It’s not just Republicans who are calling a cap-and-trade program a tax. “Nobody in this country realizes that cap-and-trade is a tax, and a great big one,” Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) said at last Friday’s hearing with Al Gore on the House climate bill.
Dingell, who until last November chaired the Energy and Commerce Committee, asked Gore whether a cap-and-trade plan or an energy tax would be preferable as a means of addressing climate change. “Every economist says that a carbon tax is a better, more efficient, fairer way of doing it,” Dingell said, noting that Europeans have failed in efforts to successfully implement a cap-and-trade program. Gore answered that he favors using both systems.
Dingell has in the past put forward draft legislation calling for both a carbon tax and a cap-and-trade program.
Here’s video of his remarks last week, via Wonk Room:
