This page compiles expressions of support for carbon taxes (or more targeted taxes, e.g., on gasoline) by notable individuals and organizations. Please send us additional entries, with documentation. Click link at right for polling results.
Quote of the Week
Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, as reported on Feb. 6 in the International Herald Tribune: Measures to reduce global warming would not be devastating economically, and the United States has been "particularly delinquent" on the issue, Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, said Tuesday. Speaking to the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, Volcker said the argument that taxes on oil or carbon emissions, for example, would ruin an economy was "fundamentally false … First of all, I don’t think (such a step) is going to have that much of an impact on the economy overall. Second of all, if you don’t do it, you can be sure that the economy will go down the drain in the next 30 years," Volcker said, referring to the impact forecast by a U.N. report last week. (See below, first item under Economists, for further quote.)
Public Officials (elected or appointed)
James Connaughton, CEQ: We quote from Washington Post economic columnist Sebastian Mallaby’s Jan. 15, 2007 column: On Saturday I put the case for a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system to James Connaughton, the head of the Council on Environmental Quality at the White House. Far from denouncing these policies as eco-socialist nonsense, Connaughton sounded open to them. "In concept I can agree with you," he said. Something must be done to stem demand for climate-warming energy, and although there are several ways of getting there, a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system would be the most "elegant."
Al Gore
The individual who has done the most to raise the nation’s consciousness on climate change is now an outspoken advocate for taxing carbon emissions. In a July 19, 2006 speech at Wal-Mart’s Bentonville, AR headquarters, Gore said, "We should sharply reduce payroll taxes and make it all up in CO2 taxes so the low- and middle-income people don’t bear the cost burden of this big transition in energy sources." Gore spoke in the same vein two months later at NYU Law School:
For the last fourteen years, I have advocated the elimination of all payroll taxes — including those for social security and unemployment compensation — and the replacement of that revenue in the form of pollution taxes — principally on CO2. The overall level of taxation would remain exactly the same. It would be, in other words, a revenue neutral tax swap. But, instead of discouraging businesses from hiring more employees, it would discourage business from producing more pollution.
Scientists
James Hansen, Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies: "An effective fossil energy policy should include a tax on carbon emissions… Fuel taxes should encourage conservation, but with rebates to taxpayers so that the government revenue from the tax does not increase. The taxpayer can use his rebate to fill his gas-guzzler if he likes, but most people will eventually reduce their use of fuel in order to save money, and will spend the rebate on something else. With slow and continual increases of fuel cost, energy consumption will decline. The economy will not be harmed. Indeed, it will be improved." (New York Review of Books, July 13, 2006, The Threat to the Planet)
William Moomaw, Professor of International Environmental Policy and Director of the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy, Tufts University: "As a first step, we should dismantle the web of policies that overwhelmingly favors fossil-fuel production and use and actively discriminates against new technologies and practices that would reduce harmful emissions… The second step is to institute federal, state, and local policies that reverse the disincentives created by the existing policy structure and force users to pay the costs of extracting, transporting, and burning fossil fuels. The most straightforward and effective policy changes would include a carbon tax." (Article co-authored with Judy Mayzer in Jan/Feb 2007 "Can We Stop Global Warming?" issue of Boston Review; Moomaw, holder of a PhD in Physical Chemistry from M.I.T., has been a lead author on four major IPCC reports.)
Economists
Paul Volcker, former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, speaking to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Egypt: [The argument that taxes on oil or carbon emissions would ruin an economy is] "fundamentally false. First of all, I don’t think [such a step] is going to have that much of an impact on the economy overall. Second of all, if you don’t do it, you can be sure that the economy will go down the drain in the next 30 years," Volcker said. Referring to the new report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Volcker added:
What may happen to the dollar, and what may happen to growth in China or whatever pale into insignificance compared with the question of what happens to this planet over the next 30 or 40 years if no action is taken… The scientists seem pretty well agreed that [global warming] is still potentially manageable if we act decisively, beginning now into the next decade or so, by taking measures that are technically and economically feasible.
[All quotes attributed to Mr. Volcker, above, are from an article published in the International Herald Tribune on Feb. 6, US: Economist Paul Volcker Says Steps to Curb Global Warming Would Not Devastate an Economy.]
