Tax Policy Center

climate change

Federal Budget and Economy: TaxVox

Senate Democrats Would Take Some Small Steps To Clean Up Energy Tax Breaks

A group of 28 Senate Democrats has proposed a major new energy bill that includes what they call significant reforms in the dozens of tax breaks aimed at encouraging the production and use of clean energy. I’ll let real energy policy experts speak to the broader bill, but the tax provisions are
September 21, 2015Howard Gleckman
Business Taxes: TaxVox

Could a Carbon Tax Prevent The Catastrophic Consequences of Climate Change That Obama Fears?

In recent days, President Obama has painted the risks of climate change in apocalyptic terms. Speaking in Anchorage, AK on Monday, Obama warned that without quick action to slow or reverse global warming, "entire nations will find themselves under severe, severe problems: More drought. More floods
September 1, 2015Howard Gleckman
Federal Budget and Economy: TaxVox

Everything You Should Know about Taxing Carbon

Climate change is hot. From the pope’s encyclical to the upcoming United Nations conference in Paris, leaders are debating how to slow and eventually stop the warming of our planet. We economists think we have an answer: put a price on carbon dioxide and the other gases driving climate change. When
June 25, 2015Donald Marron
Individual Taxes: TaxVox

Bigger, Cleaner, and More Efficient: A Carbon-Corporate Tax Swap

The Cato Institute has organized an online forum to debate pro-growth economic policy reforms. Tax Policy Center scholars Bill Gale, Donald Marron, and Eric Toder have each contributed to the discussion. The United States could reduce its contribution to global climate change and increase domestic
November 21, 2014Donald Marron
Individual Taxes: TaxVox

Could EPA’s New Greenhouse Gas Rules Open the Door to a State-based Carbon Tax?

EPA’s proposed tough new standards for power-plant emissions of greenhouse gasses opens the door to new state or regional cap-and-trade systems to limit carbon discharges. It is less clear whether it would go the next step and permit states to impose their own carbon tax. The proposed EPA rules,
June 2, 2014Howard Gleckman
Individual Taxes: TaxVox

Three Options for Better Climate Policy

Thanks to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency has to do something to control them. But the act is ill-suited to controlling a non-toxic global pollutant. The law requires the EPA to set separate emissions
May 28, 2014Adele C. Morris
Individual Taxes: TaxVox

Want to Do Something About Greenhouse Gas? Try a Carbon Tax

This morning, the White House released a massive report on the effects of climate change . In sum: The problem is already bad, it is going to get worse, and we need to address it quickly. The science of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change may be clear (though, of course, always evolving).
May 6, 2014Howard Gleckman
Individual Taxes: TaxVox

New Study: Tax Subsidies Do Little To Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The other day, President Obama proposed a modest and largely aspirational plan to respond to climate change. Unlike some of his past efforts, it did...
July 1, 2013Howard Gleckman
Federal Budget and Economy: TaxVox

Carbon Taxes: The Levy (Some) Conservatives Love

You know the Washington Rule: Liberals will never support spending cuts and conservatives will never back tax increases. Yet, there is one new levy that...
June 2, 2011Howard Gleckman