Ben Stein Watch: February 22, 2009

Ben Stein comes out in favor of a carbon tax today, and deliciously seems to have alighted upon the least compelling of all possible reasons to prefer it over a cap-and-trade system:

When I go to my local gas station, I am amazed that there is any gasoline there at all. Yes, I can see how the big oil companies happily made gasoline when oil was $140 a barrel. But how can they do it when oil is in the $30s? That takes some fancy planning...
Why add another element of uncertainty to energy production, especially if the goal of suppressing carbon-based fuel burning can be accomplished by another means? Energy companies have enough problems as it is -- including reduced supplies, political risks and wildly changing prices for raw materials...
Why not do what governments usually do to reduce consumption -- namely, impose a tax that punishes the production of carbon emissions?

Yep, Stein reckons that a carbon tax is the way to go because it'll make life less difficult for the big oil companies. The poor things. Of course he might have asked the big oil companies first what they thought.

Take a look, for instance, at the United States Climate Action Partnership -- members include BP, ConocoPhillips, Shell, and many other major companies in carbon-intensive industries. And as USCAP's acronym implies, it's strongly in favor of a cap-and-trade system over any kind of carbon tax.

Stein also seems to be willfully obtuse when it comes to understanding how a cap-and-trade system works:

Right now, because of the recession in European manufacturing, the cost of these carbon credits has fallen fantastically, rendering the cost of carbon emissions low. That doesn't do much for reducing emissions.

Actually, Ben, the cost of carbon emissions has fallen fantastically precisely because emissions have been reduced significantly. That's the genius of a cap-and-trade system: if emissions fall anyway, then there need be no extra cost at all.

The big problem with a carbon tax, of course, is that no one can come close to agreeing on what level it ought to be set at: Stein, for one, doesn't even try. Would he like a tax of $5 a ton? $25? $75? He doesn't say. It's a way of having his cake and eating it: he gets to oppose any kind of sensible cap-and-trade legislation, without needing to come up with a concrete alternative. So come on, Ben, let us know: how much would you like to see a gallon of gas rise, in dollars and cents?