A majority of economists polled by the Wall Street Journal during Feb. 2-7: The government should encourage development of alternatives to fossil fuels, economists said in a WSJ.com survey. But most say the best way to do that isn’t in President Bush’s energy proposals: a new tax on fossil fuels. Forty of 47 economists who answered the question said the government should help champion alternative fuels. "Economists generally are in favor of free-market solutions, but there are times when you need to intervene," said David Wyss at Standard & Poor’s Corp. "We’re already in the danger zone" because of the outlook for oil supplies and concerns about climate change, he said. A majority of the economists said a tax on fossil fuels would be the most economically sound way to encourage alternatives. A tax would raise the price of fossil fuels and make alternatives, which today often are more costly to produce, more competitive in the consumer market. "A tax puts pressure on the market, rather than forcing an artificial solution on it," said Mr. Wyss. (WSJ, Is It Time for a New Tax on Energy?, Feb. 8, 2007; the foregoing text is lifted directly from the article.)
Harvard economist Gregory Mankiw: Perhaps the most vociferous advocate for higher fuel taxes in the economics profession is Gregory Mankiw, Harvard professor and chair of the President’s Council on Economic Advisers, 2003-2005. His 2006 Wall Street Journal op-ed pieces (Jan. 3 and Oct. 20) are among the many lively pieces available on his pro-fuel-tax blog, The Pigou Club Manifesto. (Economist Arthur Pigou, 1877-1959, developed the concept of economic externalities along with corrective "Pigovian" taxes.) On the last day of 2006 Mankiw reiterated his 2006 New Year’s Resolutions from his Jan. 3, 2006 WSJ piece, including:
I will tell the American people that a higher tax on gasoline is better at encouraging conservation than are heavy-handed CAFE regulations. It would not only encourage people to buy more fuel-efficient cars, but it would encourage them to drive less, such as by living closer to where they work. I will tell people that tolls are a good way to reduce traffic congestion � and with new technologies they are getting easier to collect. I will advocate a carbon tax as the best way to control global warming.
In a Sept. 16, 2006 post to his blog, Rogoff Joins the Pigou Club, Mankiw listed some three dozen other economists and pundits "who have publicly advocated higher Pigovian taxes, such as gasoline taxes or carbon taxes. The list includes, in addition to several individuals mentioned here, such notables from economics, finance and journalism as Alan Greenspan, Gary Becker, William Nordhaus, Richard Posner, Anthony Lake, Martin Feldstein, Gregg Easterbrook and Lawrence Summers. (Links are included.)
Edward Snyder, dean of the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business, told Reuters in late January, "The political consensus [favoring climate action] is coming together but we’re still a ways away from good policy. We need to recognize that carbon is a ‘bad,’ tax it, and let the market work." However, as Reuters noted, "While President Bush devoted a large portion of his State of the Union address to energy, he did not utter the two magic words that Snyder wanted to hear — carbon tax." (U.S. Consumers, Companies Feeling Green, Reuters, Jan. 28)
Environmental Organizations and Leaders
Lester Brown, Earth Policy Institute: "We need a way to reduce gasoline use, one that is practical and politically acceptable. We need a higher gas tax, but the only way to get a gas tax rise large enough to wean us from imported oil is to offset the rise with a reduction in the tax on income. The gas tax boost should be substantial � a rise that will send a strong, clear signal to consumers � and it should be gradually phased in. A gasoline tax hike of 30� a gallon per year for the next 10 years would send the right signal. This eventual increase of $3 per gallon would be offset at every step of the way with a reduction in income taxes." (Let’s Raise Gas Taxes And Lower Income Taxes, May 11, 2006)
Business Leaders
Paul Anderson, Chairman and CEO, Duke Energy
I believe U.S. public policy on global climate change should encourage a transition to a ower-carbon-intensive economy through a broad-based, mandatory approach. And, I believe the best approach is a carbon tax � A well-crafted carbon tax would do three things: First, it would provide incentives for conservation for everyone. Second, it would promote higher utilization of today’s power plants that are low emitters of carbon and encourage low-carbon fuel choices for the future. And third, it would encourage the development of new technologies. The greatest attraction of a carbon tax is that it allows us to share the cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors of the economy � minimizing the disruption in any one area. (Address, Charlotte Business Journal, 10th Annual Power Breakfast, April 7, 2005)
Theodore Roosevelt IV, Lehman Bros. executive: "We want to see Congress, for instance, renew the production tax credit for wind power and pass an energy bill that includes a carbon tax or cap." (Speech
Religious Leaders
Rabbi Arthur Waskow, The Shalom Center, Philadelphia: Rabbi Waskow, a long-time leader in progressive Judaism, has been speaking and organizing about U.S. "oiloholism" for some time. He has skillfully abridged material from CTC’s Web site on the Shalom Center’s site under the title Carbon Tax: Crucial Step To Stop Global Scorching. For more about the Shalom Center, see our Links page.
