A Carbon Tax for Thee, But Not for Me

California state universities are upset that a state law designed to reduce carbon emissions could cost them $28 million a year. “The University supports the creation of a greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program,” says Anthony Garvin, who works in the office of the president of the University of California.

But, he goes on to say in a letter asking for relief from some or all of the cost, the University “is concerned that it is being disproportionately impacted by the proposed cap-and-trade rule and that its compliance costs will ultimately be borne by students, researchers, and patients to the detriment of teaching, research, and healthcare activities.”
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Well, boo hoo. Just who does he think is going to ultimately bear the compliance costs on other entities such as electric companies, construction companies, hospitals, and so forth? The correct answer, of course, is consumers, businesses, and patients. Why should universities students, researchers, and patients get a special exemption?

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

57 Responses to A Carbon Tax for Thee, But Not for Me

  1. OFP2003 says:

    And all those people voting for subways and street cars should be forced to ride them.

    WMATA was about a 7 on my “City of Ember” scale this morning.

    A 1 is Logan’s Run (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan%27s_Run_(film))
    and a 10 is full-fledge “City of Ember” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Ember).

    • C. P. Zilliacus says:

      And all those people voting for subways and street cars should be forced to ride them.

      Former District of Columbia Mayor-for-Life Marion Shepilov Barry, Jr. was a big fan of rail transit, and was an anti-D.C. freeway activist for some years before he got elected to the D.C. Council and then as mayor (and is now back on the Council). But aside from Metrorail ribboncuttings, Barry apparently does not use mass transit, even though he received a lifetime free transit pass because he was on the Board of Directors of WMATA.

      Curious, isn’t it?

      WMATA was about a 7 on my “City of Ember” scale this morning.

      Wonder when WMATA (and other urban transit agencies that run vehicles powered by electricity) might release the amount of carbon that’s released into the atmosphere to power their “clean electric” trains.

      • bennett says:

        My understanding is that electric (coal) powered vehicles always have fewer emissions per mile than petrol powered vehicles (comparing similar vehicles i.e small cars to small cars, trains to trains, etc).

        If you live in areas where electricity comes from cleaner sources than coal, the air pollution savings are even greater.

        • Dan says:

          What a load of shit.

          Pretty much what I saw when I was there. Not sure what is a load.

          DS

        • C. P. Zilliacus says:

          My understanding is that electric (coal) powered vehicles always have fewer emissions per mile than petrol powered vehicles (comparing similar vehicles i.e small cars to small cars, trains to trains, etc).

          Also depends on the load factor of the trains, doesn’t it? And many of the commuter trips on the Washington Metrorail system begin in the mornings and end in the afternoons at a park-and-ride parking lot or parking deck.

          If you live in areas where electricity comes from cleaner sources than coal, the air pollution savings are even greater.

          In the Washington, D.C. area (all of which is on the PJM Interconnection power grid), over 40% of electricity comes from coal-fired generating stations.

      • Iced Borscht says:

        But aside from Metrorail ribboncuttings, Barry apparently does not use mass transit, even though he received a lifetime free transit pass because he was on the Board of Directors of WMATA.

        Sounds familiar to the situation in America’s Most Livable City: “Only one TriMet board member uses public transit at least once a week…”

        http://portlandafoot.org/2012/06/why-trimet-board-members-dont-ride-trimet/

        • LazyReader says:

          I took the liberty of reading this article, and remember the last sentence.

          “TriMet isn’t a charity for the unlucky. Its goal is not to cure carlessness by helping us all get to work until we can afford to buy a car. TriMet’s goal is to create a viable, sustainable alternative to car use – and to create tens of thousands of people who want to live low-car lives indefinitely.”

          What a load of shit.

        • metrosucks says:

          What a load of shit.

          Exactly, lazyreader. Unlike Danny Boy’s glazed eyes view of Portland ie Nirvana, and as someone who’s lived in the Portland area and keep up to speed on media, the perception of Trimet as some “sustainable alternative to car use” is laughable. Trimet and METRO are, as many have opined, simply government development agencies now, using transit as excuse to spread pork to their developer buddies.

