State Carbon Taxes Can Pave the Way

April 26, 2017 By

Campaigns for state carbon taxes educate the public and advance the idea on the policy map. A carbon tax in one or more states will create facts on the ground that can appeal to Left and Right alike and upend the climate stalemate.

The Carbon Tax Center is out with a new report timed to the surging climate movement. We surveyed all 50 U.S. states (and Washington, DC) to identify the ones with the most favorable conditions for enacting a statewide carbon tax. Joining the report is a toolkit to help advocates push for a carbon tax in their state.

[Note: To bypass the Action Network links in the prior paragraph and go straight to the pdf for the report, click here. That’s a large file, 14 MB. You can download a reduced-size pdf version (less than 2 MB) by clicking here.

“All these fights trace back to the fact that current energy markets don’t value climate change properly. So states are essentially trying to find a backward way into carbon pricing, first by subsidizing renewables, and now by trying to save nuclear. It’s a really messy way of getting there.”

Energy analyst Alex Gilbert, in How Retiring Nuclear Power Plants May Undercut U.S. Climate Goals, by Brad Plumer, in The New York Times, June 13. (NB: Quote was stitched together from direct quote and reporter’s commentary.)