Currently, our cap-and-trade has caused gas prices to rise 30-40%, has solved nothing, and is only helping big buisnesses and fossil fuel companies to fuel the world's addiction to fossil fuels.
Contention 3. Solvency
1.
A.
A carbon tax is the best policy option. It provides effective and efficient cuts, leads to more innovation, avoids corruption, eliminates burdensome federal regulations, stabilizes prices, is adjustable and predictable, has methods in place now to collect the tax, keeps the money in the United States for investment and innovation, and mitigates the economic damages of halting fossil fuel use. (http://www.carbontax.org/)
2.
A. Carbon Taxes Will Lend Predictability to Energy Prices.
With carbon taxes ramped up through a multi-year phase-in, future energy and power prices can be predicted with a reasonable degree of confidence well ahead of time. This will make it possible for literally millions of energy-critical decisions — from the design of new electricity generating plants to the purchase of the family car to the materials used in commercial airframes — to be made with full cognizance of carbon-appropriate price signals. In contrast, a cap-and-trade program will exacerbate the volatility of energy prices since the price of carbon allowances will fluctuate as weather and economic factors affect the demand for energy. The vaunted advantage of cap-and-trade — that future levels of carbon emissions can be known ahead of time — is mostly notional, moreover, since most cap-and-trade systems under discussion include a "safety-valve" for auctioning off additional carbon allowances if the price of allowances exceeds a predetermined level. And even certainty in future emission levels is of questionable value, since there is no agreed-upon trajectory of emissions for achieving climate stability and preventing disaster. The real target for which the U.S. must aim is to reduce carbon emissions as much as possible, and then more.
B. Carbon Taxes Will Provide Quicker Results.
The taxes themselves can be designed and adopted quickly and fairly. Cap-and-trade systems, by contrast, are devilishly complex and will take years to develop and implement. Thorny issues must be addressed intellectually and resolved politically; the proper level of the cap, timing, allowance allocations, certification procedures, standards for use of offsets, penalties, regional conflicts, the inevitable requests for exceptions by affected parties and a myriad of other complex issues must all be resolved before cap-and-trade systems can be implemented. During this time, polluters will continue to emit carbon with no cost consequences.
C. Carbon Taxes Address All Sectors and Activities Producing Carbon Emissions. Carbon taxes target carbon emissions in all sectors — energy, industry and transportation. It would be unwise to ignore the non-electricity sectors that account for 60% of U.S. CO2 emissions.
D. Putting a price on the carbon emissions attendant on fuel use would create numerous incentives to reduce the use of carbon-intensive energy. The increased costs of energy would flow through the economy, ultimately giving consumers incentives to reduce their use of electricity, transportation fuels, home heating oil, and so forth. Consumers, motivated by the tax, would have incentives to buy more efficient appliances, to buy and drive more efficient cars, and to better insulate their homes or construct them with more attention to energy conservation. A carbon tax would also create incentives for consumers to demand lower-carbon power sources from their local utilities. A carbon tax, as its cost flowed down the chains of production into consumer products, would lead manufacturers to become more efficient and consumers to economize in consumption. At all levels in the economy, a carbon tax would create a profit niche for environmental entrepreneurs to find ways to deliver lower-carbon energy at competitive prices.
Finally, a carbon tax would also serve to level (somewhat) the playing field among solar power, wind power, nuclear power, and carbon-based fuels by internalizing the cost of carbon emission into the price of the various forms of energy. Less Corruption. Unlike carbon cap-and-trade initiatives, a carbon tax would create little incentive or opportunity for rent-seeking or cheating. As William Nordhaus explains: A price approach gives less room for corruption because it does not create artificial scarcities, monopolies, or rents. There are no permits transferred to countries or leaders of countries, so they cannot be sold abroad for wine or guns. . . . In fact, a carbon tax would add absolutely nothing to the instruments that countries have today. Without the profit potential of amassing tradable carbon permits, industry groups would have less incentive to try to get credits for their favored but non-competitive energy sources. That is not to say that tax-based approaches are immune from corruption, for they certainly are not. If set too far down the chain of production or set unevenly among energy sources, carbon taxes could well lead to rent-seeking, political favoritism, economic distortions, and so on. Foreign governments might have an incentive to undermine a trading scheme by offering incentives to allow their manufacturers to avoid the cost of carbon trading. Elimination of Superfluous Regulations.
