More Like This Please

Congressman Stark (D-CA) introduces the Save Our Climate Act (h/t Calitics):

The Save Our Climate Act imposes an initial tax of $10 per ton of carbon content on fossil fuels when they are initially removed from the ground or imported into the United States, resulting in approximately a 2 cents per gallon increase. The tax will increase by $10 each year, freezing when a mandated report by the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Energy determines that carbon dioxide emissions have decreased by 80 percent from 1990 levels. The 80 percent level is the reduction estimated by the International Panel on Climate Change to be necessary to prevent the catastrophic consequences anticipated from rapid climate change.

Carbon taxes are going to be the way to reduce fossil fuel consumption across the board. I prefer them to cap-and-trade programs, which are more complicated and are open to fudging if the caps aren’t firm.

At the same time, I am concerned that carbon taxes will ultimately prove regressive. It will be much easier for the wealthy to replace their gas-consuming cars with electric vehicles, meaning that they will be freed by the burdens of the tax sooner than others. There needs to be way to share the cost of combating climate change equitably.