Michael Bloomberg has made it official. “I am not — and will not be — a candidate for president,” New York City’s mayor said in an op-ed in today’s New York Times.

The article ends months of speculation that Bloomberg, a self-made billionaire who has emphasized a managerial, non-partisan approach to governing, would enter the race as an independent.

Bloomberg’s announcement robs the U.S. election campaign of an outspoken supporter of a national carbon tax. In a highly publicized speech to the U.S. Conference of Mayors last November, which we reported here, Bloomberg proclaimed his strong preference for a carbon tax over a carbon cap-and-trade scheme:

[T]he certainty of a pollution fee — coupled with a tax cut for all Americans — is a much better deal. It would be better for the economy, better for taxpayers and — given the experiences so far in Europe — it would be better for the environment… [W]hy not simplify matters … by charging a direct pollution fee? … a direct fee will generate more long-term savings for consumers, and greater carbon reductions for the environment.

[A carbon tax is] like making one right turn instead of three left turns. You end up going in the same direction, but without going around in a circle first.

Bloomberg made similar remarks favoring carbon taxes over cap-and-trade at the UN Framework Conference on Climate Change in Bali in December.

For carbon tax advocates, the potential silver lining is that Bloomberg might now refocus on gaining city and state legislative approval for his plan to cut traffic and fund transit through a congestion fee to drive into Manhattan.

The conceptual and political parallels are strong between municipal congestion pricing and national carbon taxing. Both entail ending free exploitation of “the commons”; both demand a clear commitment to invest or return the revenues progressively; and both require mobilizing the multitude of citizens, who often don’t grasp that they stand to benefit, to clamor more loudly than the polluting minority whose entitlement is threatened. A congestion pricing win in New York City could undercut the notion
that a carbon tax is politically impossible.

Meanwhile, another prominent American who supports carbon taxes declared his presidential candidacy. Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate and  anti-corporate crusader who turned 74 yesterday, entered the race last weekend as an independent candidate.

While Nader has been roundly criticized and even ridiculed as a spoiler and perennial candidate (Nader was the Green Party candidate for president in 1996 and 2000, and he ran as an independent in 2004), his campaign platform includes unambiguous support for a carbon tax. “Adopt a carbon pollution tax” is Issue #6 on Nader’s campaign issues page, Twelve Issues That Matter for 2008.

As a non-profit organization, CTC can’t endorse candidates for elective office. We are non-partisan by temperament as well. We anticipate that Nader’s candidacy could become a double-edged sword with respect to carbon taxes, elevating carbon taxing’s visibility but also hurting its credibility among Americans who have grown disaffected with him.

What do you think?

We reported last week that British Columbia will implement a carbon tax of $10 per metric ton of carbon on July 1, rising in $5/tonne annual increments to reach $30 in 2012.

In both scope and size, the tax leapfrogs North America’s other, modest carbon taxes, in Quebec and the City of Boulder, Colorado. How did the tax come about? CTC supporter Jurgen Hissen filed this account from Vancouver.

The idea for a carbon tax came from the top ranks of the BC government. It wasn’t foisted upon them. I think they were actively seeking ways to justify it to the citizenry.

BC Liberals — who aren’t connected to Canada’s national Liberal Party — have always been pro small-government. When they came into office in 2001, they cut taxes and government spending extensively. BC Liberals have also historically emphasized personal responsibility and environmental issues, and a carbon tax (a consumption tax) is pretty consistent with that.

After meeting last year with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, BC Premier Gordon Campbell resolved to set carbon reduction targets for BC. Suggestions of a carbon tax began circulating, but the real push likely came from Carole Taylor, Campbell’s finance minister.

In late 2007, Taylor assembled a committee, the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services, to collect public input on the budget. The committee issued a questionnaire to every household in the province; how to tackle climate change covered three of the six questions, and two of them were what pollsters would call “leading”:

The Province currently provides tax incentives to encourage the purchase of hybrid vehicles [… etc.]. What tax changes would you make to encourage environmentally responsible choices? and

What tax changes would you make to discourage British Columbians from activities that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions?

