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A federal carbon tax is imminent in the USA, and Exxon is pushing it

electrek.co

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Re: A federal carbon tax is imminent in the USA, and Exxon is pushing it

#41

Post by rayiner »

kmkemp wrote: post #34
talmand wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a corporation, especially a multi-national, benefits from a tax, I would question the benefit to society from that tax. Not to say that society would not benefit, but it does make me wonder.

There are typically competing multi-nationals that have market share to gain by diminishing their competitors, so you can assume that there will be lobbies on both sides for legislation that interferes with the free market.

There is no "free market here"--CO2 production is an externalized cost and not taxing it enables some companies (that use energy) to pass off part of the costs of their profit-making activities on everyone else.

Re: A federal carbon tax is imminent in the USA, and Exxon is pushing it

#42

Post by mason240 »

strommen wrote: post #12

Exxon is probably pushing this because it will help their business. The #1 "victim" of a carbon tax is coal, which accounts for about 30% of our energy production. A carbon tax will redistribute this production to other sources, mainly natural gas (which emits 42% less carbon). Exxon does a lot of natural gas extraction, and virtually nothing with coal. Exxon is also working on carbon sequestration technology. Which…

I wouldn't call a 10-15% increase in the price of gas "little effect."

Re: A federal carbon tax is imminent in the USA, and Exxon is pushing it

#43

Post by mason240 »

stonogo wrote: post #33
epistasis wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that it's a bad thing that "multi-national corporation" has become synonymous with "bad agent" or even "evil." Much of our society is multi-national corporations, so when we have a biased view of them we may end up cutting off our nose to spite our face. And in popular culture, if we end up with people opposed to a carbon tax just because Exxon wants a carbon tax too, well it doesn't more nose-less than that.

> I think that it's a bad thing that "multi-national corporation" has become synonymous with "bad agent" or even "evil." Until the aims of multinational corporations are aligned with the aims of society at large, they will continue to be considered untrustworthy.

In a capitalist society they are.

Re: A federal carbon tax is imminent in the USA, and Exxon is pushing it

#44

Post by chris_va »

Everyone knows we need a direct carbon tax, it's just too convenient politically to be anti-tax. As a result, I think this is mostly a marketing problem.

From the article, it looks like the current bill is "Climate Protection and Justice Act of 2015". I propose instead the "Save our Children Act". Hard to be against that.

Re: A federal carbon tax is imminent in the USA, and Exxon is pushing it

#45

Post by mseebach »

tvanantwerp wrote: post #36

The title is hyperbolic; a federal carbon tax is not imminent. Source: I work at a tax policy nonprofit. Someone in the office probably would've mentioned it if such a tax were around the corner.

That's not how "knowledge" and "information" works.

Re: A federal carbon tax is imminent in the USA, and Exxon is pushing it

#46

Post by semi-extrinsic »

mason240 wrote: post #42
strommen wrote: post #12

Exxon is probably pushing this because it will help their business. The #1 "victim" of a carbon tax is coal, which accounts for about 30% of our energy production. A carbon tax will redistribute this production to other sources, mainly natural gas (which emits 42% less carbon). Exxon does a lot of natural gas extraction, and virtually nothing with coal. Exxon is also working on carbon sequestration technology. Which…

I wouldn't call a 10-15% increase in the price of gas "little effect."

OTOH, most carbon capture schemes need a carbon price about triple of that to break even (IIRC).

Re: A federal carbon tax is imminent in the USA, and Exxon is pushing it

#47

Post by secabeen »

stonogo wrote: post #37
chrisbennet wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car guy here: None of my car guy friends "roll there eyes" at Teslas. Myself and my "car guy" friends are all Porsche guys who all work on their own air cooled cars - we rebuild our own motors and transmissions, corner balance our cars for the track, etc. Then again, we probably aren't cool though. ;-)

Have any of your car guy friends driven a Tesla? They're some of the worst-handling cars on the market today. Quick 0-60 times land them in lots of headlines, but the second you have to turn the car, it's really frustrating. My car friends fall into two camps: those who have never driven a Tesla, and those who have. The former group is optimistic and looks upon Tesla products with naked desire; the latter group has a…

I haven't found a Tesla to have bad handling. I'm not a handling expert, but during a test drive, it met my needs for handling. I'd buy a Tesla for the zero emissions and driver assistance features. The handling as-is is sufficient for me. (I don't recall any of the major automotive publications mentioning bad handling in their reviews. Do you have links to the C&D, R&T or Motor Trend reviews that mention this issue?)

Re: A federal carbon tax is imminent in the USA, and Exxon is pushing it

#48

Post by Retric »

4ad wrote: post #29
ocschwar wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Cool, and what's your proposal for an alternative energy source to power modern civilisation?" We have several alternatives. The only problem they have is that most of them are difficult to store in a self-contained moving vehicle that turns rubber wheels to move on flat blacktop. So, we increase reliance on vehicles that turn steel wheels on steel tracks, and get their power from overhead wires. Next question?

Most of the electrical energy comes from burning things that create carbon-dioxide as a side product. The only real alternative is fission, and the public opinion against nuclear is even worse than against oil. How do you solve this problem? Getting people and things moved by train is a great idea, but in the grand scheme of things we're dependant on oil for so many other things.

Well over 40% of US electricity comes from things that don't create carbon dioxide. Exact numbers are hard to come by because a lot of solar power for example never ends up on the electric grid.

Re: A federal carbon tax is imminent in the USA, and Exxon is pushing it

#49

Post by epistasis »

RobertoG wrote: post #39
epistasis wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that it's a bad thing that "multi-national corporation" has become synonymous with "bad agent" or even "evil." Much of our society is multi-national corporations, so when we have a biased view of them we may end up cutting off our nose to spite our face. And in popular culture, if we end up with people opposed to a carbon tax just because Exxon wants a carbon tax too, well it doesn't more nose-less than that.

"Much of our society is multi-national corporations" I have problems with that statement. In my opinion, if we start forgetting we are a society of humans that, sometimes, use corporations as a tool for collaborating, we have serious problems. So, everybody, repeat with me: we want to maximize humans welfare. Corporations are tools.

That's exactly what I meant by that statement, corporations are tools for our collaboration. They are a dominant form of our economic collaboration. Nearly all of us invest in them in our retirement savings. Many of us work for them. Everyone uses their services. So they have a big role in our society, and they are a tool that can be used in good and bad ways.

So in summary, I'm not sure what your problem was with that statement, other than perhaps my statement was too ambiguous :)

Re: A federal carbon tax is imminent in the USA, and Exxon is pushing it

#50

Post by chrisbennet »

stonogo wrote: post #37
chrisbennet wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car guy here: None of my car guy friends "roll there eyes" at Teslas. Myself and my "car guy" friends are all Porsche guys who all work on their own air cooled cars - we rebuild our own motors and transmissions, corner balance our cars for the track, etc. Then again, we probably aren't cool though. ;-)

Have any of your car guy friends driven a Tesla? They're some of the worst-handling cars on the market today. Quick 0-60 times land them in lots of headlines, but the second you have to turn the car, it's really frustrating. My car friends fall into two camps: those who have never driven a Tesla, and those who have. The former group is optimistic and looks upon Tesla products with naked desire; the latter group has a…

I have driven one (two?) and was very impressed with it's straight line acceleration. I didn't press the handling at all (the owner wasn't the kind of guy who would/could appreciate that) so you may have a good point.
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