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Democrats Government United States

Senate Democrats To Introduce Legislation That Would Tax Energy Companies Responsible For Major Greenhouse Gas Emissions (thehill.com) 207

Zack Budryk writes via The Hill: The Polluters Pay Climate Fund Act, sponsored by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), would require between 25 to 30 of the U.S. corporations responsible for the most greenhouse gas pollution to pay $300 billion into a fund over 10 years. The legislation would require companies to pay into the fund if they were responsible for at least .05 percent of global carbon dioxide and methane emissions between 2000 and 2019 based on data from the Treasury Department and Environmental Protection Agency. In a document shared with The Hill, Van Hollen's office estimated major companies such as Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron would be taxed $5 billion to $6 billion annually under the bill. The Democratic senator pointed to other policies that could accompany the measure, such as carbon pricing and a clean-energy standard.

The exact uses of the money in the fund have not yet been determined, Van Hollen said, adding there would be a public comment period. Possible uses include building more climate-resilient infrastructure, particularly in disadvantaged communities and communities of color. [...] After years of opposition, major institutions and trade groups like the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have come out in favor of a tax on carbon emissions in recent months. However, Van Hollen's proposal would go further than that, specifically targeting major players like Exxon Mobil and Chevron.
Further reading: Democrats Seek $500 Billion in Climate Damages From Big Polluting Companies (The New York Times)
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Senate Democrats To Introduce Legislation That Would Tax Energy Companies Responsible For Major Greenhouse Gas Emissions

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  • by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2021 @10:13PM (#61657561) Homepage

    ...The exact uses of the money in the fund have not yet been determined...

    Oh, I bet they're going to leap, LEAP SIR, to define the exact uses of said fund. It absolutely will not be abused by the political class ( via book deals or speaking engagements or whathaveyou ).

    • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2021 @10:33PM (#61657589)
      the point is to make it harder for companies to externalize their costs. My family has a history of lung cancer, and while I do not nor have I ever smoked I get a lungful of smog daily. Over my lifetime that's going to add up, and it's very possible it'll be what kills me.

      For a more concrete example I knew a trucker with major heart problems. They cracked his chest open and couldn't find anything wrong. Turned out his lungs were a mess from years of idling in traffic. He was lucky, and made a full recovery, but it adds up.

      Everybody talks about pollution in these abstract or long term ways, but it's hurting us right now, we're just not noticing it because we're so used to it.
      • Everybody talks about pollution in these abstract or long term ways, but it's hurting us right now, we're just not noticing it because we're so used to it.

        We also on average (Western civilization) have the longest life expectancies the human species has ever attained . Easy to not notice when we have no better frame of reference, at all, ever.

    • Right because who would want to fund research into reversing climate change? I'm sure projecting your own ideas onto this group is totally accurate. /s

  • Ex post facto? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sgunhouse ( 1050564 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2021 @10:32PM (#61657587)
    You can't tax after-the-fact. They might be able to fine the companies, but that generally requires a legal proceeding. But you can't come along and say "You owe us $5 billion tax for something you did 20 years before we passed the tax in question". They'll fight that in court and win easily.
    • "You owe us $5 billion tax for something you did 20 years before we passed the tax in question"

      They cannot make it criminal and deprave someone of their liberty post facto, but they can absolutely seek reparations for damages from a legal entity. Companies do not have the same rights as citizens, so you are correct that they cannot pin it to any single citizen, but companies are a whole different beast and if these companies knew damage was being done in the past (which that's already been demonstrated), it would be very easy to show to a court that the company knew of the material harm they were do

      • Jesus christ. Can you imagine what the government of the 80's would have done if the oil companies had said "Gee, we're going to cut back the spigots, we're really endangering the planet!". They wood have berried their dicks so far in the oil company's asses that whoever pulled them out would have been crowned the King of England.

