To meet the Obama administration’s targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, some researchers say, Americans may have to experience a sobering reality: gas at $7 a gallon.
To reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the transportation sector 14 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, the cost of driving must simply increase, according to a forthcoming report by researchers at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
The 14 percent target was set in the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget for fiscal 2010.
In their study, the researchers devised several combinations of steps that United States policymakers might take in trying to address the heat-trapping emissions by the nation’s transportation sector, which consumes 70 percent of the oil used in the United States.
Most of their models assumed an economy-wide carbon dioxide tax starting at $30 a ton in 2010 and escalating to $60 a ton in 2030. In some cases researchers also factored in tax credits for electric and hybrid vehicles, taxes on fuel or both.
In the modeling, it turned out that issuing tax credits could backfire, while taxes on fuel proved beneficial.
“Tax credits don’t address how much people use their cars,” said Ross Morrow, one of the report’s authors. “In reverse, they can make people drive more.”
Dr. Morrow, formerly a fellow at the Belfer Center, is a professor of mechanical engineering and economics at Iowa State University
Researchers said that vehicle miles traveled will increase by more than 30 percent between 2010 and 2030 unless policymakers increase fuel taxes.
The Progressives are still considering Cap and Trade even after ClimateGate, not because it is good for America… but rather because it is part of their plant to remake America…
Remember, for every green job gained… two jobs are lost… Spain, one of the countries barely hanging on in Europe already did all this shift to green jobs and is now paying the price.
Cloward and Piven Strategy at work with Goal to Collapse our System
SEIU’s Stern: Were Are at a New Financial Crossroads
WH Plan to Seize Land Would Favor Animals Over Americans
AP: Obama’s Homebuyer Credit Fails
Watch or Record Glenn on Friday on the Indoctrination of our Children
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