Authors / Writers
Katherine Ellison (The Mommy Brain): "What our kids need to know most is that adults are acting like grown-ups… If we want to show our kids we mean business about global warming, let’s start by ponying up for a carbon tax. Let our children watch us demand this from Washington with the courage and force of the civil rights movement." (Global Warming-era Parenthood, Los Angeles Times, Dec. 23, 2006)
Bill McKibben: "There’s another way of saying what is missing here. Almost every idea that might bring us a better future would be made much easier if the cost of fossil fuel was higher�if there was some kind of a tax on carbon emissions that made the price of coal and oil and gas reflect its true environmental cost." (How Close to Catastrophe?, New York Review of Books, Nov. 16, 2006.) McKibben, author of the classic The End of Nature and a supremely effective and engaged climate activist, has also advocated for carbon taxes in articles in Orion, Grist, Mother Jones and elsewhere.
Pundits / Journalists
The New York Times
The Times has six regular editorial columnists, four of whom have supported a carbon tax. A former editorial columnist, John Tierney, also supported a carbon tax (in 2006), but no longer appears on the op-ed page. Note: some Times links are only available to non-subscribers for fee.
David Brooks: "Raise taxes on carbon emissions," urged The Times’ most right-leaning columnist, on Nov. 30, 2006 (Waiting To Be Wooed). Although Brooks favors using the tax revenues to make tax cuts on dividends and capital gains permanent, a stance at odds with CTC’s progressive tax-shift position, he at least grasps the need to reflect climate-change costs in fuel prices.
Thomas Friedman: His is the most influential and persistent journalistic voice for breaking U.S. oil dependence by taxing gasoline. We count a dozen columns on this score in 2006 alone, including Who’s Afraid of a Gas Tax? ("Americans not only know that our oil addiction is really bad for us, but they would be willing to accept a gasoline tax if some leader would just frame the stakes for the country the right way," March 1, 2006). Friedman has recently broadened his call to "a gasoline or carbon tax": And The Color of the Year Is … ("You have to make sure that green energy sources … can be delivered as cheaply as oil, gas and dirty coal. That will require a gasoline or carbon tax to keep the price of fossil fuels up so investors in green-tech will not get undercut while they drive innovation forward and prices down," Dec. 22, 2006). Friedman has kept the pressure on in 2007, with The First Energy President ("It means asking Americans to do some hard things [including] accepting a gasoline or carbon tax," Jan. 5), and (A Warning From the Garden, Jan. 19):
"I don’t care whether it is a federal gasoline tax, carbon tax, B.T.U. tax or cap-and-trade system, power utilities, factories and car owners have to be required to pay the real and full cost to society of the carbon they put into the atmosphere. And higher costs for fossil fuels make more costly clean alternatives more competitive… And prices matter. They drive more and cleaner energy choices. So when the president unveils his energy proposals, if they don’t call for higher efficiency standards and higher prices for fossil fuels — take your socks off yourself. It’s going to get hot around here."
Nicholas Kristof: A Paradise Drowning ("We must encourage conservation and fuel efficiency, support alternative forms of energy like wind, solar and biofuels, and … adopt a carbon tax…," Jan. 8, 2006), and Scandal Below the Surface ("We know what is needed: a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system, a post-Kyoto accord on emissions cutbacks, and major research on alternative energy sources," Oct. 31, 2006).
Paul Krugman: Sins of Emission ("If carbon dioxide is deemed to inflict damage on the environment, then the efficient way to resolve the problem is to provide market incentives to burn less carbon. The most straightforward policy would be an across-the-board carbon tax.") Krugman wrote that in November, 2000, the month of the first Bush electoral "victory." He returned to the subject a week after the 2007 State of the Union address: "[C]onservation doesn’t have anything like the same natural political mojo [as ethanol]. Where’s the organized, powerful constituency for tougher fuel economy standards, a higher gasoline tax, or a cap-and-trade system on carbon dioxide emissions?" (The Sum of All Ears, Jan. 29) Memo to PK: We’re building it!
John Tierney: Burn, Baby, Burn ("The fairest and most efficient way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would be with a carbon tax on all fossil fuels," Feb. 7, 2006; similarly on April 23, 2006, in Cheer Up, Earth Day Is Over). In late 2006 Tierney relinquished his column to focus on science reporting. He featured CTC in his Jan. 24 blog.
