About Exxon's 'support' of Carbon Taxes

It's a sad commentary when CEOs have to support things that aren't in their interest, solely to survive. That's certainly the case with Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, who in a speech said a carbon tax would be a "more direct, a more transparent and a more effective approach" than many of the current plans for curbing greenhouse gases, including the cap-and-trade approach favored by President-elect Barack Obama.

"My greatest concern is that policymakers will attempt to mandate or ordain solutions that are doomed to fail,"

Like cap-and-trade. Or new Environmental Protection Agency rules that essentially seek to regulate everything in our economy that uses carbon-based fuel. Since 85 percent of our energy comes from carbon-based fuel, that means the entire economy.

Take last fall's Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPA) by the EPA, which the new president has vowed to implement. ANPA sounds innocent, but cutting C02 output by 70 percent, as Congress has mandated, won't be easy. The costs will be enormous and could wreck our economy:

• According to Global Insight, ANPA could cost the United States nearly $7 trillion in real output, or about $650 billion a year.
• Meanwhile, 800,000 U.S. jobs would be lost annually for several years.

For the record, as the world shivers through a second frigid winter in a row, the United States is already cutting back on its CO2 output:

• According to Energy Department data, from 2000 to 2006, per capita output of C02 in the United States plunged 4.7 percent.
• Meanwhile, it increased by 3 percent in Europe, and this despite Europe already having energy taxes five to 10 times what they are in the United States.

Source: Editorial, "Carbon Tax: The Lesser Of Two Evils," Investor's Business Daily, January 12, 2009.

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