Will cap and trade increase auto fuel economy?
How much must gas cost to make the Fusion hybrid a big seller?So, Bill Ford Jr. is now advocating a gas tax. It seems everyone in the auto industry is hyping a gas tax these days. It provides such a perfect excuse for Big 3 inaction on fuel economy. Of course, its hard to argue that Bill and others don't have a bit of a point.
Still, why now? Is it just because the White House has indicated a gas tax isn't even on the table, as it all comes down to cap & trade now?
I'm not really sure, but I have wondered lately how cap & trade would affect gas prices. One article in USAToday recently claimed that by 2015 a cap & trade program would add between .16 cents on the low end to about $2.58 on the high end to the price of a gallon of gas.
Certainly, an additional .16 cents won't accomplish anything. $2.58, on the other hand, would have a pretty big effect. Nonetheless, that's quite a range and a lot of uncertainty.
Obviously, cap & trade is about carbon, but is such a program too open ended if the goal is ending foreign oil dependency?
Labels: cap and trade, Foreign Oil Dependency, fuel economy, gas tax
posted by Dahcredyns at
10:30 AM
3 Comments:
I don't have any answers or additional information, but wouldn't a gas tax be simpler, more transparent and effective than a complex cap & trade program?
Isn't it always Congressional intervention that eventually leads to the major problems?
For instance, a problem occurs, Democrats over regulate the solution to the problem, then Republicans get voted in to fix the over-regulation, but then they over-shoot on the de-regulation.
Shouldn't simplicity and transparency be the focus?
The Pew Center found that, if done correctly, a cap & trade program could be a very effective program, however, the same study also found passing such a program through Congress would be "extraordinarily difficult". Think loopholes, extra bureaucracy, political kick backs and ear marks for instance.
Thus, you could argue cap and trade is risky, and a simpler program, like a gas tax, might be more wise.
however, an intelligently executed cap & trade program, is still the best.
i guess the question is, is Congress capable of an intelligently executed cap & trade program?
http://www.pewclimate.org/global-warming-in-depth/all_reports/mandatory_ghg_reduction_prgm/usgas_execsumm.cfm
Yes a gas tax would of course be much easier for anyone to implement and understand and thats why it wont be used.
Taxing gas would be transparent, and applied uniformly all across USA and thats another reason it wont be considered -
Obama may want real substantial positive long term change, however he faces the reality that politicians have oil. gas, coal, defense, trucking, etc jobs in many districts, they pollute and wont be happy to be charged for doing same. It will be much cheaper for them to donate millions each to pro-pollution/gas/coal/defense jobs/trucking companies and other right wing white (or token black) candidates in their district that to have life time 'cap and trade' restictions sorry to say.(yea im white).
That being said I am more than amazed that Obama has persuasively managed to deactivate the right wing fox news nutwings thus far! He seeks truth and as such will have millions of whites people wanting his downfall. I go to sleep at night wondering how did america come to deserve such a visionary...and like all visionaries every hour of every day of every week he will be attacked, called weak, a traitor to democracy, a socialist and more.
And what he really represents is that part of America that seeks peace, clean air and water, more affordable schooling and health insurance and other 'nutty' ideas.
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