Instead of rallying together to fight the Obama Administration’s backdoor environmental regulations, which have exorbitant costs and minimal benefit, some conservative organizations are working with liberal groups to push costs higher by piling on a carbon tax. This would be nothing more than an enormously high, regressive energy tax that would needlessly destroy jobs and economic growth.
The abundance of shale gas and the potential for stably low natural gas prices have energy-intensive industries champing at the bit to come to the United States. The combination of onerous, duplicative regulations and a carbon tax would reverse that immediately. And all for no noticeable change in the earth’s temperature.
Since an overwhelming majority of our energy needs are met by fossil fuels, these rules directly raise the cost of electricity, gasoline, diesel fuel, and home heating oil. Since low-income families spend more of their budgets on energy, a tax that increases energy prices would disproportionately eat into the income of the poorest American families.
As Congress of Racial Equality chairman Roy Innis says, “The civil rights challenge of our time is to stop extreme environmental policies that drive up the cost of energy and disproportionately hurt low income Americans and the working poor.” The higher energy costs of a carbon tax would dwarf any type of rebate low-income families would allegedly receive.
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