I need your help. For discussion purposes please assume the following:- We need to phase out the use of fossil fuels.
- We need to incentivize people to burn less fossil fuel and one way to do this is to increase the prices of fossil fuels.
- An easy way to do this is to impose a tax on fossil fuels.
- The specific proposal here is to impose a tax on the CO2 that will be produced when the fuel is burned, and to collect this tax at the source of the fuel: mine, well, or port of entry for imported oil and gas. The tax will start low and increase by a predetermined amount each year. All the revenue from this tax, except for a small administrative cost, will be returned directly and promptly to the public. The revenue will be divided equally among all legal residents and checks will be sent out in December and June. [Alaska does this for oil pipeline revenue and sends out a check each June.]
The word “tax” usually produces knee-jerk opposition. Typical taxes go to the government. The tax proposed here will be collected by a government agency, but it will go back to the people. So it is not a typical tax. We need a better name.
Below are five names for the above system. Please rank them, with the best at the top, and let me know the order. Your comments are welcome, but a simple ranking is enough.
A. carbon tax and rebate
B. fee and dividend
C. untax
D. people’s tax
E. green feebate [feebate is short for fee and rebate]
Thanks very much for your help.
Bill Allen
#1 by Jonathan Cloud on Thursday, February 25, 2010 - 6:34 pm
Eric Russell writes:
One point of discussion which will attract a lot of action is point 4.
If the money were to be invested in green startups and infrastructure, it would have more effect than returning money which they have already spent to people. Even though it would be an easier sell to give it back to the people actually paying the tax, it would be walking on a treadmill, and not productive.
There would be no incentive to burn less. What is needed is something to create a lasting change and awareness of the effects of CO2 and other hydrocarbons in the air and water.
Eric