When I hear that Ben Stein and the chairman of Exxon are both pushing a policy that I like, it scares me to pieces.
Last month, Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson said in a speech that he favors a carbon tax–a tax levied directly on global warming emissions–over the free-market "cap and trade" system that Europe is using, not-so-successfully. Tillerson called a broad tax a "more direct, a more transparent and a more effective approach" to curtailing greenhouse gases than cap and trade or its variants.
I’d have to agree. After watching the implosion of trading markets in mortgage-backed securities and the unregulated free-for-all last year in energy and commodity trading markets, Who can trust the honesty of trillion-dollar trading market in so-called carbon credits?
But what does Exxon get out of the carbon tax? Dan Weiss of the Center for American Progress and a fellow oil critic, had this conjecture: "Calling for a carbon tax could be a ploy because few observers believe
such a tax is politically feasible in our Congress."
So there’s a chance it’s a monkey-wrench.
There’s another clue in a Sunday NYT column by Ben Stein, who’s a dear, close friend of Exxon. In the column, Stein talks about the simplicity and transparency of a carbon tax, as opposed to a cap and trade system, but also assumes that this is how it will work:
"The proceeds might be refunded in whole or in part to energy producers
to help with other goals, such as producing cleaner fuels."
Aha. Assess the tax and send the money back to Exxon for some greenwashing.
Greener proponents of a carbon tax want the money sent straight to green energy projects (not via Exxon) and to consumers, to offset higher energy prices. But Stein’s assumption that Exxon and friends will get the tax refunded to them shows how tough it will be to achieve fairness in any form of greenhouse gas reduction.
For an idea of the forces that are forming up, take a look at "The Climate Change Lobby", a new project of the Center for Public Integrity. Good interactive tool for finding the energy lobbyists, who they’re working for and what astronomical sum they’re being paid.