Political Quotes

“The economics editor of The Economist magazine--which is certainly no hotbed of left wing sentiment--Ryan Avent, has posted a comment on climate policy and his question is: ``Do economists all favour a carbon tax?'' He says: The economic solution is to tax the externality-- That is the offloaded cost. --so that the social cost of carbon is reflected in the individual consumer's decision. The carbon tax is an elegant solution to a complicated problem. So today I am introducing this bill to put a price on carbon emissions. It is simple. It will require the polluters to pay a per-ton fee for their pollution and all of the revenue generated by those payments will go back to the American people. I want to thank Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii for cosponsoring this measure. He has been a great colleague on environmental issues and on our discussion regarding climate change. The bill that we introduce today establishes an economy-wide fee on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, tracking that social cost of carbon, starting at $42 per ton and going up by 2 percent per year, plus inflation. We know how much carbon dioxide each unit of coal, oil, and natural gas produces, so we assess the fee on fossil fuel producers, processors, and importers. That makes it simple to administer. The whole bill is only 29 pages long.…”