      • C. P. Zilliacus says:

        “TriMet isn’t a charity for the unlucky. Its goal is not to cure carlessness by helping us all get to work until we can afford to buy a car. TriMet’s goal is to create a viable, sustainable alternative to car use – and to create tens of thousands of people who want to live low-car lives indefinitely.”

        What a load of shit.

        When I visited Portland some years ago, I got the distinct impression that Tri-Met (and, for that matter, many other urban transit agencies in the United States) are there primarily to spend money, and the highest priority is the care and feeding of their (unionized) workforces, not serving the needs of transit patrons.

  2. LazyReader says:

    Ah the eleventh commandment. “Do as I sayeth, not as I doeth”.

    College is the typical liberal utopia. And there the concept of “Somebody should…” as opposed to “I should” is common. When ever somebody says “somebody should” I say wait, never ask anybody to do something you wouldn’t do yourself unless you pay them to do it.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgvTHjRW8bY

    • C. P. Zilliacus says:

      Ah the eleventh commandment. “Do as I sayeth, not as I doeth”.

      Absolutely correct.

      I have been to countless meetings and hearings on proposed highway projects. It always amazed and amused me to see persons opposed to the project in question (and usually all projects that might possibly improve or expand the highway network) show up in their private automobiles to tout transit as an “alternative” to the proposed highway network improvements.

      Sometimes the project opponents would make a big deal out of showing up in a car-pool, but that was strictly for show.

  3. Dan says:

    Tragic lack of patriotic conservative universities notwithstanding, the UC and CSU systems are in dire financial straits, despite there being a higher education bubble.

    They are simply complaining about an unfunded mandate, not that they really don’t believe these unpatriotic Yew-Enn kinspeercy GLOBUL WARMINS A SCAY-UM policies.

    Making polluters pay is good policy. If you don’t want to pay, don’t pollute. Very simple. Decades of easy, free! profit by avoiding payment to use the airfill means you have lots of extra money that you surely saved and invested because that’s what everybody does, see.

    DS

    • metrosucks says:

      How did I know stupidboy would be posting something like this? I had a feeling!

    • Frank says:

      “Making polluters pay is good policy. If you don’t want to pay, don’t pollute. Very simple.”

      Yes, carbon dioxide is POLLUTION! You’re breathing, Dan. Pay up! You’re searching Google, Dan. Pay up!

      No matter that emission of CO2 has fallen “dramatically to its lowest level in 20 years”:

      Many of the world’s leading climate scientists didn’t see the drop coming, in large part because it happened as a result of market forces rather than direct government action against carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere.

      Looks like climate science’s crystal ball is broken. No matter; Can can read the future. And Dan can pay up! Especially since his carbon footprint is way larger than mine, what with all the flights he takes and his suburban SFH.

      Pay for your pollution, Dan.

      • metrosucks says:

        This is where stupidboy comes in and explains that, by virtue of the fact that he’s flying around teaching people about lowering their carbon footprint, he is exempt from the regulations that ought to cover the rest of us ignorant mouth breathers.

        • Frank says:

          Yeah, and prepare for him to come in and call me “boy” and get into a carbon-footprint measuring contest and accuse me of making s— up to have play.

        • Dan says:

          Little liar lies again:

          by virtue of the fact that he’s flying around teaching people about lowering their carbon footprint, he is exempt from the regulations that ought to cover the rest of us ignorant mouth breathers.

          Why do they lie so much? What is in it for these little liars? Does lying save their self-identity?

          DS

      • Dan says:

        Looks like climate science’s crystal ball is broken.

        You wish. That would save the self-identities of about 7% of the population.

        But here in reality, the globe warms and climate changes.

        But, gosh, I guess we can pay more to adapt than mitigate. That would be really really really smart. “There’s never enough time and money to do it right the first time, but there’s always enough time and money to do it right the second time.”

        Which is what we are doing now, because corporations don’t want to give away their free profit. And profit is more important than anything.

        DS

        • metrosucks says:

          Hey stupidboy,

          this may come as a surprise to you, but no one forces you to participate here (if one could call it that). I know there are thousands on the Internet who disagree with your “profound” wisdom, but if you can’t take the heat, just run off and play somewhere else.

        • PlanesnotTrains says:

          And profit is more important than anything.>/i>

          Without profit being more important than anything else, you don’t exist.