Because a carbon tax would cause carbon emissions to be reduced efficiently across the entire market, other measures that are less efficient-- and sometimes even perverse in their impacts--could be eliminated.
2.
A. Carbon tax is the best way to reduce greenhouse gasses and promote alternative energy solves 11% of greenhouse gasses for every 15$ of carbon tax established.
Green, Hayward, and Hassett, 2007
[Kenneth P. Green, Steven F. Hayward, Kevin A. Hassett, F. K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow, resident scholar, and senior fellow and director of economic policy studies at AEI, “Climate Change: Caps vs. Taxes,” http://www.aei.org/publications/filter. ... detail.asp, June 1, ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY OUTLOOK, AEI Online, No. 2 ]
A program of carbon-centered tax reform, by contrast, lacks most of the negative attributes of cap-and-trade, and could convey significant benefits unrelated to GHG reductions or avoidance of potential climate harms, making this a no-regrets policy. A tax swap would create economy-wide incentives for energy efficiency and lower-carbon energy, and by raising the price of energy would also reduce energy use. At the same time, revenues generated would allow the mitigation of the economic impact of higher energy prices, both on the general economy and on the lower-income earners who might be disproportionately affected by such a change. Carbon taxes would be more difficult to avoid, and existing institutions quite adept at tax collection could step up immediately.
Revenues would remain in-country, removing international incentives for cheating or insincere participation in carbon-reduction programs. Most of these effects would remain beneficial even if science should determine that reducing GHG emissions has only a negligible effect on mitigating global warming. A modest carbon tax of $15 per ton of
CO2 emitted would result in an 11 percent decline in CO2 emissions, while raising non-coal-based energy forms modestly. Coal-based energy prices would be affected more strongly, which is to be expected in any plan genuinely intended to reduce GHG emissions. A number of possible mechanisms are available to refund the revenues raised by this tax. On net, these tools could significantly reduce the economic costs of the tax and quite possibly provide economic benefits. For these reasons, we conclude that if aggressive actions are to be taken to control GHG emissions, carbon-centered tax reform--not GHG emission trading-- is the superior policy option.
Debate-central.org Carbon Tax AFF
2008
Warming 1AC – Contention 3 – Solvency – (11/13)
C. Carbon tax would best encourage the switch to renewables
Shapiro 2007
[Robert J., “Addressing the Risks of Climate Change: The Environmental Effectiveness and Economic Efficiency of Emissions Caps and Tradable Permits, Compared to Carbon Taxes,” former U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs during the Clinton Administration, February, http://www.aci-citizenresearch.org/Shapiro.pdf ]
Carbon taxes also should provide greater incentives for companies to develop new, environmentally-friendly technologies or abatement strategies than a cap-and-trade program. The tax would provide “a continual incentive to reduce the costs of carbon abatement,”66 as a leading energy economist put it, because the permanent increase in the cost of carbon-intensive energy would raise the rate of return on the development and use of technologies that reduce the consumption of those forms of energy. Cap-and-trade
provides less powerful incentives in this respect, because its impact on energy prices is less constant and more volatile. And under flawed versions of the cap-and-trade strategy, such as Kyoto-based targets, the availability of excess permits further weakens the incentives to develop and use alternative fuels and more energy-efficient technologies.