Clearly, the government was looking to rationalize carbon taxes. The response was favorable, and crucial, not to mention broad-based. A carbon tax was backed by business leaders, a group of 60 economists from BC universities, and key religious leaders.

Taylor, the finance minister, reported getting 700 letters in support of a carbon tax (about 10 of those were mine, I think), and only about 160 opposed — a fact she cited on the day she announced the tax.

CTC invites readers from British Columbia or elsewhere to write with further details/insights on the development of BC’s carbon tax as well as potential implications for other provinces and the U.S.

Photo: Wikipedia

British Columbia’s Finance Minister Carole Taylor introduced a revenue-neutral carbon tax today that will serve as an excellent model for the United States. According to a story in the Canadian Press, the carbon tax will be effective July 1, will be phased in over five years and will start at a rate of $10 per tonne of carbon emissions. It will rise $5 a year to $30 per ton by 2012. The carbon tax revenues will be returned to taxpayers through personal income and business income tax cuts, according to Taylor. 

According to the same story, climate specialist Ian Bruce of the David Suzuki Foundation stated that "The Government has used the most powerful tool, a carbon tax, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions." As Bruce pointed out, "Green choices will become cheaper."

B.C. can now be proud of its natural beauty and its wise public policy designed to reduce the impact of climate change. Note that the proposed new carbon tax is very similar to the revenue-neutral, phased-in carbon tax proposed by the Carbon Tax Center. 

For more on the new B.C. carbon tax, see stories at right under "Latest Headlines." 

Photo: bfraz / flickr

In its just released Policy Options for Reducing CO2 Emissions, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office confirms the superiority of carbon taxes over various types of cap-and-trade schemes. The CBO concludes that:

A tax on emissions would be the most efficient incentive-based option for reducing emissions and could be relatively easy to implement. If it was coordinated among major emitting countries, it would help minimize the cost of achieving a global target for emissions by providing consistent incentives for reducing emissions around the world. If other major nations used cap-and-trade programs rather than taxes on emissions, a U.S. tax could still provide roughly comparable incentives for emission reductions if the tax rate each year was set to equal the expected price of allowances under those programs.

Responding to interest in cap-and-trade programs, the CBO study "explores ways in which policymakers could preserve the structure of a cap-and-trade program but achieve some of the efficiency advantages of a tax." In other words, the CBO recognizes that a carbon tax is the "gold standard" and then tries to figure out how to reduce the disadvantages of cap-and-trade.

If Congress in its wisdom decides to approve a cap-and-trade program, it should make that program as similar as possible to the carbon tax "gold standard." But why settle for second best?

California, with a well-deserved reputation for leading the way on environmental protection, has done it again. Last week the Bay Area Air Quality Management District proposed a carbon fee that would apply to all Air District-permitted facilities emitting greenhouse gases. While the proposed fee is tiny — 4.2 cents per metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent, versus the $10.00 per ton of CO2 tax we propose to be incremented each year — imposing the fee would lay a foundation for substantial carbon taxes in the future.

As proposed, the carbon fee is not revenue-neutral; it is designed to recover some costs associated with Climate Protection Program activities related to stationary sources. The small sums that would be collected don’t appear to warrant returning the money to Bay Area residents. If the fee is increased later on, the logic for making it revenue-neutral would be stronger.

According to a story in the Feb. 9 San Jose Mercury News, the proposal has elicited strong support from the Sierra Club. The Club’s executive director, Carl Pope, got it right when he stated, “There are costs associated with emitting carbon dioxide, and the people who emit it should pay the costs."

The Bay Area AQMD’s jurisdiction is all of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Napa Counties plus portions of Solano and Sonoma Counties. Click here to see the full proposal. Comments on the draft rule are due March 7.

