Pennsylvania Court Permanently Blocks Effort To Make Power Plants Pay For Greenhouse Gas Emissions (apnews.com) 189
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Pennsylvania cannot enforce a regulation to make power plant owners pay for their planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, a state court ruled Wednesday, dealing another setback to the centerpiece of former Gov. Tom Wolf's plan to fight global warming. The Commonwealth Court last year temporarily blocked Pennsylvania from becoming the first major fossil fuel-producing state to adopt a carbon-pricing program, and the new ruling makes that decision permanent. The ruling is a victory for Republican lawmakers and coal-related interests that argued that the carbon-pricing plan amounted to a tax, and therefore would have required legislative approval. Wolf, a Democrat, had sought to get around legislative opposition by unconstitutionally imposing the requirement through a regulation, they said. The court agreed in a 4-1 decision.
The regulation written by Wolf's administration had authorized Pennsylvania to join the multistate Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which imposes a price and declining cap on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. It would be up to Wolf's successor, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, to decide whether to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court. Shapiro's administration had no comment Wednesday on whether it would appeal, and Shapiro himself hasn't said publicly whether he would follow through on the plan to join the consortium, should the courts allow it. Still, Shapiro is "focused on addressing climate change, reducing emissions, and protecting public health while creating jobs and protecting consumers," Shapiro's administration said in a statement.
The regulation written by Wolf's administration had authorized Pennsylvania to join the multistate Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which imposes a price and declining cap on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. It would be up to Wolf's successor, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, to decide whether to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court. Shapiro's administration had no comment Wednesday on whether it would appeal, and Shapiro himself hasn't said publicly whether he would follow through on the plan to join the consortium, should the courts allow it. Still, Shapiro is "focused on addressing climate change, reducing emissions, and protecting public health while creating jobs and protecting consumers," Shapiro's administration said in a statement.
Humans are too stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
You really have to wonder if we're going to make it. At least every other creature that went extinct got that way because a meteor struck, or some other organism outcompeted them for resources. In the case of humans it'll be our own stupidity .. we're no doubt the laughingstock of the galaxy. That's why aliens haven't contacted us, it'll be like cancelling their favorite TV show.
No one watching, they killed themselves too (Score:3)
we're no doubt the laughingstock of the galaxy. That's why aliens haven't contacted us, it'll be like cancelling their favorite TV show.
Nope, no one is watching. Even if another technological society developed nearby they probably killed themselves off with their own set of mistakes. Like us they probably evolved by trying something new and having it go horribly wrong most of time, and on very rare occasions it turned out well and society learned from that brave early adopter. With greater technology the "goes horribly wrong" seems to have greater consequences, eventually you might get to the point where trial and error is too dangerous, or
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we're no doubt the laughingstock of the galaxy. That's why aliens haven't contacted us, it'll be like cancelling their favorite TV show.
Nope, no one is watching. Even if another technological society developed nearby they probably killed themselves off with their own set of mistakes. Like us they probably evolved by trying something new and having it go horribly wrong most of time, and on very rare occasions it turned out well and society learned from that brave early adopter. With greater technology the "goes horribly wrong" seems to have greater consequences, eventually you might get to the point where trial and error is too dangerous, or insufficient to deal with a threat. In other.words, it's silly to expect that others in the neighborhood would do any better than us. That's just a romantic dream.
I don't find your particular theory any more realistic than the day-dreamers dreaming that someone is out there watching. Stating it as fact doesn't make it true. We have no evidence either way. We have a sample size of one for intelligent species. And let's be honest here, there are arguments to be made that our intelligence hasn't kept pace with our development of technologies. We're still stuck in tribalism for the most part. We're not much more evolved emotionally and mentally than the grass-hut folks a
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You're assuming that aliens would be dumb enough to enjoy schadenfreude.
Humans first to Realize (Score:5, Insightful)
At least every other creature that went extinct got that way because a meteor struck, or some other organism outcompeted them for resources.
Actually, some life may well have gone extinct because life itself radically changed the Earth's environment - such as the early photosynthesizers that added oxygen to the atmosphere and (possibly) caused "Snowball Earth". Far from being stupid, we are the first life on Earth that has actually understood that we are changing the environment, realized that we need to stop and are now figuring out ways to do that in a way to minimize the impact on society.
