GOP will back carbon tax if tied to innovation, tech group predicts

Republicans are also supporting cleaner forms of energy, which would make them in favor of a carbon tax, the report says.

Eighty-four percent of registered voters, including 72 percent of Republicans and 68 percent of conservative Republicans, “support action to accelerate the development and use of clean energy,” according to the report.

The largest gains in support for a carbon tax came from Republicans in recent polling, the report said. “Support was highest, 60 percent, when the revenues went to fund R&D for renewable energy programs.”

The revenue-neutral tax would mean the fees collected from carbon dioxide emitters, like power plant owners and refineries, would go directly to fund technological innovation, as opposed to going to the Treasury.

“Both logic and scholarly research point in a clear direction: A carbon tax at reasonable levels, with the revenues dedicated to reducing the after-tax cost of research and capital investment, is likely to not only reduce carbon emissions but do it in a way that grows the overall economy,” according to the report.

The focus on using the money for innovation could crack the partisan divide on climate change, the report says. It says the debate has become “latched on to a number of scientific uncertainties to prevent much action.”

But that is changing because of reductions in the cost of cleaner energy alternatives, such as wind and solar. The price drop for these resources, the report suggests, is one of the reasons why so many countries signed onto the Paris climate change agreement.

“The Paris Agreement may merely represent this change in attitude rather than drive it,” the report says.

“First, in technologies as diverse as storage batteries, electric motors, solar cells, and wind power, price declines and quality improvements have occurred faster than many forecasters assumed,” the report reads. “Second, national governments seem to be more committed to taking advantage of these innovations.”

The report shows that many more Republicans are willing to embrace climate policies that promote innovation, rather than enact strict regulations to drive technology advancements that cut emissions.

In addition, the increased efficiency of enacting a carbon tax makes strict Environmental Protection Agency regulations unnecessary.

President Trump’s environmental agenda is centered on cutting regulations, which is one of the more favorable policies that has kept conservatives by his side.

Regulations “dictate” the specific actions required by industry to reduce emissions, which are often “inefficient,” the report says.

It points out research showing that “CO2 abatement policies, including those recently proposed by the Obama administration and later revoked by President Trump, would reduce carbon emissions by 20 percent relative to no action.” However, the bulk of those reductions would occur after 10 years and cost the economy nearly 1 percent of gross domestic product.

“One reason these policies can be expensive is every industry is at least indirectly responsible for emissions, many large sources of which — including transportation, construction, and electricity generation — are closely linked to modern life,” and the prospects of regulating “every major source of carbon emissions, both now and in the future, is beyond the ability of even the nimblest regulator,” the report points out.

That leaves the carbon tax, which is favored by economists over more complex regulations like a cap-and-trade program, which often gets more play when discussing policies to slow global warming, says the report.

Economists like a carbon tax because it is easy to administer, since it uses the same price signals that industrial supply chains already use.

“In contrast, the process of issuing emissions permits for hundreds of thousands of different companies [under a cap-and-trade system] is daunting to say the least,” it says.