        Fuck, some of the dumb shit I read these days. We are all complicit. We needed the energy to grow the country, ensure our defense, and build the lifestyle WE ALL fucking enjoy righ

      • They are taxing companies responsible for a certain percentage of global emissions in the past, not just in the US. Can they seek reparations for damage done in another country? What if all countries start doing that?
      • by Entrope ( 68843 )

        It would be just as trivial to prove that you know how destructive your logic is of civil society, and less work would be required because your can't afford as many lawyers as big companies.

        These companies operate under state and federal regulation of their businesses. Coming along later and saying "well, those government regulations ACKSHUALLY authorized reparable damages" is exactly the kind of reason that ex post facto laws are disfavored. Even under Calder v. Bull, it's not clear that retrospective ta

    • by swilver ( 617741 )

      The courts uphold the law. Laws can be changed. And then those new laws are upheld. As for retroactive changes, just look at copyright extensions, it works for those. It can work for tax.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Sounds like they are only using previous emissions to decide which companies get to pay the tax, but the tax is paid yearly going forward.

      Is it legal to tax specific companies based on some arbitrary criteria?

  • by Cerlyn ( 202990 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2021 @10:42PM (#61657613)

    The United States Constitution prohibits "ex post facto" laws. These retroactively make things illegal.

    This is not exactly that. But it punishes firms for past behavior with a punishment that was not known at the time. The legislature will have to be very careful writing this [cornell.edu] to avoid having the law thrown out.

    A constitutional lawyer would have a better idea of what is allowed.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by h33t l4x0r ( 4107715 )
      They lied about the danger of climate change. Similar to how Big Tobacco lied about the danger of cigarettes. $300B is just barely more than the Big Tobacco settlement, I think they should consider themselves getting off easy.
    • But it punishes firms for past behavior with a punishment that was not known at the time.

      You have just described every regulation ever introduced. Won't someone think of the poor people who invested in machinery to manufacture asbestos!

  • by atomicalgebra ( 4566883 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2021 @10:49PM (#61657633)
    to subsidize new nuclear energy.
    • Nuclear energy doesn't need a subsidy. It needs it's regulatory regime to be re-worked from the ground up, and we need some politicians with balls to tell NIMBYs to fuck off.

      The government, society and regulatory bodies have hamstrung it with high costs. It doesn't need subsidies, it needs the source of those costs addressed.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      You have some excellent offshore wind resources, you should development. Loads of jobs, the cleanest and cheapest energy available, and you can upgrade your grid at the same time.

  • by joe_frisch ( 1366229 ) on Wednesday August 04, 2021 @10:52PM (#61657643)
    Largest polluting "companies" over the last 20 years. Can you imagine the mess over definitions with acquisitions, mergers, splits and bankruptcies of multi-national companies over the last 20 years? With many billions of $ at stake.

    Then there is the question of what is meant by "emissions". Energy companies buy / sell their commodities in complex markets. Is it the company that removed the carbon from the ground, or the one that sold it to end users? Also, do they really want to tax the energy producers, not consumers? Is the company that makes jet fuel somehow more at fault than the airline that uses it?

    I have no problem with a carbon tax going forward, where what is being taxed is well defined, and companies have time to adjust their operations based on that tax. This though is just dumb - and if they try to pass it will be a gift to Republicans, and to attorneys everywhere.
    • Energy companies buy / sell their commodities in complex markets. Is it the company that removed the carbon from the ground, or the one that sold it to end users? Also, do they really want to tax the energy producers, not consumers?

      They are going to be taxing consumers. In the end, ALL taxes are paid by the citizenry, not by businesses - the businesses just raise prices to cover the new costs.

      • Energy companies buy / sell their commodities in complex markets. Is it the company that removed the carbon from the ground, or the one that sold it to end users? Also, do they really want to tax the energy producers, not consumers?

        They are going to be taxing consumers. In the end, ALL taxes are paid by the citizenry, not by businesses - the businesses just raise prices to cover the new costs.

        Agree. The idea is that we might reduce demand for things which necessarily create pollution. (Obviously increasing costs for products which were polluting 20 years ago, but aren't today is utter muppetry).

