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No, Mr. Ford, Cascade Policy Institute has never tried to pretend that we are part of government "so as to gain credibility." If we were funded by the government we'd have less credibility, not more.

For you to quote from our own documents that Cascade is a private, non-profit organization is not exactly an expose.

posted 4 years, 11 months ago
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Number-six in incorrect in his assertion. I understand market friction, I know that there is never perfect knowledge, and many activities in a market are irrational. I also understand what externalities are.

The point of my comment this morning was that the WCI proposal (like all CO2 cap-and-trade schemes) is too arbitrary and bureaucratic to be effective. Try reading the Warner-Lieberman bill that Congress briefly debated in June, and then explain to someone how it would work. All it does is set up a huge scheme for people to game the system and make money off it, while raising prices to consumers by rationing energy. At least a carbon tax would be more straightforward, and if the revenues were used to lower taxes on income and capital, there could be net social benefits (aside from any "climate change" benefits, which are purely speculative and unlikely without cooperation from large developing countries taht are now free to do what they want).

Note also that the governor's proposal does not seriously deal with transportation, the largest CO2 source in Oregon. The best option there would be to convert our limited-access highway system to a turnpike system with electronic tolling and peak-hour pricing in the Portland metro area. Empirical evidence shows that if you get traffic out of stop-and-go conditions to free-flow conditions (almost impossible without congestion pricing), you reduce the per-mile CO2 emissions by 70-90%. That's the low-hanging fruit; in fact it's cost-free as a global warming strategy, because we should implement congestion pricing for other reasons (to improve economic productivity and to pay for ongoing road maintenance and construction costs).

If the Governor wants to support market-based road pricing, I'd be happy to help advocate for it -- as I've been doing for the past 18 years.

posted 4 years, 11 months ago
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