Kicking the Tires on a Global Minimum Tax

Plus: A new group of House Republicans plans to focus on climate issues.

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Good morning, and happy Tuesday.

If you’ve missed Uphill landing in your inbox this last week, that’s because our fearless leader Haley Byrd Wilt has been otherwise occupied. Which brings us to some happy news: Baby Lewis Evan Wilt, evidently a go-getter like his mama, decided to make his appearance a month early.

While Haley gets some much deserved time away, reporters Harvest Prude and Ryan Brown will be stalking the halls of Congress in her stead. If you see us at stake-outs, please say hi! Or feel free to send us tips. We promise we’re friendly. (Word to the wise: Harvest and Ryan both have a coffee addiction, so chats at Cups or Longworth Dunkin’ are also very welcome.)

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  1. Avatar photo
    Jason Gibson

    Have to say I’ve been waiting for the Taney crisis. And I have a problem with attacking Supreme Court justices whose entire purpose is to provide opinions. We cannot demonize opinions IN THE COURT. Outside the court we should. But the court must remain a place where ideas win through persuasion and not suppression

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    Jason Gibson

    Always love the hill

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    BrandonAlleman

    This is the second article in a few months announcing a conservative congressional climate initiative. Cheers to the sentiment!
    I look forward to the conservative policy ideas. The motivations quoted still seem more concerned about branding and positioning more than climate. As Collins said elsewhere on other issues in the article, 'Right now it seems to be more a press release than a real reality.'

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    Murrayprof

    A member of Congress from a forested part of Arkansas dominated by Weyrhauser wanting to plant a trillion trees and incentivize making things from wood? Shocking...

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    Earl King

    We could have done significantly easy things decades ago that would not jeopardize jobs or our economy. For example Natural Gas is cleaner than gasoline...We could have covered our transportation vehicles to natural gas which would result in 30% less CO2 emissions. Solar Shingles on new home construction...or panel at a min. Changed our coal fired plants to natural gas...and trained and hired coal miners to do the conversions. Fire management would have been a big help in lowering CO2....from forest fires. All stuff they wouldn't devastate the economy. Fridays used be a day to eat fish....we should encourage a pasta day instead. Just small stuff....but its either live by candle lite and ride a bike to work or do nothing....There is an in between.

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      snoball

      We probably shouldn't have written off nuclear power as quickly as we kind of did back in the 1980's and 1990's. I'm glad to see renewed recent interest in and support for it, but there's still a lot that needs to be done.

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  6. Mathew A

    I think there's a large swath of voters in the middle that care about the planet and think we should take steps to reduce the risks of climate change but at the same time want to protect the economy.

    I've long supported something like a net zero carbon tax, where you replace taxes on labor with a tax on carbon combined with reducing burdensome red tape that was trying to do the same thing less efficiently.

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    1. JohnO

      I view that (revenue neutral carbon tax) relatively favorably among govt mandates to reduce GHG's (if technology and the profit motive will yield large reductions, great, but that's not likely IMO) though it's sometimes oversold as a 'no lose' proposition. Taxing one, ostensibly harmful, thing more than other things still depends on actually knowing how harmful that thing is. Aside from the primitive sturm and drang about climate change ('not a problem, climate always changes' v 'we have 12 years to address it or we'll all be dead') the effect of GHG's on mainly temperate zone countries like the US is highly uncertain. The range includes 'not much net negative effect' even under pretty pessimistic scenario's of not limiting GHG's. The professional staff of DOE found this in a study per the media 'highly embarrassing to the Trump admin' during that admin, that under a pessimistic scenario climate change would cost the US economy $500bil, (with a 'b'!) per year by 2100...but CHG reduction policies which only reduced real growth from 2% pa to 1.9% pa from now to 2100 would make the economy ~$7tril pa in today's $'s smaller by 2100 than not having those policies. A lot of the climate change issue is really about a perceived obligation of the global 'north' to the 'south' where truly bad outcomes are more likely.

      So a carbon tax is less bad than subsidies and mandates, but if charging for carbon reduced growth even a little, by promoting energy sources that aren't actually economical without aiming taxes specifically at carbon intensive practices, it could still be a bad idea nationally given the apparently likely impact of GHG's nationally. And of course practically politically it also has the problem of being tagged 'regressive' (though could be crafted/modified not to be). The Democrats have so far favored policies that supposedly don't cost anyone anything, though have had next to no effect in the US (and pretty much absolute zero globally), albeit, in fairness, with the GOP watering them down further when in charge. Maybe if the Democrats get around to actual specifics how they'd supposedly cut US GHG's to 50% below a 2005 (or so) baseline by 2030 though (would have to be expensive and disruptive things), and the public really gets behind *paying* to reduce GHG's, a carbon tax could be a viable less worse policy.

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        L Bernard

        I'm not sure I'm understanding you, but I think you're saying that having the economy be smaller by 7 trillion by 2100 is worse than losing 500 billion/year to climate change costs. But hemorrhaging 0.5 trillion a year is pretty bad, I would say avoiding that cost is worth 0.1% growth.

        Think about it, that 0.5 trillion pa translates to a yearly loss that will compound over time.