    • Largest polluting "companies" over the last 20 years. Can you imagine the mess over definitions with acquisitions, mergers, splits and bankruptcies of multi-national companies over the last 20 years? With many billions of $ at stake.

      Another problem is that its just punishing companies for what they did in the past - which doesn't really reward people for improvements (i.e. not polluting today).

    • I have no problem with a carbon tax going forward, where what is being taxed is well defined, and companies have time to adjust their operations based on that tax.

      No, fuck them. The people running them knew what they were doing and deliberately did it anyway. Same with the investors. The only problem I have with this is that we're not stringing the boards of these companies up by their genitals and hanging them from the city walls.

      The only people I feel bad for are the workers, and only so bad given that they could have trained for other jobs, and it's all of our responsibility to be informed and to make responsible decisions.

  • Anything we do creates polution. If we lift a finger, CO2 goes into the atmosphere. To pay the extra taxes, forwarded to the customer, we will need to lift two fingers.

  • It's been a few years since an Exxon CEO was US secretary of state, so that's a good trend. Then again, US will probably elect a game show host to their highest office in a few years, so I'm going to be: "cautiously optimistic".
  • by blitz487 ( 606553 ) on Thursday August 05, 2021 @01:56AM (#61658039)

    The people who burn gas, you and I, are the polluters. Just tax the carbon content of the fuels. This encourages people to burn less fuel, and encourages a switch to fuels with less carbon content. This is exactly what we want to happen.

    • There's plenty of responsibility to go around. The organisation burning the fuel, the organisation drilling the fuel, they can both take some blame.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Thursday August 05, 2021 @08:32AM (#61658625) Homepage Journal

      Problem with taxing the users is that it has a disproportionate effect on some of them. They will end up in cold homes and not being able to afford petrol.

      Taxing the suppliers encourages them to offer alternatives that consumers can afford, and even to contribute to the cost of switching. The UK did this and it worked quite well, lots of people got free home upgrades from the bigger suppliers and the cost was spread out to everyone, including corporate shareholders.

      • Problem with taxing the users is that it has a disproportionate effect on some of them. They will end up in cold homes and not being able to afford petrol.

        It's almost like the government will have a new source of revue which they could then earmark for *looks left and right to see if any Americans are watching* social security.

        If you have poor people freezing in homes the answer is to solve that problem directly, not fuck up the world with insanely low energy cost with unaccounted for externalities.

  • Politicians need some way to cover the costs of COVID without losing too many votes.

    • Politicians need some way to cover the costs of COVID without losing too many votes.

      Good. Fuck them into the ground. I say this as someone who gets 100% of their paycheck (currently) from an oil company. The sad reality though is the oil companies won't pay, they'll pass the costs on to consumers. The happy reality is the oil companies won't pay, they'll pass the costs on to consumers who may in the future think twice before driving a 5L V8 300m down the road to the gym just to use the treadmill.

  • The consumer won't be paying for those, nope, not a penny. This is just a way to hide the taxes they want, nothing else- the consumer will pay these.
  • This legislation is definitely necessary, because I have been having trouble losing weight, and once they get energy prices as high as they want to make them, I simply won't be able to afford food any more.

  • We should simply ban Humans because ultimately the ONLY way to curb CO2 is to go back to pre-industrial living. I don't see the jet set progressive politicians living in 600 ft/sq living containers. That's just for us plebs .

  • Perhaps just stop sending subsidies to fossil fuel companies. We were shipping ~$40B/year to them not too long ago. Just turn off that spigot.

  • Maybe the democrats should focus on the last year or so, since let no one forget, that its those "polluting energy companies" that enabled society's growth before we had other technologies to generate that electricity.

    As California implemented rotating blackouts for potential energy emergencies -- maybe we ought not to phase out some of those old gas fired plants. Most of their use in the past several years has been during periods with insufficient clean energy to meet demand. While they are closing due t

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