It's back to square one for President Sarkozy's carbon tax
UPDATE | 10:10 AM: The tax was set at 17 euros ($24.38) per ton of carbon-dioxide emissions. However, to ensure passage the legislation ended exempting almost 93 percent of all industrial carbon emissions in France.
Back in September President Nicolas Sarkozy, when he initially rolled out the law, partially or fully exempted power plants, public transport, airlines, farming and fishing, as well as 1,018 older cement, steel and glass factories.
The dead on arrival law, however, underscore the hurdles faced by industrial economies as they attempt to cleanup their energy consumption by pricing carbon.
In the U.S. the American Clean Energy and Security act or ACES, approved by the House in June, has a cap-and-trade provision that was also heavily diluted to make it more palpable to oil and gas and agriculture industries. The legislation barely passed the House floor vote.
On the Senate side energy and climate change legislation is also in limbo with currently three separate proposals under consideration. There is the Kerry – Lieberman – Graham framework; Senator Jeff Bingaman’s (D-N.M.) proposal and now the Cantwell – Collins legislation.
The hurdle preventing a full debate on the Senate floor is the pricing of carbon. In a bid to unblock the legislative process, earlier this month Senators Maria Cantwell, (D-Wash.) and Susan Collins, (R-Maine) released the Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal (CLEAR) Act. That proposal stands out because it proposes what seems to be a “cap-and-trade light”. CO2 would still be priced but only power utilities and energy producers would be able to buy and sell (in a secondary market) these emission permits.
So far key industry groups, including the all-powerful oil and gas lobby, the American Petroleum Institute has, for the most part, come out in favor of CLEAR.
Yet, chances of climate change law with a carbon-pricing provision being enacted into law this year still remain slim. Earlier this week Senators Mary Landrieu, (D-La.), and Evan Bayh, (D-Ind.), said that a climate change bill will not pass next year. Democratic senators already have too much on their plates with health care and the economy and they’re desperate not to further alienate voters.
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France’s Constitutional Court has ruled against a carbon tax, just days before it was set to come into effect aimed at curbing carbon-heavy energy consumption.
In a ruling released today the Paris-based court said the law’s web of loopholes, benefiting energy companies, as well as energy-dependent sectors like farming and fishing, rendered it ineffective in cutting down carbon and green house gases emissions.
The new carbon tax was expected to raise 1.5 billion euros ($2.15 billion) next year, reports Reuters. The government said it would make a new proposition on January 20th.
Photo Credit: Francois Lafite via Flickr