The news is full of stories about ice caps melting, volatile weather and other dire consequences of climate change. The National Geographic Channel is hyping its upcoming series Six Degrees Could Change the World with promotional material including frightening images of likely consequences.

So, at first glance, it was heartening to see an article in Platts titled Timing of Carbon Control Measures Will Be Critical: EEI’s Kuhn. Could Thomas Kuhn, president and CEO of the Edison Electric Institute, be saying that immediate steps must be taken to reduce carbon dioxide emissions? Could Kuhn have recognized that the world has to reduce CO2 emissions starting NOW to avert runaway climate change? Could he be urging utilities to be receptive to a carbon tax?

Sorry, no. Kuhn’s concern in the story is that utilities be able to meet any carbon control mandates without adverse effects "such as increased strains on natural gas supply and demand." Concern about climate change never came up.

Photo: Silversprite / flickr

Assuming there really is such a thing as "clean coal," its future is looking increasingly bleak, according to After Washington Pulls Plug on FutureGen, Clean Coal Hopes Flicker in today’s Wall Street Journal. The WSJ describes the impact of DOE Secretary Samuel Bodman’s Jan. 30 decision "yanking its support for the project, whose price tag had ballooned to $1.8 billion, nearly double original estimates." The WSJ adds, "the nation could face supply shortages in coming years unlike anything seen in the past" without new coal plants and if "nuclear power also stumbles."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had a somewhat different perspective last week. As reported in Platts, Senator Reid stated that, "I think the coal companies should be upfront with the American people that coal is one of the things that is ruining our world." Reid added:

The coal industry around the country is spending tens of millions of dollars to give false and misleading information to people around the country saying ‘all we want to do is have clean coal. Why won’t they let us do the clean coal’…My answer to that is that is doesn’t exist. There is no clean coal technology. There’s cleaner coal, there’s no clean coal technology.

Senator Reid doesn’t expect zero-emissions coal fired generation to be available for another twenty years and says we should "just back off" and look to cleaner energy sources like natural gas and renewables.

The key lesson of the FutureGen story, as well as past government attempts to pick winners (such as synfuels during the Carter and Reagan administrations), is the need to internalize the costs of CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels in the price of energy via a carbon tax. With a carbon price, consumers and power producers could make rational economic choices to use less energy and substitute less carbon-intensive fuels for coal. Coal would lose its artificial competitive advantage, the economics of renewable energy would improve dramatically, and even more energy efficiency would become cost-effective. Who knows, even zero-emissions coal might become available — eventually.

Photo: Zach K / flickr

Rex Nutting’s Market Watch commentary (see "Quote of the Week") properly criticizes the presidential candidates for coming up with Rube Goldberg energy plans instead of having the guts to show leadership by proposing to increase the price of fossil fuels. It’s a fair critique, but it’s the rare candidate who has Senator Dodd’s courage to propose a tax while running for office. 

After the election, when there is less concern about cheap shots distorting policy discussions just before voting, it will be far easier to consider the best approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  After the election it will be possible to explain that a revenue-neutral carbon tax is a tax-shift, not a tax increase, and that will be good for both the environment and the economy. After the election it will be easier to get past the rhetoric and to recognize that both carbon taxes and cap-and-trade increase prices. After the election, when there is an opportunity for a relatively objective analysis,  citizens and elected officials will be able to compare a revenue- neutral carbon tax (which raises prices gradually with an upwards trajectory that gives families and businesses time to adjust by using energy more efficiently and substituting renewable energy for coal and other fossil fuels) to cap-and-trade (which produces volatile energy prices and, under most proposed legislation, huge windfalls for polluters). 

For now, we can wait until after the election.  Or, take a look at the headlines to the right of this page to learn about the more serious discussions taking place in Canada and Europe.  

