Raise Energy Taxes Now

A medical study concludes that clean air extends lifespans:

Between 1978 and 2001, Americans’ average life span increased almost three years to 77, and as much as 4.8 months of that can be attributed to cleaner air, researchers from Brigham Young University and Harvard School of Public Health reported in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.
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On average, particulate matter levels fell from 21 micrograms per cubic meter of air to 14 micrograms per cubic meter in the cities studied. At the same time, Americans lived an average 2.72 years longer.

“We saw that communities that had larger reductions in air pollution on average had larger increases in life expectancies,” said the study’s lead author, C. Arden Pope III, a Brigham Young epidemiologist.

One of the big economic problems with environmentalism is that the benefits are diffuse but the costs local. In other words, it costs you money to clean up the stuff your generating station is spewing out, but the benefits of that clean-up are spread over thousands or even millions of people. Studies like this are an attempt to quantify the gains of environmental improvement as effectively as industry lobbyists have quantified the costs.

Around the world, the United States is a leader in environmental technology. The reason for that is government regulation. It's government regulation, after all, that created the need for clean technology. Power companies don't capture fly-ash because the market demanded it; they do it because the government said do it or we'll shut you down.

And, as the above report shows, cleaning up the egregious industrial pollution that was the norm 50 years ago has paid a huge return. (Here's a 1973 study positing a more than 500% return on investment.) It's inevitable that modernizing countries around the world, with their emerging middle classes, will buy the technology developed here to clean up their own pollution problems. Which means we've benefited twice from environmental regulation: once in the health and well-being of our own society, and once in the development of a whole new industry.

Going forward, however, the returns we can expect from further industrial regulation are likely to diminish. The pollution problems we're likely to benefit similarly from cleaning up now have less to do with industry and more to do with our own behavior; we consume too much, and the only way to change that without diminishing our quality of life is to get smart in small ways across our whole society.

Changes can be made in hundreds of millions of lives a few different ways. We could, for example, establish an enormous environmental police state regulating how many miles everyone drives a month. We could ration gasoline and other energy sources. Or we could raise the cost of energy to a degree that changes the market while letting people decide for themselves how they're going to adjust.

And that's what we should do. We should -- listen for the conservative howling -- raise taxes so much that continuing life as we know it hurts. I've said it before and I'll say it here: there is no aspect of American life that wouldn't be improved by making gasoline expensive -- electricity, coal and natural gas, too. It would cut down on waste, inspire us to build our cities in ways that are vastly less destructive, and unleash the marketplace to develop cleaner alternatives.

It would, it's true, put a short-term drag on the economy -- and right this moment, it's hard to justify doing anything that adds drag to the economy. But there's probably never going to be a "right" moment to raise taxes the way I want to raise energy taxes, and there's virtue in doing what needs to be done now, when demand and prices are already depressed.

We understand and can quantify the health benefits. We know the direction the world is going, and understand that being a producer in a large and inevitable industry is better than being a consumer. We know that it's easier to maintain a low level of consumption than it is to cut-back on an already established, high level of consumption.

So my question is: Why not now? Why not increase the gas tax -- just to pick one -- by 25 cents a gallon this year, and another 25 cents a gallon every year for the next decade? Carve it in stone so everyone buying a car knows what's coming, so the inventors can invent with confidence, so the urban planners can start making the changes we need to build post-automotive cities? Why not change the world starting today?

Now, I'd argue, is the perfect time.

Comments

[fish]

We could, for example, establish an enormous environmental police state regulating how many miles everyone drives a month. We could ration gasoline and other energy sources. Or we could raise the cost of energy to a degree that changes the market while letting people decide for themselves how they're going to adjust.

I think you can guess which one the government will select. Or maybe not....they might very well choose both!

[Frank]

The problem with that is it hurts the very people that liberals claim to be the champion of; the poor and middle class, as well as seniors who are on a fixed income.

By what arbitrary scale do you conclude that we use too much? How much is enough? Are you also going to stipulate that the government has to cut down its travel as well? Because when energy prices go up, it's not going to affect any of the bureaucrats enacting that legislation. They'll just use the additional tax revenue they take from us to fund whatever fact finding / golf vacation they plan on taking.

Yes, we could all drive small, fuel efficient cars. Then we could also all be at higher risk of injury and death from auto accidents. Now we're raising insurance and health costs as well from all the new admitees to our nations health care system. Medicare and Medicaid go up as their costs rise as a result as well.

Forcing companies to build the vehicles you think we need rather than the ones consumers want is, to put it bluntly, socialist. It means the state decides what's best for us, further restricting individual freedom.

Hell, if you really want to drive down energy costs, just pass a law that everyone has to live, work and die in the city where they were born, unless they are in military service. Once they retire, then they have to return to those same cities to live out their lives. That way we don't have to travel to see family, and you save all that money on Christmas flights every year.

How about instead of raising costs even more, we relax the restrictions on the energy companies and let them actually do what they do best; drill for oil, mine coal and explore for natural gas? I know it's a radical concept, but allowing them to actually produce a product that we need and want, and allowing the consumers to be able to afford to purchase it along with the vehicle they deem best and safest for their families seems like a better plan to me.

American cities are what they are, and you are not going to change them. We are a mobile society, and we enjoy our freedom. The government is not here to decide what is best for us. I have parents, and I go to church. I don't need a group of people in some capital city somewhere telling me what is the best way to live my life.

What I need is for that group of people to stay the hell out of my life and let me live it it to the best of my ability.

