Americans want to do something on climate -- just not the right thing

09.06.10

The costs of master-and-control regulation of business emissions get passed right on to the very respondents of that survey, without any cut-back or assistance to ameliorate the sting, as better policies would provide. Subsidies for cleaner cars and other such technologies might accessory a more comprehensive policy, but they are extremely pricey, and, as a recent Harvard study points out, they don’t in truth do that much to reduce fossil fuel use. All of the policies respondents considered rely on Congress or direction regulators deciding exactly which technologies to favor, an approach guaranteed to waste Americans’ every so often and money.

All, that is, except the one that Americans apparently detest: simply taxing fossil fuel use. Putting a reward on the burning of these dirty fuels will shift consumption patterns and business practices, and it will unleash uncommunicative ingenuity and capital to invest in carbon-cutting technologies, some of which we can’t even anticipate yet. And most Americans shouldn’t have to pay a dime more -- the proceeds from the tax can be rebated anon back to them, making most of them whole. A similar logic would operate in a well-designed cap-and-trade program. But, it seems, the T-word still provokes knee-jerk disapproval, and the nation’s leaders have been terrible at re-branding this obviously rational approach to so so Americans.

Source: Washington Post (blog)