        • Dan says:

          but if you can’t take the heat, just run off and play somewhere else.

          My pointing out your cheap, weak lies is nowhere near ‘can’t take the heat’. Not even in the same ZIP code.

          That is: noting your weak, cheap lies isn’t can’t take the heat.

          Can’t take the heat is not commenting on your craven, transparent lies.

          Now, no more craving attention responses for the little one.

          DS

    • C. P. Zilliacus says:

      Making polluters pay is good policy. If you don’t want to pay, don’t pollute. Very simple. Decades of easy, free! profit by avoiding payment to use the airfill means you have lots of extra money that you surely saved and invested because that’s what everybody does, see.

      Agreed.

      When are urban transit agencies that run those “clean electric” trains and streetcars and light rail lines going to be asked to pay for the environmental impact of using traction power generated at dirty coal-fired generating stations?

      • metrosucks says:

        Never, CP. They are given a pass due to the fake “better than thou” moral advantage transit enjoys over autos due to decades of anti-auto propaganda. And, the coal power pollution is spewed in the backyards of shall we say, less important people.

      • the highwayman says:

        So just what are you using to power your computer?

  4. MJ says:

    Irony is beautiful. Many UC and CSU academics (not to mention administrators) were among the loudest cheerleaders for this law. Apparently they were expecting an Obamacare-like exemption from its compliance costs while basking in the warm glow of their right-thinking agenda. I hope that they get reamed good and hard by this new law. It will teach them a valuable lesson in the costs of social control.

    • Frank says:

      Funny that in the early 90s, my meteorology professor in the CSU system was the one who got me thinking skeptically about catastrophic global warming.

      • Iced Borscht says:

        I remember a couple years ago there was a mini-flood of stories about the climate scientist/meteorologist divide on climate change. Here’s just one:

        http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/science/earth/30warming.html

        It’s an interesting topic. I tend to side with Dan and some others here who point out that humans are the culprit behind the most dire climate change cha cha cha we see/experience. But I also think a lot of marketing goons and buzzword-spouting entities are exploiting the situation and adding too many layers of alarmism. We see that on the local level in Portland, where the importance of mandatory composting programs and plastic bag bans is, um, over-sold (to put it politely).

        So, anyway, the world confuses the sh#t out of me.

    • Dan says:

      I agree – we need to eliminate that social control of subsidizing fossil fuel energy and its externalities. It will be a fine day when fossil energy pays true costs of its use!

      That is: the UC and CSU systems being too cash-strapped in CA’s cr*ptacular economy to comply doesn’t mean they are hypocrites. Very, very, very, very simple concept.

      DS

      • MJ says:

        Advocating for costly new regulations and then crying poverty in order to avoid their burden is the very definition of hypcrisy.

        • Dan says:

          and then crying poverty in order to avoid their burden

          That would be a devastating argument if you could show constant/increasing funding and not a drastic cut in funds – verily off a cliff – from the state, affecting funding programs at all levels. Devastating. A crushing blow.

          DS

  5. LazyReader says:

    Making polluters pay, good idea. Of course it’s hard to promaote payment when you don’t know who owns what. Government owns so much land, when it ends up polluted, you ask the taxpayer to clean it. Private sector has an X-Prize, 10 million to build a private orbital space craft (later became Virgin Galactic), Automotive X-Prize to build a workable car that got 100 mpg for a $1.5 million prize.

    If citizens owned more land out west, there’d be far less in the way of pollution. Because you can use simple law to keep people from dumping.