[Wally]

Heroin was also once cheap and legal. When the dangers of addiction were discovered it was outlawed. The argument that we should "drill, baby, drill" is the cry of the heroin addict that the drug should be readily available no matter the damage because govornment should let the market decide what it wants. The problem with everyone tying off and shooting up is that addiction to a damaging and ultimately nonsustainable habit leads to disaster, both environmental and economic.

[Tom]

The problem with that is it hurts the very people that liberals claim to be the champion of; the poor and middle class, as well as seniors who are on a fixed income.

True. It's also true that decreased energy consumption will most help exactly those groups, since they suffer most from the effects of pollution. Still, as a matter of philosophy I accept that every change has the most effect on the poor and elderly. I suppose we could try to end change, but don't think that's realistic, and believe that the upside of this particular change far outweighs the downside.

By what arbitrary scale do you conclude that we use too much? How much is enough?

You will note, first of all, that I don't propose that government set an arbitrary level of consumption. That would be rationing, which I specifically reject. Instead, I simply state that we use too much, something not in serious dispute. We use more oil, per capita, than any other country in the world. Our dependence on foreign energy sources has made us weaker both financially and diplomatically, and it empowers people who want to kill us. And the environmental cost of oil is enormous, in both quality and quantity of life. The conservative solution is domestic production, something that absolutely no one believes will solve the problem but that fits conservative ideology. Which leaves conservation, which I argue is best accomplished by raising taxes to create a market for alternatives.

Yes, we could all drive small, fuel efficient cars. Then we could also all be at higher risk of injury and death from auto accidents.

First of all, we don't all need to drive small, unsafe cars. Improved mileage doesn't require small, unsafe cars. It requires an engineering emphasis on improved mileage, which probably means everyone's zero-to-sixty time will go up a couple of seconds. This would be an improvement in safety. Secondly, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the most dangerous cars aren't small.

How about instead of raising costs even more, we relax the restrictions on the energy companies and let them actually do what they do best; drill for oil, mine coal and explore for natural gas?

I know of no serious scientist or engineer who believes that we can substantially decrease our dependence on foreign oil by domestic drilling. Domestic production would add a few percentage points of production, solving maybe 10% of the problem. Also, burning domestic fuels makes no difference in the health of our people and environment, or helping us become a leader in the emerging market for green technology. All domestic drilling does is continue the empowerment of the economic elite that supports Republicans.

American cities are what they are, and you are not going to change them. We are a mobile society, and we enjoy our freedom.

Cities are tightly regulated, and what we build is built not because it's part of the natural order but because it's an engineer's vision of how best to accommodate auto traffic. It's illegal in most places to build anything but auto-centered developments. This you call freedom.

What I need is for that group of people to stay the hell out of my life and let me live it it to the best of my ability.

I'm talking about raising taxes here, Frank, not infringing on your fundamental freedoms. There is no guarantee in any governmental system of infinite consumption.

[Catch Her In the Wry]

The problem with you leftist socialists is you all live in cities where you're causing your own problems and want the rest of the nation to suffer. You don't see the real world outside your borders.

By limiting mileage or increasing gas taxes, those of us living in the country will have to choose between groceries or medical care because to get those things we might have to drive 30-50 miles one way. Then we'll all die of starvation or medical reasons and you city folks won't have any food because all the producers will be dead. I'll bet you couldn't grow a vegetable or wring a chicken's neck.

I think there should be a law against transporting food. Think of all the energy that could be saved. The city populations would start dying off and fewer people would then be polluting your city air.

[Wally]

Catcher,
Leftist? Perhaps, though the last election appears to put me firmly in the center. Socialist? No. I even disagree with the nationalization of the financial system and the auto companies.
I gut and dress the game friends give me. I live in the area that "finishes" most of the beef and pork the US eats. However, aside from California's central valley, most places that produce "food" in the US actually produce commodities that are sent elsewhere to be processed into food as we buy it off the shelf.
At the other end of the spectrum, cities function pretty well from a distribution utility viewpoint and they tend to be less auto-centric. Suburban sprawl is one of the real problems, consuming farmland and other resources voraciously as well as spawning the megastores that stifled your local community to the point that you no longer have local medical care ( I may be in error here. You might live in central MT or somewhere similar).
The idea of not shipping food is one of my favorite hobby horses. Extend it to the trusses for your house and any thing else that can be produced locally and you have the beginnings of sustainable local economies. I support you and wish you luck with that. But don't be surprised when someone calls you a Socialist.

[Catch Her In the Wry]

Thank goodness you have friends that know how to hunt so you can keep well fed. Now that you've outed yourself on the game gutting and meat processing in your city home, the EPA will be after you to make sure you are properly disposing of the hazardous biological waste.

Ok, you're not a socialist. You simply believe in big government telling everyone what to do, and you believe in thievery and the redistribution of capital through taxes.

[Tom]

I'm not sure why "socialist" is being bandied about here so much. What's being discussed is not socialism; there's no proposal of redistribution of wealth or public ownership of means of production. The discussion is about tax and energy policies.

[Richard]

I agree completely, although I'd like to see a general consumption tax as well.

And yes, I'm one of those socialists your mother warned you about. Something about growing up poor and seeing what it's like when there aren't any safety nets made me that way, I guess.

[Frank]

" Something about growing up poor and seeing what it's like when there aren't any safety nets made me that way, I guess."

You know, if you apply Tom's logic on energy policy and apply it to this problem, there should be no safety net. You see, if people know that being poor results in no help from the government, they'll rethink their lives and the consequences of their actions and take the steps necessary to become more successful.

Maybe I should become a liberl after all.