D. Carbon tax solves for pollution at every point of the cycle
Kriz 2007
[Margaret, “Dingell’s Dare,” the National Journal, October 20, download date” 6-90-08]
But carbon-tax supporters say that Dingell is only stating the obvious: A tax may be necessary to curb global warming. "I think there is a growing understanding of how bad cap-and-trade is," AEI's Green said. "And if that sentiment continues to grow,
more people will say, 'Look, we need to bring a positive alternative to the table.' And what they're left with is going to be a carbon tax." Industry associations say that their members are split on how to address global warming. A lobbyist with one group
estimated that about 40 percent of his members favor a cap-and-trade plan and the rest are evenly divided between supporting a carbon tax and opposing all controls on greenhouse gases. But cap-and-trade proponents might jump ship, he said, if Congress were to write a bill that they believed disadvantaged their companies. "If I were going to handicap the race, I would say, long term there is a better chance for a carbon tax because they can make it apply to everything, including products coming into the country," he said. "Industry's biggest concern is, 'Is this going to be fair?' A carbon tax is perceived as being fair."
E. Carbon tax should be implemented on the federal level – it’s the only way to fairly spread the cost of the plan around
Einholf 2007
[David M., formerly a managing partner in Energy Resources Management, Daily Journal of Commerce (Portland, OR), “Carbon and the Pacific Northwest, effective emissions control,” November 13 ]
On the other hand is the carbon tax, which would place a charge on the carbon emissions generated by any fossil fuel (e.g. coal, natural gas, oil products). Carbon taxes are favored by utilities with a majority of renewable, natural gas, or nuclear resources in their portfolios. Many conservative economists have also embraced the carbon tax as a potential replacement for some personal and corporate income taxes. Economists estimate that a tax of $10 per metric ton of carbon dioxide emissions (the common measure)
could yield more than $50 billion per year to the treasury, assuming some reductions from a 2005 baseline. As with cap and trade, a carbon tax has its pros and cons. As an economic policy, a carbon tax would be simple to implement at the national level. It would largely affect utilities and oil producers, who would simply pass it through to their customers. Estimates of the effect of a $10 per Megaton carbon dioxide tax are an increase of $0.024 cents per gallon of gas and $0.0017 per kilowatt-hour of electricity, less than a 2 percent increase. As a tax, however, it would affect the poor and small business disproportionately, as they pay a greater part of their income for oil and electricity. Lastly, a carbon tax is only truly effective if it is instituted as a national policy.
1.
A.
A carbon tax is the best policy option. It provides effective and efficient cuts, leads to more innovation, avoids corruption, eliminates burdensome federal regulations, stabilizes prices, is adjustable and predictable, has methods in place now to collect the tax, keeps the money in the United States for investment and innovation, and mitigates the economic damages of halting fossil fuel use. (http://www.carbontax.org/)
2.
A. Carbon Taxes Will Lend Predictability to Energy Prices.
With carbon taxes ramped up through a multi-year phase-in, future energy and power prices can be predicted with a reasonable degree of confidence well ahead of time. This will make it possible for literally millions of energy-critical decisions — from the design of new electricity generating plants to the purchase of the family car to the materials used in commercial airframes — to be made with full cognizance of carbon-appropriate price signals. In contrast, a cap-and-trade program will exacerbate the volatility of energy prices since the price of carbon allowances will fluctuate as weather and economic factors affect the demand for energy. The vaunted advantage of cap-and-trade — that future levels of carbon emissions can be known ahead of time — is mostly notional, moreover, since most cap-and-trade systems under discussion include a "safety-valve" for auctioning off additional carbon allowances if the price of allowances exceeds a predetermined level. And even certainty in future emission levels is of questionable value, since there is no agreed-upon trajectory of emissions for achieving climate stability and preventing disaster. The real target for which the U.S. must aim is to reduce carbon emissions as much as possible, and then more.
B. Carbon Taxes Will Provide Quicker Results.
The taxes themselves can be designed and adopted quickly and fairly. Cap-and-trade systems, by contrast, are devilishly complex and will take years to develop and implement. Thorny issues must be addressed intellectually and resolved politically; the proper level of the cap, timing, allowance allocations, certification procedures, standards for use of offsets, penalties, regional conflicts, the inevitable requests for exceptions by affected parties and a myriad of other complex issues must all be resolved before cap-and-trade systems can be implemented. During this time, polluters will continue to emit carbon with no cost consequences.
