“Simple math demonstrates that the average taxes (including duties) on gasoline and diesel in virtually every developed country exceed the average U.S. EPA’s (over)estimated global social cost of carbon now and through 2025 (at least). In fact, motorists in most European countries already pay taxes in excess of the upper bound estimate of the social cost of carbon through the middle of this century.”
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the average global social cost of carbon (SCC), which is the level at which a global carbon tax should theoretically be set, ranged from $5.6 to $41.8 per tonne of carbon dioxide in 2010 (in 2012 US$), and should rise to between $18.7 and $77.4 in 2050 (as shown in Table 1). Per the EPA, the “central value” is represented by the “3% Average” column in the Table.…
Continue ReadingThe “Bootleggers and Baptists” theory of regulation, coined by Bruce Yandle in 1983 in Regulation magazine, uniquely explains what otherwise would be considered bizarre coalitions between moral crusaders and morally indifferent businesses.
In a later telling, Yandle explained how the theory
draws on colorful tales of states’ efforts to regulate alcoholic beverages by banning Sunday sales at legal outlets. Baptists fervently endorsed such actions on moral ground. Bootleggers tolerated the actions gleefully because their effect was to limit competition.
One such unholy alliance has emerged between environmentalists and some utilities in the context of the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent Utility Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (Utility MACT) rule.
Those unfamiliar with the Bootleggers and Baptists theory may conclude that those compliant energy companies are enlightened at long last. But those who know the theory will take a more cynical view.…
Continue ReadingAn eye-opening case can be made that Obama Administration’s EPA is threatening our energy, economy, health, welfare, justice, and civil rights. A stiff charge, indeed, but one that needs to be examined in due depth this Memorial Day and throughout the year.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson says we face grave threats to human health, welfare and justice. She’s absolutely right. However, the dangers are not due to factory or power plant emissions, or supposed effects of “dangerous manmade global warming.”
They are the result of policies and regulations that her EPA is imposing in the name of preventing climate change and other hypothetical and exaggerated environmental problems. It is those government actions that are the gravest threat to Americans’ health, welfare, and pursuit of happiness and justice.
Hyperregulation
By hyper-regulating carbon dioxide, soot, mercury, “cross-state air pollution” from sources hundreds of miles away, and other air and water emissions, EPA intends to force numerous coal-fired power plants to shut down years before their productive life is over; sharply reduce emissions from cars, factories, refineries and other facilities, regardless of the costs; and block the construction of new coal-fired power plants, because none will be able to slash their carbon dioxide emissions to half of what average coal-fired plants now emit, without employing expensive (and nonexistent) CO2 capture and storage technologies.…
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