During last night’s Democratic Presidential Candidates Debate in New Hampshire, Charles Gibson, ABC-TV News Anchor, noted that none of the candidates on the stage favor a carbon tax and asked whether it’s a bad idea or just too politically unpalatable. No one would ‘fess up to lacking political courage, courage previously demonstrated by Senator Dodd (no longer a candidate), Senator Gravel (not present at the debate), and Mayor Bloomberg (possible candidate). Governor Richardson criticized a carbon tax for passing costs on to consumers and disingenuously implied the same isn’t true for cap-and-trade, Senator Obama was intellectually honest and corrected Governor Richardson. Senator Clinton avoided the question in her response and Senator Edwards didn’t say anything.

MR. GIBSON: All right. Let me turn to something else.

Reversing — you invoked the name of Al Gore a few moments ago.
Reversing or slowing global warming is going to take sacrifice. I’m
sort of sorry Chris Dodd isn’t here because he’s talked a lot about a
carbon tax in this election. Al Gore favors a carbon tax. None of
you have favored a carbon tax. Is it a bad idea? Or is it just so
politically unpalatable that you guys don’t want to propose it?

GOV. RICHARDSON: It’s — can I answer? You know, I was Energy
secretary. It’s a bad idea because when you have a carbon tax, first
of all, it’s not a mandate. What you want is a mandate on polluters,
on coal companies, on — on — on those that pollute to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions by a certain target — under my plan, 30
percent by the year 2020, 80 percent by the year 2040. It takes
international leadership.

The better way to do it is through a cap-and-trade system, which
is a mandate. Furthermore, a carbon tax, that’s passed on to
consumers. That’s passed on to the average person. That’s money you
take out of the economy. So it’s a bad idea. Cap-and-trade is
mandate, but it’s also going to take presidential leadership. It’s
going to take all of us here, every American, you know, to think more
efficiently about how we transport ourself, what vehicles we purchase,
appliances in our homes.

It’s going to take a transportation policy that doesn’t just build
more highways. We have to have commuter rail, light rail, open
spaces. We got to have — we got to have land use policies where we
improve people’s quality of life.

MR. SPRADLING: Senator Obama?

SEN. OBAMA: Well, I agree with Bill, that I think cap-and-trade
system makes more sense. That’s why I proposed it because you can be
very specific in terms of how we’re going to reduce the greenhouse
gases by a particular l level. Now what you have to do is you have to
combine it with a hundred percent auction. In other words, every
little bit of pollution that is sent up into the atmosphere that
polluter is getting charged for it. Not only does that ensure that
they don’t game the system, but you’re also generating billions of
dollars that can be invested in solar and wind and biodiesel.

I do disagree with one thing, though, that Bill said, and that is
that on a carbon tax the cost will be passed onto consumers and that
won’t happen with a cap-and-trade. Under a cap-and-trade there will
be a cost. Plants are going to have to retrofit their equipment, and
that’s going to cost money, and they will pass it onto consumers. We
have an obligation to use some of the money that we generate to shield
low-income and fixed-income individuals from high electricity prices,
but we’re also going to have to ask the American people to change how
they use energy. Everybody’s going to have to change their light
bulbs. Everybody’s going to have to insulate their homes. And that
will be a sacrifice, but it’s a sacrifice that we can meet. Over the
long term it will generate jobs and businesses and can drive our
economy for many decades.

SEN. CLINTON: Charlie, let me make a connection here that I
think is really important.

I think the economy is slipping toward a recession — the
unemployment figure on Friday hitting 5 percent, the $100 a barrel oil
that we also hit this week, the fall of the dollar.

There’s a lot of pressures on middle-class families, and the kind of
costs that they have to keep up with have all gone up astronomically.
I mean, you know, the energy costs of the typical family in New
Hampshire since George Bush has been president have tripled, and
that’s far beyond what — the cost of the tax cuts that they got from
George Bush.

