Thanks loads for this important article.

For about 4 years I have considered a carbon tax the only way to go, and the cap-and-trade approach fundamentally unsound.  That was long before the availability of abundant evidence that cap-and-trade just doesn't work, and the recognition that it is based on the fallacy that corporations will in fact reduce CO2 emissions rather than find loop-holes (legitimate or illegitimate) to dodge change.

But we may have a problem with RGGI, an organization of at least 8 NE states that has formally adopted a cap-and-trade scheme to reduce CO2 emissions*.

The precedent RGGI has established may already have put us on the slippery slope. We may be sliding rapidly away from common sense and honesty.

Given these concerns, I was very  heartened to find 5 Congress-people from RGGI states (NY, Conn, and Mass)who support the tax, and the others in Congress who understand the cap-and-trade problems and the need for a tax.

Thanks for reporting a very important development that seems to have been entirely ignored by mainstream media.

* The last time I checked, the RGGI standards were so lax they can't have any effect at all, except to provide PR cover for politicians.

"The last time I checked, the RGGI standards were so lax they can't have any effect at all, except to provide PR cover for politicians."

I'm not sure why in 2008 you're trashing a program put together between 2003-2005.  What was going on Federally then?  McCain-Lieberman?

RGGI is 10 states from Maryland, not 8, and shows that when you make polluters pay for their emissions you generate revenue that can be reinvested in efficiency and clean energy programs- needed investments that cut carbon.

What would you do with the carbon tax revenue?  

The mechanism is simlar to cap and auction and the political problems more different- you have to argue about price rather than emissions reductions.  You still need to figure out how to reinvest the money.