C. Carbon Taxes Address All Sectors and Activities Producing Carbon Emissions. Carbon taxes target carbon emissions in all sectors — energy, industry and transportation. It would be unwise to ignore the non-electricity sectors that account for 60% of U.S. CO2 emissions.
D. Putting a price on the carbon emissions attendant on fuel use would create numerous incentives to reduce the use of carbon-intensive energy. The increased costs of energy would flow through the economy, ultimately giving consumers incentives to reduce their use of electricity, transportation fuels, home heating oil, and so forth. Consumers, motivated by the tax, would have incentives to buy more efficient appliances, to buy and drive more efficient cars, and to better insulate their homes or construct them with more attention to energy conservation. A carbon tax would also create incentives for consumers to demand lower-carbon power sources from their local utilities. A carbon tax, as its cost flowed down the chains of production into consumer products, would lead manufacturers to become more efficient and consumers to economize in consumption. At all levels in the economy, a carbon tax would create a profit niche for environmental entrepreneurs to find ways to deliver lower-carbon energy at competitive prices.
Finally, a carbon tax would also serve to level (somewhat) the playing field among solar power, wind power, nuclear power, and carbon-based fuels by internalizing the cost of carbon emission into the price of the various forms of energy. Less Corruption. Unlike carbon cap-and-trade initiatives, a carbon tax would create little incentive or opportunity for rent-seeking or cheating. As William Nordhaus explains: A price approach gives less room for corruption because it does not create artificial scarcities, monopolies, or rents. There are no permits transferred to countries or leaders of countries, so they cannot be sold abroad for wine or guns. . . . In fact, a carbon tax would add absolutely nothing to the instruments that countries have today. Without the profit potential of amassing tradable carbon permits, industry groups would have less incentive to try to get credits for their favored but non-competitive energy sources. That is not to say that tax-based approaches are immune from corruption, for they certainly are not. If set too far down the chain of production or set unevenly among energy sources, carbon taxes could well lead to rent-seeking, political favoritism, economic distortions, and so on. Foreign governments might have an incentive to undermine a trading scheme by offering incentives to allow their manufacturers to avoid the cost of carbon trading. Elimination of Superfluous Regulations.
Because a carbon tax would cause carbon emissions to be reduced efficiently across the entire market, other measures that are less efficient-- and sometimes even perverse in their impacts--could be eliminated.
2.
A. Carbon tax is the best way to reduce greenhouse gasses and promote alternative energy solves 11% of greenhouse gasses for every 15$ of carbon tax established.
Green, Hayward, and Hassett, 2007
[Kenneth P. Green, Steven F. Hayward, Kevin A. Hassett, F. K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow, resident scholar, and senior fellow and director of economic policy studies at AEI, “Climate Change: Caps vs. Taxes,” http://www.aei.org/publications/filter. ... detail.asp, June 1, ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY OUTLOOK, AEI Online, No. 2 ]
A program of carbon-centered tax reform, by contrast, lacks most of the negative attributes of cap-and-trade, and could convey significant benefits unrelated to GHG reductions or avoidance of potential climate harms, making this a no-regrets policy. A tax swap would create economy-wide incentives for energy efficiency and lower-carbon energy, and by raising the price of energy would also reduce energy use. At the same time, revenues generated would allow the mitigation of the economic impact of higher energy prices, both on the general economy and on the lower-income earners who might be disproportionately affected by such a change. Carbon taxes would be more difficult to avoid, and existing institutions quite adept at tax collection could step up immediately.
Revenues would remain in-country, removing international incentives for cheating or insincere participation in carbon-reduction programs. Most of these effects would remain beneficial even if science should determine that reducing GHG emissions has only a negligible effect on mitigating global warming. A modest carbon tax of $15 per ton of
CO2 emitted would result in an 11 percent decline in CO2 emissions, while raising non-coal-based energy forms modestly. Coal-based energy prices would be affected more strongly, which is to be expected in any plan genuinely intended to reduce GHG emissions. A number of possible mechanisms are available to refund the revenues raised by this tax. On net, these tools could significantly reduce the economic costs of the tax and quite possibly provide economic benefits. For these reasons, we conclude that if aggressive actions are to be taken to control GHG emissions, carbon-centered tax reform--not GHG emission trading-- is the superior policy option.
