Please find below the
Finalist Evaluation
Judges'' ratings
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Judges'' comments
Overall, splitting a carbon price effort into different smaller efforts (e.g. gas tax debate) is more intriguing in some ways than the part of this proposal advocating for the unification of different taxes in one debate. This proposal suggests a potential context in which a carbon price might get inserted into the policymaking agenda. Still, hard to see how it will gain Republican support. If you are already having to vote for a tax increase, why not get the public benefits associated with climate mitigation as well as everything else? This makes it a bit hard to see the political road map for this proposal. If you're going to engage the fight, you could do it for the whole hog vs just a piece of bacon.
Semi-Finalist Evaluation
Judges'' ratings
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Judges'' comments
1. A novel, pragmatic way to get at this. Has benefit of differently situated regions to take different actions, and starts small with individual state action (a more realistic place in my view). But these are also detriments in terms of obtaining meaningful change in the near term. Again short of details of benefits because hard to assess how so many actors will respond and when. Building off existing fuel taxes and highway trust fund troubles is intriguing.
2. The few Republicans who are willing to stick their necks out for a gas tax increase (and thus violate "the pledge") are hardly helped by heaping a climate action explanation on top. In general, fuel taxes are hard to do. The Grover Norquist pledge, on top of climate change, would be a tough sell. This proposal also leaves out power generation sector, which is a bigger emitter than transportation.
3. Thinking about a gasoline tax - a) people who want higher infrastructure spending could be pinned on gasoline tax, b) would attract D’s who want to raise price of carbon, and others who like infrastructure. Maybe don’t talk about carbon at all but raise gas tax (still within the bounds of the contest).
Other:
4. This is an interesting perspective, though overall its potential to address climate change is difficult to evaluate. The proposal seems to suggest that tax revenues will continue to be used to fund highways and other fossil fuel subsidies. Further, its unclear whether the proposed accelerating escalator design will provide the right signals to guide consumer decisions (e.g. the gas tax holiday seems counterproductive in driving appropriate consumption decisions). The focus is limited to carbon emissions associated with oil. However, the notion of revisiting existing energy taxes to transition a discussion into a potential carbon price is thoughtful.
5. A very thorough proposal, well-researched. I particularly like how well this group sets out an actual roadmap for implementation, a mix of policy moves but also engagement with the public on the issues. I have two concerns. One, the focus on oil throughout the proposal is odd to me. What about coal or natural gas? I know the authors are focusing a lot on the transportation sector, where oil is the major player, but coal (and nat. gas) in the electricity sector is a big deal as well. I think a sectoral approach certainly has merits (i.e. start somewhere, then go from there), but I'd like the authors to justify this further. Two, pushing the tax farther upstream the oil production supply chain won't really change anything. If the markets are functioning well, the tax upstream will simply find its way downstream to the end-use consumer eventually as every player passes the tax further down the supply chain. The authors should justify this move further.
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