Currently being revised and debated in Congress is a new Emissions bill that calls for quantity control (cap-and-trade), and possibly international tariffs.
The bill is going to decline nuclear power production, revise off-shore drilling, and possibly add a tax to goods from countries who have weak environmental standards. I'm not sure if this means that the U.S. will tax companies importing goods from foreign countries with weak environmental standards, or tax those foreign countries directly? But if the goods are coming in to the U.S., aren't we paying for them, so how do we tax the foreign nation? Maybe someone can answer this for me.
This bill will most likely become a hot topic at the climate summit in Copenhagen in December.
2 comments:
What really strikes me as the most significant part of this article is how there is a proposal to tax goods from countries that do not meet certain environmental standards. It almost seems hypocritical of the US to propose this considering they never even signed the Kyoto Agreement. However, it will be interesting to see what becomes of the Copenhagen Summit and to see where countries stand on how much they're governments will be willing to invest in protecting the environment.
My main concern about this article is that the new bill aims to decrease nuclear power production. If we are going to reduce our CO2 emissions, we will need to increase nuclear power production, as other alternatives will nowhere near cover our energy needs. However, I do think that a tax on goods from certain countries is good, as it will provide incentives to decrease energy demand.
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