So you think that carbon taxes invested into renewable energy have no negative policy consquences at all?

Either the customers of the utility will have to pay higher rates to support the higher costs of new renewable energy or capital providers will be expected to take a haircut. In basically every prior case policy makers have essentially ringfenced energy suppliers from bearing the financial cost themselves and consumers are ultimately the ones who pay extra for renewable energy with business and industrial users often avoiding higher utility bills like in germany.

So basically, you might as well do what germany does and just force consumers to pay in the first place for higher electricity prices. That's a lot easier to administratively manage than having to collect new taxes from energy users.

OK? You raised a valid point that there may be a negative policy consequence, then abruptly undermined it by saying "we'll just make them pay it anyway." I mean, that's the point. We're paying for externalities with regards to energy creation one way or another. To not pay for "dirty" energy out of pocket now is just kicking the can down the road. Plus there's myriad positives to tipping the balance of incentives toward renewables.

I suppose conservatives might oppose such legislation because it would be an opposing view, but... well hell, who am I kidding. It's not like they have any other reason to exist now besides being contradictory.

> 3. The modern Senate under McConnell appears wholly uninterested in passing legislation of any kind, and is almost exclusively dedicated to approving judges nominated by conservatives

This is arguably close to an optimal strategy for the GOP. If current demographic trends translate to the ballot box, the GOP may be less successful in future elections, at least in the near term. If a large number of GOP federal judges can be appointed for life to the bench, this puts in place at least a beachhead from which conservative economic and social policy from judicial activism can check any potential liberal influence from legislative or executive branches.

And lest we forget: grandstanding oratorical epics and investigations because Hillary lost.

Yeah screw the planet because I'm bitter about an election. Makes sense /s

We all lose on this game plan.

It doesn't get bipartisan support because Green New Deal comes mixed in with a bunch of other controversial welfare crap (universal healthcare, basic income, guaranteed jobs, free college) that makes it too hard to swallow. Thus, you can easily oppose GND even if you are not opposed to climate change policies. If we want to get serious about climate change we need to propose legislation specifically to target that and nothing else, otherwise you just add fuel to all the "fixing climate change is a wealth redistribution plot" conspiracies.

First off, the GND is just a framework for lowering CO2 emissions while creating new jobs in an industry in transition. There's no inherent legislation in it, so I'm using it as a framing for any actual bill that would be drawn up in its framework.

And I think you're right about "riders" convoluting such legislation too much to make it too political. But there _is_ an inherent problem to transitioning to clean energy, and that's: What do we do with all those people in the "dirty" energy world? The original New Deal sought to employ people as a primary effect of building US infra. If it had just been focused on infra, it may have never got off the ground.

Let them figure that out. Let’s not hold the climate hostage because a few people are going to lose their jobs, otherwise we are no better than companies pumping CO2 into the atmosphere.

Would that be before or after all planes are grounded and every building in the US is retrofitted or rebuilt to be more energy efficient in ten years?

Do you have a source for all planes being grounded? And retro fitted can mean a whole spectrum of things from very cheap things to very expensive things.

They initially released a document with more detail then the bill and pulled it back when they realized it was insanity.

I found a archive of it here: https://www.heartland.org/publications-resources/publication...

Some quotes:

"We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast, but we think we can ramp up renewable manufacturing and power production, retrofit every building in America, build the smart grid, overhaul transportation and agriculture, plant lots of trees and restore our ecosystem to get to net-zero."

"we also need to start doing new things (like overhauling whole industries or retrofitting all buildings to be energy efficient)."

"Totally overhaul transportation by massively expanding electric vehicle manufacturing, build charging stations everywhere, build out highspeed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary, create affordable public transit available to all, with goal to replace every combustion-engine vehicle"

"A Green New Deal is a massive investment in renewable energy production and would not include creating new nuclear plants."

"The Green New Deal makes new fossil fuel infrastructure or nuclear plants unnecessary."

"Repair and upgrade U.S. infrastructure. ASCE estimates this is $4.6 trillion at minimum."

"The level of investment required is massive. Even if every billionaire and company came together and were willing to pour all the resources at their disposal into this investment, the aggregate value of the investments they could make would not be sufficient."

"How will you pay for it? The same way we paid for the New Deal, the 2008 bank bailout and extended quantitative easing programs. The same way we paid for World War II and all our current wars. The Federal Reserve can extend credit to power these projects and investments and new public banks can be created to extend credit."

"Promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of frontline and vulnerable communities"

"Work with farmers and ranchers to create a sustainable, pollution and greenhouse gas free, food system that ensures universal access to healthy food and expands independent family farming"

Bonus quote:

"That would be pretty hard for Hawaii" - Sen Mazie Hirono on the air travel elimination plan

I highly suggest reading the FAQ and the bill (its only 14 pages) if you haven't it is laugh out loud funny.

That's because it was a draft document. In other words, you're pinning everything you're saying on a document that wasn't even done. What, you think this is some kind of "gotcha" moment? Do you really think they'd release an official document about "cows farting"?

If that's the case maybe they should focus on running their small office and get that solid before proposing to restructure the entire economy.

They still must be drafting it because I don't see a document to take it's place yet.

I see nothing about grounding all planes unless " doing things to make it unnecessary" is what you mean. That is quite a stretch. Keep in mind if we go down our current path the result is potentially human extinction.

Retrofitting older buildings is a fantastic idea that isn't terribly expensive in the grand scheme of things.

Retrofitting every building in the United States in ten years is what was purposed. The tradespeople I know are all very busy and find it hard to hire in this college focused age. Unemployment is virtually zero. Where will all these able bodied skilled workers come from? (Not to mention the trillions of dollars required)

You’re taking this literally when you should be taking it seriously. All of those issues will become more important the next time there’s slack in the construction labor market.

If I can't take a policy proposal literally how on earth can I take it seriously?