Editorial: Times editorials are separate from the columns and carry the imprimatur of the newpaper as a whole. The most recent editorial urging a tax on carbon emissions, Avoiding Calamity on the Cheap, appeared on Nov. 3, 2006: "Since the dawn of the industrial revolution, the atmosphere has served as a free dumping ground for carbon gases. If people and industries are made to pay heavily for the privilege, they will inevitably be driven to develop cleaner fuels, cars and factories."
Economics Columnist Daniel Akst ("On The Contrary"): "Let’s face it: nothing but drastically higher prices will deter most of us from consuming more carbon-based energy… Of course, it would be nice not to have to rely on cartels and circumstances to make us moderate our consumption. Hefty taxes on carbon-based energy … would be a much better approach." The Good News About Oil Prices Is The Bad News, Sept. 17, 2006.
Economics Columnist David Leonhardt ("Economix"): "The simplest idea in economics, I think, is that people respond to the incentives they are given… So if we have decided that we need to use less oil for our own good � which seems to be the case � we need big incentives to change our behavior… A substantial gas tax would be the simplest, with other taxes being cut to keep down the overall burden." Buy A Hybrid, Save A Guzzler, Feb. 8, 2006.
Other Newspapers
Washington Post Editorial: "[The Administration] has resisted taxing carbon use, preferring instead to provide incentives for oil and gas extraction — just the opposite of what’s needed." Sorry Record - Waiting for breakthrough technologies is not the way to reduce greenhouse gases, July 11, 2006)
Washington Post Columnist Sebastian Mallaby: "These days almost nobody asserts that global warming isn’t happening. Instead, we are confronted with a new lie: that we can respond to climate change without taxing and regulating carbon… We already have technologies to cut carbon… The problem is we don’t use them… What matters is not just the technologies we have but the incentives to deploy them." A Dated Carbon Approach, July 10, 2006.
Wall Street Journal business columnist Holman W. Jenkins Jr.: "… walking upright, with knuckles no longer in proximity to the ground, are advocates — mostly economists — of a carbon tax. A carbon tax would be the efficient way of encouraging businesses and consumers to make less carbon-intensive energy choices. Government would not have to exercise an improbable clairvoyance about which technologies will pay off in the future. There’d be less scope for Congress to favor some industries over others purely on the basis of lobbying clout." (Decoding Climate Politics, Jan. 24, 2007) Note: While Jenkins’ remarks should be taken with a heap of salt (he’s no climate advocate, to put it mildly), his praise for a carbon tax and his vitriol toward the new enviro-corporate climate alliance are both striking.
Wall Street Journal political columnist Kimberly A. Strassel (referring to corporate lobbying efforts for a cap-and-trade climate program): "What makes this lobby worse than the usual K-Street crowd is that it offers no upside. At least when Big Pharma self-interestedly asks for fewer regulations, the economy benefits. There’s nothing capitalist about lobbying for a program that foists its debilitating costs on taxpayers and consumers while redistributing the wealth to a few corporate players." (If The Cap Fits, Jan. 26, not available on the Web).
Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial-page editor Cynthia Tucker (writing in the Baltimore Sun): "The president should have told Americans years ago that the days of cheap gas were over. If the president had imposed a stiff tax on gasoline at the pump [after 9/11], American motorists would have grumbled, but we would have gotten over it." (Oiloholic Nation Has No Business Lecturing China, April 24, 2006)
New York Observer Columnist Nicholas von Hoffman: "When they talk about conservation at all � which is almost never � [politicians] talk in terms of new tax deductions when they ought to be talking about imposing new taxes. How about a heavy energy-consumption tax on McMansions?… Similar kinds of taxes could be imposed on whole classes of machines that pour filth into the atmosphere and consume frightful amounts of fuel." (While Politicians Pander, Conservation Is Ignored, May 15, 2006) Although CTC seeks to tax all carbon emissions, not just those from uses deemed excessive, we share with von Hoffman the view that taxing carbon is more important than subsidizing carbon alternatives.
Magazines
New Yorker writer and climate-change author Elizabeth Kolbert endorsed a carbon tax or emissions-trading system in an interview with Wired Magazine published March 29, 2006.
The veteran New Yorker commentator Hendrik Hertzberg wrote in the Feb. 13 & 20, 2006 issue, "The best way to encourage conservation � and the true sign of a serious energy policy � would be imposing a hefty gasoline tax and raising mandatory fuel-efficiency standards."
Others
Writing recently (Nov. 9, 2006) in The Wall Street Journal, Former Bush (43) speechwriter David Frum urged the president to send Congress a carbon-tax bill.
[more to come]
