Global Warring

“

.... 15-cents-a-gallon carbon tax on fuel next year  ... is it that God makes the weather change all the time but some people say it isn't God but because you and mommy blow bad gasses into the ironment?   SACRAMENTO (CBS/AP) — The state Senate leader on Thursday proposed a tax on consumer fuel purchases of gasoline, oil, diesel, ethanol and natural gas, with the money raised diverted to mass transit projects and households making less than $75,000 annually. The plan by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, would not create an additional tax, however. Instead, it would alter how money is raised and spent under a provision of California’s landmark 2006 greenhouse gas emissions law, known as AB32. Rhys Williams, Steinberg’s press secretary, emailed KCAL9’s Dave Bryan and said, “It’s not a gas tax. He’s not raising gas taxes. Prices on fuels are set to rise, unpredictably, when the cap-and-trade program expands to cover fuels in 2015. Instead, the senator proposes replacing this expansion with a stable tax on carbon.” Environmental and business groups immediately opposed Steinberg’s plan, and Republican lawmakers questioned whether it could pass the Legislature. It would impose an estimated 15-cents-a-gallon carbon tax on fuel next year, offsetting an indirect tax that will be imposed in 2015 under the existing law that helped establish the nation’s largest carbon-trading marketplace. The state’s current cap-and-trade program applies only to industrial plants. It allows companies with higher emissions of greenhouse gases to buy pollution credits from companies that have found a way to lower their emissions below a certain threshold. But next year, the cap-and-trade program is scheduled to be extended to the producers of carbon-based consumer fuels. In turn, that will raise prices at the pump by an uncertain level. Steinberg said his proposal would raise the per-gallon carbon tax to an estimated 24 cents by 2020, which he said would still be lower than the 40-cents-a-gallon price hike that is possible under AB32. He acknowledged, however, that by 2029 his proposed carbon tax would be higher than the upper projected limit under the current law. Either tax will sting motorists at the pump as a necessary way to lower fuel consumption and discourage the emission of gases blamed for causing global warming, Steinberg said. “On the issue of climate change, we have no choice: We must reduce the amount of carbon we put in the air, and that will come with a price,” he said. “Nothing is free.” [Full Baloney Pony]

”