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        1. JohnO

          I'm sure you're not understanding. Policies now that cut growth from 2% to 1.9% pa between now and 2100, assuming they don't affect population growth either way, leave per capita GDP, a basic measure of national economic wellbeing (not the be and end all of measuring human progress but important) around 8% (1-1.019^79/1.02^79) lower by 2100 than it would have been if you'd left things alone, to avoid a cost which by then reduces economic welfare by then ~0.5% of GDP per year (500/20,000*(1.02)^79). Both are per year, both are compounding. Nobody would propose that for US economic purposes if the assumptions were correct: losing consumption of a large proportion of 8% (GDP is ~70% consumption) available to consume each year per person to save costs of 0.5% per year per person.

          The counter point would be to challenge the assumptions, not the math under those assumptions. And again the key assumption is that we'd only be willing to pay commensurate with the cost of climate change *in the US*. The expected impact per person globally tends to be much larger, and also the GDP per person even by 2100 a lot lower, so that larger cost a higher % of global average GDP per person. IOW again climate policies (that really did much, we haven't see that in the US yet) are a lot about international wealth transfer. But it's questionable how popular that will ever be, and people will understand it eventually.

          And, you could challenge the US cost estimate obviously. Who can claim to *know* that? But this was 'career' DoE staff, in a supposed rebuke to the Trump admin widely celebrated in media, without much pushback that is was leaving huge things out.

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            Mudskipper

            Could you link to the DoE study? I've done brief search and can't find any DoE document that does this comparison. I'm not at all saying it doesn't exist, but I can't find it.

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          Mudskipper

          I also would like to know how they calculated the costs to the economy. For example, are they calculating in the costs of having to somehow fix major arteries that are threatened by rising water? In California alone the major arteries of 101 and 1 are in danger of flooding from sea level rise in some areas--for example, the all-important 101 corridor where it skirts San Francisco Bay (and is surrounded by billions of dollars worth of office buildings and residential developments.) Up in Northern California, 101 is already flooding several times a year. We're talking billions of dollars worth of mitigation here, and that's just for a couple big arteries in California.

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  7. Randall Briggs

    Why does The Dispatch take anything Josh Hawley has to say seriously? He's not about working for passage of actual legislation; he's all in for performance art.

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    Pat Riot

    Zero Republican senators will vote for the infrastructure bill. Theres's simply no chance that McConnell could possibly allow Democrats to enjoy such a victory.

    And in today's Republican politics, Republican lawmakers simply brag about the bill's benefits with their constituents as if they voted for it--after voting against. So Republicans pay no political price for failing to support a popular Democratic bill, and hence Democrats have zero leverage over Republicans to get them to support anything.

    I can only hope what Democrats know this and are merely engaging in political theater while they prepare to pass the bill with 50 Democratic votes.

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      Patrick

      I’m confused.
      If the actual physical infrastructure bill is officially decoupled from the massive fake infrastructure bill, you’re saying that zero GOP Senators will vote for it? Even the ones who helped draft it?

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      Murrayprof

      Signs at construction sites which say "your member of Congress voted against this" sure would feel good.

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        Pat Riot

        Traditionally members of the party opposing had to fear such things, but we're in a post-facts era where it doesn't matter. That's what lots of politicians and pundits can't wrap their heads around right now. That's why that NR article about the bill being "like old times" was so naive and wrong: Republicans will never ever sign onto a Democratic bill because there's no upside and all downside.

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    Adam Bridge

    Republicans on climate is the same as Republicans on health care: complaining but with no plan because they don’t believe there’s anything wrong. We’ve been here before: clean air, clean water don’t mean diddly to a GOP that’s out to serve business first and the planet - well, let the planet take care of itself.

    I’ll believe any of this when I see actual proposed legislation which will never happen.

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    1. Mathew A

      BS. Republicans like everyone else want clean air and water. But that doesn't mean signing up for every scheme that the Dems push. Or supporting all the government overreach as they try and micro manage people's property.

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        Adam Bridge

        Which really means doing nothing. Because that’s the GOP these days - always a reason to say no. the previous administration loosened clean air/water regulations. Climate? Ha! Major changes required but the GOP will never, ever make them.

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        Mudskipper

        Yes, Republicans want clean air and water. But they hamstring themselves in dealing with this issues because of a near religious commitment to the free market. They have a deep blind spot when it comes to dealing with externalities and the tragedy of the commons. Instead of admitting that the free market is unlikely to deal with these issues on its own, they prefer to hand wave the issues away and do things like insist that climate change isn't real or attack scientific findings that show a problem exists.

        This problem is compounded by the fact that some of the biggest donors to the Republican party and politicians are some of the biggest polluters.

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          Mudskipper

          "this" in the first sentence should obviously be "these"

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        Kmregan7

        Republicans like clean air and clean water right up until it means maybe the government has to actually tell companies not to pollute, to take those more costly safeguards, etc.

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    Mudskipper

    As someone who has been seriously concerned about climate change for a long time, I feel that the Green New Deal was a PR catastrophe. Climate change efforts should have never been tied to a liberal wish list, even if I might agree with some of those things on the list. It was a really stupid thing to do from the point of generating support for climate change action and for prioritizing our climate change at the top of the list of things we need to work on.

    I'm glad to hear that more Republicans are waking up to the seriousness of the issue.

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    1. Seth

      While many may criticize this new group as just a PR move, I think it represents a real step forward. It wasn't long ago that even acknowledging the possibility of anthropogenic climate change was a line mainstream Republicans couldn't cross. Regardless of how much serious policy results from this in the immediate future, I think it's great, and a clear indication that the Overton window is shifting on the issue.

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      Adam Bridge

      Spot on.

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