Where you see nothing but stupidity, I see a miracle occurring because, for the very first time on Earth, an organism is deliberately choosing to limit its growth and development to make sure there is room for other organisms that give it no direct benefit. No other living organism has ever done that before. It's not going to be a smooth ride because, ironically, we are going to have to fight the urge to expand uncontrollably that we share with all of nature in order to save nature. So give us a chance, we are the best hope in 4.5 billion years of lessening and perhaps largely preventing a mass extinction event.
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So give us a chance, we are the best hope in 4.5 billion years of lessening and perhaps largely preventing a mass extinction event.
Which we have knowingly created. That takes some of the hope out of it.
Bad article (Score:2)
I hate it when an article about a court decision fails to include anything -about- the court decision. Judges go on -at length- about why they ruled a particular way. The least the journalist could do is offer a sentence or two summary of that reasoning.
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I hate it when an article about a court decision fails to include anything -about- the court decision. Judges go on -at length- about why they ruled a particular way. The least the journalist could do is offer a sentence or two summary of that reasoning.
The summary of their reasoning is that this was a tax, and the law in Pennsylvania was that a tax can only be enacted by the legislature, not instituted by executive order.
Although I think that a tax on emissions is a good idea, I agree with the legal reasoning, it is a tax.
Re:Humans are too stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
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No one in charge gives to hoots about abusing labor.
Re:Humans are too stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
Do they reduce their power output? Yes. Or do they pass on the tax to the consumers? Also, yes.
Both of those are good things. The tax falls only on plants burning fossil fuels, and even then, in proportion to their carbon emissions. So a gas plant pays half as much as a coal plant. So the power plants have an incentive to switch to cleaner fuels, consumers have an incentive to cut consumption of dirty power, and alternatives such as wind and solar are more cost effective.
The court was right to knock this down, because it is clearly a tax and requires the legislature to approve. But, in principle, carbon taxes are the most economically effective way to address global warming.
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But it is not hard limit for carbon emissions. If you know that they can go without gas or coal you can just ban these and get the result you want. If you merely tax them you basically admit that you know they can't do without but want to punish them anyways. Alternatively, you say that pollution is ok if it earns money.
Of course, you can also sell a limited amount of pollution rights to essential facilities to allow for "a little pollution". But that would require you to say which facilities are of public
Economics: money allows economic trade-offs (Score:2)
But it is not hard limit for carbon emissions. If you know that they can go without gas or coal you can just ban these and get the result you want. If you merely tax them you basically admit that you know they can't do without but want to punish them anyways.
Not exactly. Money, in an economic sense, gives an algorithm by which you can compare the value of disparate things. You say "it's like comparing apples and oranges," meaning that the things can't be compared, but money in fact allows you to compare the value: one apple is worth 1.2 oranges.
So if a company is asserting "the value of our burning this coal exceeds the cost to the environment, so we should be allowed an exception to burn it", money is in fact exactly the right tool to evaluate that judgement.
Re:Humans are too stupid (Score:5, Informative)
Can consumers choose to use low emission energy?
In the UK you can choose your energy provider, and the green ones are often the cheapest. Switching to renewables saves you money.
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the green ones are often the cheapest
Sources? I looked up a few ones, and they are consistently more expensive. Plus, all of them rely on either simply re-injecting the same amount of green energy to the grid that you consumed (but usually not at the same time, because renewables are intermittent), or buying green bonds (meaning they don't even produce energy themselves, they just "buy" certificates from others who produce it).
Switching to renewables saves you money.
Which is why Germany sees a lot of its industries fleeing in drove: it saves them money to go in countries with reliab
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Take a look at Octopus. Their green only deals are usually some of the cheapest, if not the cheapest.
They invest some of the profit back into building more renewable capacity. A lot of their profit comes from selling energy to other suppliers.
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In the UK you can choose your energy provider, and the green ones are often the cheapest. Switching to renewables saves you money.
If switching to "green" energy saves money then how does any utility that burns fossil fuels stay in business? If the fossil fuel electricity was cheaper then I'd understand how people might choose to pay a bit more for electricity that produces less CO2. Why pay more for electricity that they know produces more CO2? Is it that they don't know? Is the renewable electricity less reliable? That's about the only thing I can think of on why someone would choose to pay less for electricity, it could go out
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A mixture of customers who don't switch (the market is broken because most people stick with the same provider no matter how easy switching is) and certain corporate customers who can't go renewable only.
