American Enterprise Institute

More on the Carbon Tax Cabal

by Marlo Lewis on July 12, 2012

in Features

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Concerning the “Price Carbon Campaign/Lame Duck Initiative” meeting of center-right and ‘progressive’ pols, wonks, and activists yesterday at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), herewith a few additional thoughts.

Today’s Greenwire quotes AEI economic policy director Kevin Hassett saying that AEI was just playing host and the meeting was just information sharing. Well, okay, let’s assume he experienced it that way, but what about the ‘progressives’ who set the agenda? They must really be into sharing, because this was their fifth meeting. Whatever the AEI folks thought the event was about, the agenda clearly outlines a strategy meeting to develop the PR/legislative campaign to promote and enact carbon taxes.

During the cap-and-trade debate in the last Congress, there was something of a consensus among economists that EPA regulation of greenhouse gases (GHGs) is the worst option, a ‘comprehensive legislative solution’ (i.e. cap-and-trade) has less economic risk, and a carbon tax is the most efficient option. But the ‘progressives’ in the “Price Carbon Campaign” are pushing for carbon taxes on top of EPA regulation.

Because the meeting was non-public and hush-hush, we may never know who said what. Here are some points the ‘conservative’ economists  should have made: [click to continue…]

AEI Hosts Fifth Secret Meeting to Promote Carbon Tax

by Marlo Lewis on July 11, 2012

in Features

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Today, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a prominent conservative think tank, hosted a secret, four-and-a-half hour meeting of pols, wonks, and activists, including several self-identified ‘progressives,’ to develop a PR/legislative strategy to promote and enact a carbon tax. This was the fifth such meeting to advance the “Price Carbon Campaign/Lame Duck Initiative: A Carbon Pollution Tax in Fiscal and Tax Reform.” An annoted copy of the meeting agenda appears at the bottom of this post.

Perhaps not coincidentally, earlier this week former GOP Congressman Bob Inglis of South Carolina launched the Energy and Enterprise Initiative, an organization promoting carbon taxes. Inglis obtained funding for the project from the Rockefeller Family Fund and the Energy Foundation, both left-leaning foundations.

Left-right coalitions can be principled and desirable. For example, I worked with environmental groups to help end the ethanol tax credit, and I work with them now to develop the case for eliminating the ethanol mandate. We collaborate because we share the same policy objective, even if not always for the same reasons. The free marketers want to end political meddling in the motor fuel market and the environmentalists want to end federal support for a fuel they regard as more polluting than gasoline. The common objective is consistent with each partner’s core principles.

But such cases are the exception rather than the rule. In general, when left and right join forces, the appropriate question is: Who is duping whom?

My colleague Myron Ebell sent out an alert about the AEI-hosted carbon tax cabal earlier today. It appears immediately below: [click to continue…]

Government Did Not Develop the Internet

by William Yeatman on October 11, 2010

in Features

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Proponents of green energy subsidies[1] are quick to claim that the U.S. government created the internet as we know it. Their reasoning is as follows: If only Uncle Sam would do for solar power what it did for the internet, then we could achieve the clean energy breakthrough that will deliver America to a carbon-free energy future.

This line of thinking is misguided, because it conflates “research” and “development.”

“Research” is the “diligent  and  systematic  inquiry  or  investigation  into  a  subject  in  order  to  discover  or  revise  facts,  theories,  applications,  etc,” according to dictionary.com. This process of discovery is amenable to top-down control. A priori, a research team sets out to investigate a particular phenomenon. “Development,” however, is different. This is the process by which a technology becomes valued by consumers. It is recalcitrant to top-down controls; rather, it is a function of tinkering by myriad actors.

To put it another way, government research created the internet, but it took many, many smart, opportunistic people to develop the internet.

Consider a brief history that serves to clarify my point. From 1965-1989, the US military and the National Science Foundation created the internet. In 1989, a private telecommunications company, MCI, gained commercial rights to use the internet. Then, “During the 1990s, it was estimated that the Internet grew by 100 percent per year, with a brief period of explosive growth in 1996 and 1997. This growth is often attributed to the lack of central administration, which allows organic growth of the network, as well as the non-proprietary open nature of the Internet protocols, which encourages vendor interoperability and prevents any one company from exerting too much control over the network.” (from Wikipedia)

So, government had zero to do with commercializing internet. Indeed, the internet grew by leaps and bounds only after it was loosened from the grip of the state.

Green energy enthusiasts claim that government can do R&D, and they point to the internet as evidence for this assertion. They are mistaken. While it’s debatable whether government should do the “R,” it is irrefutable that government can’t do the “D.”

[1] Most recently, the much-ballyhooed “post partisan” climate plan released today by the Breakthrough Institute, the Brookings Institute and the American Enterprise Institute.