So what we’ve got to do is use energy as an opportunity to
actually jump-start economic recovery. We need to quickly move toward
energy efficiency. We should require the utilities to begin to work
for energy efficiency and conservation, costs that will be shared and
decrease the pressure on families. We need a weatherization and low-
income heating emergency program that is out there now helping
families in New Hampshire and elsewhere to cover their costs. And we
need to look at how doing what is right about energy is not only good
for our security and good for the fight against global warming, but it
will be essential in dealing with the economic challenges that we
face.

Imagine Mayor Bloomberg had been on the stage and had repeated what he said at the United States Conference of Mayors in November:

Both cap-and-trade and pollution pricing present their own challenges —
but there is an important difference between the two. The primary flaw
of cap-and-trade is economic — price uncertainty. While the primary
flaw of a pollution fee is political, the difficulty of getting it
through Congress. But I’ve never been one to let short-term politics
get in the way of long-term success. The job of an elected official is
to lead – not to stick a finger in the wind. It’s to stand up and say
what we believe — no matter what the polls say is popular or what the
pundits say is political suicide.

Or, Senator Dodd might have repeated his earlier statement that "The American people handle the truth very, very well. What they don’t handle well is people in public life promising results without talking about what has to be done to get those results." Senator Gravel might have repeated his earlier response to the statement that some people say supporting a carbon tax would be political suicide, "I back it in any case."

Political courage is hard to find in a presidential campaign. Fortunately, the real decisions on how to address climate change will likely be made after the November elections when Congress and the new Administration will be able to focus more on economics and good policy.

We established the Carbon Tax Center in January 2007. As we look back on our first year, we are thrilled by what we’ve accomplished.

CTC has established a reputation as the go-to web site for objective, non-partisan information on carbon taxes, with hundreds of hits almost every day. We have participated in conferences and debates in New York, Washington and Boston, we have appeared on national television, and we’ve been featured in newspapers, magazines and blogs. Congressional staff, academics, students and interested citizens of all stripes and from many countries have all turned to our site to get up to speed on a topic that is going to become increasingly vital as Congress and a new President grapple with reducing greenhouse gas emissions and limiting the damage from climate change.

The good news is two-fold. One, CTC has established a very solid foundation. Two, there is widespread support for revenue-neutral carbon taxes across the political spectrum from economists, business leaders, pundits and other opinion leaders. Just take a look at our Supporters page.

But we are not naïve. We know that powerful polluters who use the atmosphere as a free dumping ground are not going to give up that entitlement without a struggle. We know that cap-and-trade has well-connected advocates, many of them with a strong economic self-interest to favor their second-best alternative over carbon taxes. We know that carbon tax opponents have tremendous financial resources they will exploit to maintain their advantages.

And we are mindful that the “T” word is unpopular with politicians. Fortunately, awareness is growing that “putting a price on carbon” is an essential element of any successful strategy to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. While debate continues over the two basic ways to put a price on carbon, a carbon tax or cap-and-trade, we remain convinced that the advantages of carbon taxes are becoming increasingly clear.

A legislated price on carbon is unlikely before a new Congress and President take office, providing time for careful examination of the relative merits of a carbon tax and cap-and-trade. We intend to use the time to frame the choice between an equitable revenue-neutral carbon tax and cap-and-trade schemes that provide huge windfalls to polluting industries and the financial community. This will help voters and elected officials grasp the huge benefits of the prompt reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that will result from an easily implemented revenue-neutral carbon tax, compared to the excruciatingly slow reductions that would result from the endlessly tendentious process of implementing a cap-and-trade scheme.

CTC intends to play a central role in the ongoing debate. To do so, we need your generous financial support. As you make your end-of-year contributions, please think of the Carbon Tax Center and click our Donate Now button or click here for instructions on making a contribution.

Thanks and Happy New Year!

Daniel Rosenblum
Charles Komanoff
Co-Directors

Photo: Peter Bowers / Flickr