone else will walk in their 'carbon footprint.'
The answer is not more socialistic taxes, but greater free enterprise productivity. I believe the earth would be better off without the carbon dioxide expended in preaching about carbon foot printing and so called inconvenient truths.
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