Based on my web searches, they seem tiny and unrepresentative. They also really seem pretty narrowly focused, as well, if they're demanding a total refund to...themselves. That's like saying all the money should go to just wind or just solar or just forest and wildlife conservation. Markey's iCAP proposal distributes the money far more equitably. Do any get funding from oil and coal companies or polluter fronts. Because their main influence will be giving polluters ammo to attack cap and trade.

Your comment shows a shocking lack of knowledge and respect for the environmental justice movement.  There are real reasons to be concerned about cap and trade from a social justice standpoint -- that does not make anyone a front for Big Oil or Coal, and if you spent 5 minutes on the websites of any of these groups you'd know that.  When it comes to challenging corporate power, the environmental justice movement is on the frontlines.  They're the ones being poisoned most directly by polluters -- for you to suggest that they are funded by industry boggles the mind.

I do thank you for posting the CJLF article.

But, with the utmost respect from a thankful, long-term fan, the CJLF has it all over the CTC on this.

As a 'carbon-tax-now' advocate, I fail to comprehend the veracity of the CTC position.

I believe it is the old "spoonful of honey makes the medicine go down" theory of political economics.

Congressional leaders disdain for doing their job by acquiescing to a "centrist", 'representation without taxation' position, causes advocates to include  some "honey" in their policy proposals.

I have a hard time believing that you need to "cap-and-dividend' as a means of protecting the lower income among us (me included) from the perils of the cost of meeting our environmental stewardship responsibilities.

And, then you need to find OTHER legislation to fund the solutions to the problem? Who is going to pay for that legislation and those solutions?

And, if you are going to craft that "other" legislation in a manner that ensures that it will not get siphoned off to non-carbon-reduction uses, well, you can craft the same protection into any bill.

Finally, I really do not understand how you can say that you will have a carbon tax set at a sufficient level to incentivize carbon reduction actions by polluters, while saying ALL of that tax revenue is needed to offset the economic impacts from those activities on lower income Americans.

So, the ONLY socio-economic benefit of all that taxing is a redistribution of wealth?

You are right on the carbon tax issue.
But, we would all be well served if the CTC got behind the CJLF "tactic" for funding the solution to the problem. Their proposal is for doing the right thing. Now.

Respectfully,
Joe Bongiovanni
Harborton, Virginia

This is my opinion, UPROSE is no longer a community group.  The director's husband works for the Mayor and the group now seems to endorse everything that comes out of City Hall so her husband can keep his job.  They backed the Mayor's congestion pricing plan which would have killed our neighborhood and now they seem to be backing more pollution in our neighborhood with additional power generators.  The director is probably the only Puerto Rican in the group and the group probably has less than 3 unpaid active members.  Again this is my opinion, but I can tell you with certainty - UPROSE is no longer an environmental justice group as far as our community is concerned (I should mention the community is Sunset Park - the homebase of UPROSE).

Backing of a congestion pricing plan is a reason to support UPROSE, not oppose it.  Your selfish desire to make money by destroying the Earth with car traffic is very anti-environmental, and causes your post to reek of illegitimate ulterior motives.

To reduce carbon emissions, a carbon tax (on coal, oil and gas entering the economy) must be high enough and increase steeply enough to broadly affect consumer and business behavior -- encouraging conservation and alternative energy.

As Joe Bongiovanni suggests, revenue from a carbon tax COULD be doled out for "good works" such as alternative energy projects.  

Lieberman's cap-and-trade bill attempted this:  auction (some) carbon emissions permits and dole out auction revenue to a long list of technological and political favorites.  (It was "deficit neutral"-- a tax that would have SPENT ALL of the revenue.)    

Three flaws, Joe:

Congress tends to dole out money to powerful corporations.  (Lieberman's bill included subsidies for ethanol, nukes, "clean coal" research, as well as "adjustments" for the very fossil fuel industries that would have paid for pollution permits.  Every fat corporate pig you can think of was bellying up to the trough.)

It's early in the race: neither Congress nor anyone really knows which technologies will work the best for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  A tax on carbon pollution sets the market to work on finding, developing and marketing those technologies.

A carbon tax has a disprortionate effect on lower income people UNLESS linked to a dividend to distribute the revenue to everyone equally.  We'd all pay higher prices for fossil fuel but we'd all get the same dividend.  So those who use less than their share of fuel (lower income folks and those who learn to reduce carbon impacts) would pay less in increased prices than their dividends.  We'd be PAID to conserve the carbon recycling capacity of the atmosphere while the wasters at the top would be penalized.

The Carbon Tax Center figures that the bottom 3/5 of income would be net gainers under a carbon tax with dividend.  Only the top 1/5 would pay more carbon tax than their dividend.  Why?  The top 1/5 uses a LOT more fuel: flying, driving big vehicles and living in huge houses.  

So, yes a carbon tax would push everyone to reduce fossil fuel use.  Recyle the revenue through a divident and we can do it WITHOUT hammering the poor.  

That's MY idea of environmental justice.

Joe,

You raise some great points.  Check out my response: "Dividend makes Carbon Tax Environmentally Just."

I'm thrilled that a large group of EJ organizations supports a carbon tax.  

I think it's essential that a carbon tax be revenue-neutral.  I hope advocates for disavantaged people will understand that a tax that hits poor people hardest isn't just and wouldn't be as effective,