Republican Led Government Commission Recommends a Carbon Tax

[Elderberry]

Watts Up With That? Guest essay by Eric Worrall 9/16/2020

h/t Mike Maguire – The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a government body led by Republican appointee Heath Tarbert, has just recommended imposition of a carbon tax.

    Climate change is huge risk for the American financial system, a major new bipartisan report says
   
    A carbon tax features in CFTC report that aims to unite disparate federal efforts

    The U.S. financial system, including banks, agricultural and oil interests, as well as regulators and investors, requires a unified front in accounting for climate-change risk, says the first comprehensive government report on such efforts.

    Notably, the report released Tuesday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and an affiliated panel representing several sectors revives a call for taxing carbon pollution.   

    “As we’ve seen in the past few weeks alone, extreme weather events continue to sweep the nation from the severe wildfires of the West to the devastating Midwest derecho and damaging Gulf Coast hurricanes. This trend — which is increasingly becoming our new normal — will likely continue to worsen in frequency and intensity as a result of a changing climate,” said CFTC Commissioner Rostin Behnam, one of two Democrats on the five-member body.

    “Beyond their physical devastation and tragic loss of human life and livelihood, escalating weather events also pose significant challenges to our financial system and our ability to sustain long-term economic growth,” he said. While wildfires and hurricanes occur for myriad reasons, their frequency and intensity has factored into the climate-change discussion.

Read more: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/cftcs-groundbreaking-climate-change-report-sounds-a-bipartisan-alarm-on-costly-risks-for-u-s-financial-system-11599676452

More: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/09/16/republican-led-commission-recommends-a-carbon-tax/

[jafo2010]

I have NEVER seen one piece of evidence that confirms climate change.  We have had hurricanes and endless fires in the west.  That is normal.  And I have listened to scientists indicate that the frequency and severity has remained somewhat consistent through the last hundred years or so for hurricanes.

And Mr. Taubett is an uber liberal poser in the Republican Party.  He participated in the Dodd Frank B*LLSH*T!  That simple fact tells me everything I need to know to ignore anything he would be involved in.  Trump has this numbnut in a key financial position solely because he went to UP, most likely.  Well, I am not impressed with ANY ivy league school or the product it produces. 

This jerk*ff is proposing taxes on carbon!!!  I say kick the fool out of the Republican Party.

Frankly, anyone in politics that proposes tax increases should be drawn and quartered.  Seriously, at what point do we stop spending money we do not have? 

[Smokin Joe]

I have NEVER seen one piece of evidence that confirms climate change.  We have had hurricanes and endless fires in the west.  That is normal.  And I have listened to scientists indicate that the frequency and severity has remained somewhat consistent through the last hundred years or so for hurricanes.

And Mr. Taubett is an uber liberal poser in the Republican Party.  He participated in the Dodd Frank B*LLSH*T!  That simple fact tells me everything I need to know to ignore anything he would be involved in.  Trump has this numbnut in a key financial position solely because he went to UP, most likely.  Well, I am not impressed with ANY ivy league school or the product it produces. 

This jerk*ff is proposing taxes on carbon!!!  I say kick the fool out of the Republican Party.

Frankly, anyone in politics that proposes tax increases should be drawn and quartered.  Seriously, at what point do we stop spending money we do not have?

Oh, climate change is real enough. It has been going on on Earth (by common estimates) for some 4,600,000,000 years.

Anthropogenic Climate Change is bunk.

That a trading forum would push for another way to make money with carbon credit type schemes is no surprise, had Carbon Credits been required a decade or so ago, Al Gore, Maurice Strong, and George Soros stood to make trillions,  just to keep the lights on.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Someone needs to ask him how his carbon tax squares with his avowed statement

Since taking office, Tarbert has sought to position the agency as an advocate for Main Street interests and American free enterprise. Writing in an op-ed in FoxBusiness.com, Tarbert said the agency "serves as a guardian of our free enterprise system" and that the markets the agency regulates should "serve the needs of everyday Americans."[22] Tarbert has also reaffirmed the CFTC's historical commitment to agriculture by sponsoring the agency's Agricultural Advisory Committee. In a statement announcing his sponsorship, Tarbert said that, "America's farmers and ranchers are at the heart of the real economy and the markets we regulate."

[Smokin Joe]

Someone needs to ask him how his carbon tax squares with his avowed statement

Since taking office, Tarbert has sought to position the agency as an advocate for Main Street interests and American free enterprise. Writing in an op-ed in FoxBusiness.com, Tarbert said the agency "serves as a guardian of our free enterprise system" and that the markets the agency regulates should "serve the needs of everyday Americans."[22] Tarbert has also reaffirmed the CFTC's historical commitment to agriculture by sponsoring the agency's Agricultural Advisory Committee. In a statement announcing his sponsorship, Tarbert said that, "America's farmers and ranchers are at the heart of the real economy and the markets we regulate."

Well, that depends on who is running the business of selling carbon offsets to reduce the tax burden...and buying them from Farmers and ranchers.

The last time this crap was tried farmers and ranchers got paid for their 'carbon credits' and it was anticipated that those would be marketable when the carbon tax was imposed, with the middlemen cleaning up in the exchange. The regulations did not happen, and that venture capital was lost.

See: https://www.ieta.org/resources/Resources/GHG_Report/2019/Insights-May2019_web.pdf

and https://www.cftc.gov/sites/default/files/idc/groups/public/@swaps/documents/file/dfstudy_carbon_011811.pdf

[PeteS in CA]

Brief apt reply: "____ off!"