Debate-central.org Carbon Tax AFF
2008
Warming 1AC – Contention 3 – Solvency – (11/13)
C. Carbon tax would best encourage the switch to renewables
Shapiro 2007
[Robert J., “Addressing the Risks of Climate Change: The Environmental Effectiveness and Economic Efficiency of Emissions Caps and Tradable Permits, Compared to Carbon Taxes,” former U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs during the Clinton Administration, February, http://www.aci-citizenresearch.org/Shapiro.pdf ]
Carbon taxes also should provide greater incentives for companies to develop new, environmentally-friendly technologies or abatement strategies than a cap-and-trade program. The tax would provide “a continual incentive to reduce the costs of carbon abatement,”66 as a leading energy economist put it, because the permanent increase in the cost of carbon-intensive energy would raise the rate of return on the development and use of technologies that reduce the consumption of those forms of energy. Cap-and-trade
provides less powerful incentives in this respect, because its impact on energy prices is less constant and more volatile. And under flawed versions of the cap-and-trade strategy, such as Kyoto-based targets, the availability of excess permits further weakens the incentives to develop and use alternative fuels and more energy-efficient technologies.
D. Carbon tax solves for pollution at every point of the cycle
Kriz 2007
[Margaret, “Dingell’s Dare,” the National Journal, October 20, download date” 6-90-08]
But carbon-tax supporters say that Dingell is only stating the obvious: A tax may be necessary to curb global warming. "I think there is a growing understanding of how bad cap-and-trade is," AEI's Green said. "And if that sentiment continues to grow,
more people will say, 'Look, we need to bring a positive alternative to the table.' And what they're left with is going to be a carbon tax." Industry associations say that their members are split on how to address global warming. A lobbyist with one group
estimated that about 40 percent of his members favor a cap-and-trade plan and the rest are evenly divided between supporting a carbon tax and opposing all controls on greenhouse gases. But cap-and-trade proponents might jump ship, he said, if Congress were to write a bill that they believed disadvantaged their companies. "If I were going to handicap the race, I would say, long term there is a better chance for a carbon tax because they can make it apply to everything, including products coming into the country," he said. "Industry's biggest concern is, 'Is this going to be fair?' A carbon tax is perceived as being fair."
E. Carbon tax should be implemented on the federal level – it’s the only way to fairly spread the cost of the plan around
Einholf 2007
[David M., formerly a managing partner in Energy Resources Management, Daily Journal of Commerce (Portland, OR), “Carbon and the Pacific Northwest, effective emissions control,” November 13 ]
On the other hand is the carbon tax, which would place a charge on the carbon emissions generated by any fossil fuel (e.g. coal, natural gas, oil products). Carbon taxes are favored by utilities with a majority of renewable, natural gas, or nuclear resources in their portfolios. Many conservative economists have also embraced the carbon tax as a potential replacement for some personal and corporate income taxes. Economists estimate that a tax of $10 per metric ton of carbon dioxide emissions (the common measure)
could yield more than $50 billion per year to the treasury, assuming some reductions from a 2005 baseline. As with cap and trade, a carbon tax has its pros and cons. As an economic policy, a carbon tax would be simple to implement at the national level. It would largely affect utilities and oil producers, who would simply pass it through to their customers. Estimates of the effect of a $10 per Megaton carbon dioxide tax are an increase of $0.024 cents per gallon of gas and $0.0017 per kilowatt-hour of electricity, less than a 2 percent increase. As a tax, however, it would affect the poor and small business disproportionately, as they pay a greater part of their income for oil and electricity. Lastly, a carbon tax is only truly effective if it is instituted as a national policy.