    Being green is good……..when virtue is affordable, no cost is too much to bear for the sake of the planet. When governments go broke of course the first thing to go are the subsidies for stuff. Stuff we might tend to like. Illinois pulled the plug on any potential windmill projects, some 10,000 windmills. Just another sad chapter of what’s going on around the world. No one likes running out of cash but when you do, cuts are inevitable. Wind power is just going down and down. Without the subsidies how long until the windmills start failing due to lack of maintenance. You can look up Vestas on yahoo finance’s stock tracker. Put in Vestas, the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturer. It’s share price peaked in April 2008 and has all but collapsed from 700 to 50 Danish crone (123 dollars to less than 34 dollars now.) Other than solar, wind is one of the least efficient means of generating base load power and these devices are conducive to nothing more than rusting outside with the absurd notion of building these things offshore. Does anyone here own a boat that goes through saltwater. We don’t need an energy policy, we need an energy market. When someone says we need an energy policy, what they’re really saying is “How do we take taxpayer money” and which big firm in bed with government is gonna get the contract to do it. And this has been demonstrated in failures like Solyndra, Evergreen Solar, Konarka (a Romney backed solar provider). And this go as far back as the 70’s with Carters failed SynthFuel program or even more spectacular 20 billion dollar money eating Clinch River Breeder Reactor, the failure few people have heard about. Even if the United States were energy independent we would not be protected from high prices, supply disruptions and political machinations. Achieving “energy independence” would expose us to unnecessary risks such as storms or fire that knock out oil refineries. Imagine if we were food independent, droughts and floods in the Midwest should remind us of the folly of depending only on ourselves exclusivley. Next flood or drought, we’d starve. Trade is better, it makes us safer, richer, better off.

  6. Frank says:

    Guys. Seriously. Why are you talking about COAL? Did you not read the article I posted about how CO2 emissions are at 1992 levels due mainly to NATURAL GAS?

    In a little-noticed technical report, the U.S. Energy Information Agency, a part of the Energy Department, said this month that energy related U.S. CO2 emissions for the first four months of this year fell to about 1992 levels. Energy emissions make up about 98 percent of the total. The Associated Press contacted environmental experts, scientists and utility companies and learned that virtually everyone believes the shift could have major long-term implications for U.S. energy policy.
    While conservation efforts, the lagging economy and greater use of renewable energy are factors in the CO2 decline, the drop-off is due mainly to low-priced natural gas, the agency said.

    Coal power and cars you drive yourself are going to be dinosaurs very shortly.

    • Jardinero1 says:

      Actually coal can be converted to methanol at a price which makes it very competitive with gasoline. The problem is that EPA regs make it very difficult to convert cars to methanol consumption.

      • LazyReader says:

        Coal is still cheaper than natural gas. Getting that stuff out of the ground is as simple as sending hillbillies with picks and dynamite……oh wait. You have to beat 2.5-3 cents per kilowatt coal and gas isn’t that low yet but improved turbines and being a simpler fuel are gonna make it real useful in the coming years. Wind hardly but it’s getting there, but it’s capacity factor and reliability makes it dubious. Solar, not even close. Hydro power is the cheapest as there is no real fuel (at least none we must pay for).

        • Frank says:

          “Hydro power is the cheapest as there is no real fuel (at least none we must pay for).”

          Factor in externalities and subsidies of hydroelectric power, and it’s not so cheap. (You know, no salmon, flooded Indian villages, environmental destruction and the cost to government to build the damn dams.)

        • Dan says:

          Factor in externalities and subsidies of hydroelectric power, and it’s not so cheap.

          Factor in externalities and subsidies of fossil fuel power, and it’s not so cheap.

          Yup.

          DS

        • metrosucks says:

          Of course, before long stupidboy will come in to tell us that we must move to a “low carbon” lifestyle, aka caveman, in order to save poor earth and not wipe out the entire species thru a gigantic wildfire triggered by an apocalyptic 2 degree rise in temperatures.

          All joking aside, one call tell Danny is the sort of coldly reasoning individual required by government regimes in the past to carry out the dirty work and add a veneer of legitimacy via all those degrees (except for that unfinished masters, sorry). In the past millions had to die to save the “revolution”; in the future, millions will die to “save” the planet.

        • Frank says:

          “Factor in externalities and subsidies of fossil fuel power, and it’s not so cheap.

          Yup.”

          Sorry, Dan. I was talking about natural gas:

          “However the available data and information seem to suggest that the magnitude of probabilistic externalities in the natural gas chain is likely to be very small.”

          You know. Unlike big government dam projects, it doesn’t displace cultural groups or wipe out species of fish upon which those groups depend.

        • metrosucks says:

          I think we should factor in externalities like paying for Danny Boy’s big mouth, so he can demean taxpayers while on a government computer.

