Coalition Supports Scalise Anti-Carbon Tax Amendment

“…A carbon tax would hurt American families by driving up the cost of energy as well as reducing economic growth. According to a study of one popular carbon tax proposal, a carbon tax would reduce the income of a family of four by $1,000 a year, cost the economy over 400,000 jobs by 2016, and increase the price of gasoline by 30 cents a gallon by 2030.

“Not only would a carbon tax harm the economy, it would have no substantive impact on global temperature. If we would reduce America’s carbon dioxide emissions to zero, global temperature would only be 0.052°C lower by 2050 and 0.137°C by 2100—not enough to have any substantive impact on climate. A carbon tax would not reduce U.S. carbon dioxide emissions to zero and would therefore have even less of a climate impact.

“There are no arguments for a carbon tax that make sense. Some argue that implementing a carbon tax could actually make the tax code more efficient. This claim is not supported by the economics literature. The best literature on the topic explains that a revenue-neutral carbon tax swap would make the tax code more inefficient and would hinder economic growth.  Some estimates suggest that this ‘tax interaction effect’ is so powerful that the theoretical size of a new carbon tax should be cut almost in half, once extra damage to the economy is taken into account…”