Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) “faced a barrage of skeptical queries” earlier this week when they visited the American Enterprise Institute to unveil their plan for a $45-per-tonne carbon tax, Politico Morning Energy reports.
Revenues from the tax “would be used to slash the top marginal corporate income tax rate from 35% to 29%, provide a payroll tax credit to workers, and send an annual $500 benefit to retirees and veterans,” Goode writes. “Some conservatives at AEI and elsewhere have advocated similar ideas and Whitehouse told reporters afterward that he was ‘very satisfied’ with the discussion at AEI.”
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In its own event summary, the AEI cited the senators’ claim that the economy-wide fee on emissions “would reduce carbon emissions, shore up the fiscal outlook, and unleash new technology and clean energy.” AEI’s Benjamin Zycher “argued against the senators’ carbon tax plan, arguing that their emphasis on global benefits led to flawed measurement of the social cost of carbon emissions, that the impact on temperatures would be minimal, and that the rest of the world would have an incentive to free-ride at the expense of the U.S.”
Jerry Taylor of the Niskanen Center “produced evidence of the likelihood of temperatures rising further and claimed that a carbon tax was a rational way to hedge against the risk of catastrophic climate change. He added that the purpose of government is to protect the life, liberty, and property of its people.”