  7. msetty says:

    StoopidRetard (“Metrosucks”) bathered forth:
    All joking aside, one call tell Danny is the sort of coldly reasoning individual required by government regimes in the past to carry out the dirty work and add a veneer of legitimacy via all those degrees (except for that unfinished masters, sorry). In the past millions had to die to save the “revolution”; in the future, millions will die to “save” the planet.

    So Dan is some kind of leftwing Che Guevara butcher?? ???
    If you really believe this, then you are beyond being taken seriously, suffering from serious ideological poisoning.

    While I think the things you believe are more in line with a kind of “political religion” than any reasonable philosophy, neither Dan nor I expect to go to death camps or suffer Stalinist “cleansing” if people with your particular dipshit beliefs came to real power…I really don’t think you would become a fascist brownshirt…

    …so be careful when you’re flirting with Corollary #1 to Godwin’s Law, which involves Commie and Stalinist innuendos rather than Nazis.

  8. metrosucks says:

    …so be careful when you’re flirting with Corollary #1 to Godwin’s Law, which involves Commie and Stalinist innuendos rather than Nazis.

    Well, of course it helps to remember that Communists and Nazis were simply flip sides of the same coin, despite the protests to the contrary by leftists.

    It’s easy for those in the employ of government to anneal themselves to the horrors being inflicted in the name of science/progress/pick an excuse. To pretend that today’s intellectual is somehow immune to these influences is to be frighteningly naive.

    Based on Dan’s casual dismissal (and dehumanizing rhetoric in response to reasoned arguments), it’s easy to see him as the chain mail on government’s iron fist. Sorry msetty, but when I read the kind of cr@p that passes for dialogue from Danny Boy, it doesn’t inspire confidence. If he wants respect, he should try giving some, like CP does. That’s what a government employee should behave like, with respect towards those he serves.

    • C. P. Zilliacus says:

      Based on Dan’s casual dismissal (and dehumanizing rhetoric in response to reasoned arguments), it’s easy to see him as the chain mail on government’s iron fist. Sorry msetty, but when I read the kind of cr@p that passes for dialogue from Danny Boy, it doesn’t inspire confidence. If he wants respect, he should try giving some, like CP does. That’s what a government employee should behave like, with respect towards those he serves.

      Thank you for the kind comment.

      With one or maybe two exceptions, I like and respect everyone here (and I don’t respond to those few unliked individuals any longer). I try to be respectful to everyone, even those persons that I frequently disagree with.

  9. msetty says:

    Metrosucks, you most certainly can’t be taken seriously when you claim you have “reasoned arguments.” For one thing, it is very hard to respect, let alone take seriously, someone who doesn’t post under their real name, and using a moniker such as “Metrosucks.” Which “Metro” do you refer to that “sucks” anyway?

    BTW, I’ve corresponded with Dan directly several times, and he is by no stretch of the imagination some sort of latent Commie apparatchik…actually, I’d surmise that he’s closest to a mainstream liberal a la New Deal.

    The rhetoric spewing forth from the Metrosuck keyboard and many others may be a case study in how over the past 20 years the unsavory, angry right wing fringe has unfortunately become the conservative “mainstream” (no thanks to the “liberuls” who have coasted on what remains of the New Deal success for the last 40 years, failing to update their ideas with the times…but I digress).

  10. metrosucks says:

    msetty, whether I can or cannot be taken seriously is besides the point. I’m not the one boasting of multiple degrees and an ability to bring stakeholders together to solve issues. I’m just a private individual with opinions. Given Danny Boy’s behavior on this blog all along, I (along with anyone else from the general public) would have to conclude that those are outright lies. Surely no one trained in the manner he claims could publicly stoop to such behavior while freely admitting he’s a government employee.

    And if you will take notice, he posts inflammatory material in response to everyone, not just in reply to me. In fact, quite frequently Danny Boy is the first with harsh, contemptuous words for posters on this blog. I guarantee you that civilized behavior from him would immediately raise the level of discourse from everyone else, and frankly, I’m surprised that you defend him. I disagree with your website and positions, but are you trying to promote your ideas through intelligent discourse, or simply smearing the opposition? Forget about “me”, for the moment. I’m a private individual with no government power to wield, and no desire to wield any such power. I suspect the same can’t be said for Dan.

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