COMMENTARY | AS I SEE IT

Forget cap and trade — raise gas taxes instead

The current debate over global warming has obscured a fact that should not be debatable — namely that the planet is and has been environmentally degraded by the human footprint.

Every third of a second, the planet makes room for one additional human being, who on average spews into the air 3.2 tons of carbon along with his share of 80,000 ton of carbon monoxide and 270,000 metric tons of methane.

Current environmental policy has almost exclusively failed to consider the effects of population on the environment and instead has taken the self-defeating form of spending trillions on the “circle game,” leading former EPA Administrator Lee Thomas to observe that current environmental policy has merely transferred pollution “in one medium, such as the air … to another, such as soil or water …. At best it is misleading — we think we are solving a problem and aren’t.

“At worst, it is perverse … it (increases) rather than (reduces) pollution.”

While governments spend billions on marginal reductions in pollution emitted per consumption unit, such as cars or refrigerators, an expanding world population exponentially increases the number of units spewing pollution.

The so-called “carbon market” bill may be fine for people like Al Gore who can justify the extravagant pollution emitted by their Lear jets and mansions by saying they “bought their rights to pollute on the carbon market,” but the European experience with such markets has shown that it has a negligible effect on the world environment.

Studies have further shown that “cap and trade” programs affect consumers the same way as a direct carbon tax that is equal to the market-determined permit price — equivalent, in other words, to, say, a straightforward “gas tax” on consumers.

Thus if government regulators truly want to reduce pollution by raising the cost of emitting it, the most efficient method would be to simply raise gasoline taxes to $8-$10 or more a gallon, using the proceeds to reduce taxes imposed on the poor, particularly payroll taxes.

While it is understandable why government regulators prefer to hide from voters the cost to consumers of cap and trade (the Congressional Budget office has estimated that the proposed cap and trade bill would cost consumers at least $1 trillion), in the long run a far better policy would be one of complete honesty, relying on voters’ ultimate willingness to support a sound environmental agenda even at the cost of reducing the standard of living to which they have become accustomed.

Otherwise, any “cap and trade” program runs the risk that it will ultimately backfire once the voters realize they have been tricked.

Robert Hardaway is professor of law at the University of Denver College of Law and the co-author with Judy Trejos of “Tropical Rainforest Conservation Legislation and Policy: A Global Perspective.” He lives in Denver.

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