News from the front desk: Issue No 198
The thinking echoed what the conservative think tank the R Street Institute said last year after it broke away from the Heartland Institute that has dominated – and some say controlled and funded – anti climate action around the world.
See one of our articles last year reporting the R Street Institute arguing for a carbon tax and saying it would be possible to get one in the US by 2015.
See this most recent post from the R Street folk, R Street disappointed by EPA greenhouse gas rules
Why is it disappointed?
Because the new carbon emissions regulations are likely to “prove expensive and damaging to a still-fragile economic recovery”.
Instead, it said, the Obama administration should move to a carbon tax and “kill two birds with one stone” – slow climate change and free up the tax burden for the economy.
“R Street has instead urged officials to embrace the power of the free market by utilising revenue-neutral carbon pricing as a complete substitute for command-and-control regulation.
“Carbon pricing could allow states to kill two birds with one stone.
“They could achieve mandated emissions reductions through a price signal instead of complicated regulation, while utilising all resulting revenue to eliminate or reduce taxes that are damaging to the economy. This could get EPA off their backs while securing real pro-growth tax reform.”