It is actually becoming an issue as so many fossil fuel plants shut down or become unprofitable. There will have to be subsidies during the transition period.
Re: Humans are too stupid (Score:2)
The tax falls only on plants burning fossil fuels, and even then, in proportion to their carbon emissions. So a gas plant pays half as much as a coal plant. So the power plants have an incentive to switch to cleaner fuels,
What's the incentive for the power companies? The Greenhouse Tax is a pass-thru expense passed directly to the consumer.
consumers have an incentive to cut consumption of dirty power, and alternatives such as wind and solar are more cost effective.
Consumers ALWAYS have an incentive to reduce power consumption, it's called saving money/lowering electric bill.
As for "cost-effective" let's not forget to include green energy subsidies when we claim "wind and solar are more cost effective" - no matter what electricity provider consumers choose, they help subsidize wind and solar through their taxes, not as a line-item on their electricity bill.
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Yes, please, quantify it. Bring it all on, toxic waste classification included. Hit us with all you've got.
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Yes, please, quantify it. Bring it all on, toxic waste classification included. Hit us with all you've got.
Which is why you observe the early adopters over a long period of time, to learn of the less than obvious down sides. You don't prematurely force the main market to join the early adopters when you don't understand the long term yet.
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"Which" being what? What part of the solar panel production needs to be observed for a long time, or has "less than obvious downsides"?
Re: Humans are too stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know what they're going on about but we do need an after life care for solar panels. Solar panels have compounds that can be reused but if not reused become toxic in landfills. Primary among these is lead that is in solder between components. New techniques are reducing this and solar panels in 2026 are expected to have 60% less lead than models produced in 2016. Solar panel companies are making good on their commitment to reduce toxic substances in solar panels. But in that, the levels are still a non-zero value and for the vast amount of solar panels that we will need, we will need a closed cycle for processing end-of-life solar panels.
Cadmium telluride (CdTe) is also in the solar panels as a thin film between particular layers. This stuff is very carcinogenic if it gets into ground water. However, the film in solar panels is produced in such a manner that this compound usually eats into a plastic layer and become embedded there unable to escape into sources of water. Additionally, the amount of cadmium telluride has been greatly reduced over the years and the film has been made in many model able to be removed for processing of EOL panels. That said, there aren't any facilities processing CdTe at the moment and this is a thing we really need by yesterday for how we are using solar panels today. This is stuff that we really don't need to rely on the fallback catching.
But all of that said, for the toxicity that is in solar panels it measures to near nothing compare to say burning coal. We absolutely cannot just dump solar panels into a landfill, that is just begging for all of this to come back and bite us. We need EOL processing for solar panels, but solar panels are hardly the "toxic waste" the fuckwits you have found yourself tangled with attempt to paint them as.
People attempting to paint solar panels as some super toxic thing are clearly idiots who haven't given two thoughts to what is coming out of LNG fired or coal fired power plants. Yes, solar panels aren't fodder for fucking daisies, but they sure as shit aren't vaping chromium into the air we breathe on an hourly basis. So for the detractors, fucking get a goddamn sense of scale here damn it.
Solar panel materials [Re: Humans are too stupid (Score:5, Informative)
Agree with most of what you say here (would mod it insightful if I had points). A few comments and addenda:
I don't know what they're going on about but we do need an after life care for solar panels. Solar panels have compounds that can be reused but if not reused become toxic in landfills. Primary among these is lead that is in solder between components.
You have to ask, why are people going after solar panels about this? Pretty much all electronics use solder. Solar panels, with a 30-year lifetime, are the least of the offenders.
So: who is it, exactly, who is pushing the narrative "OMG, solar panels have (a miniscule amount of) lead! That's toxic!"
New techniques are reducing this and solar panels in 2026 are expected to have 60% less lead than models produced in 2016. Solar panel companies are making good on their commitment to reduce toxic substances in solar panels. But in that, the levels are still a non-zero value and for the vast amount of solar panels that we will need, we will need a closed cycle for processing end-of-life solar panels.
agreed. But do keep in mind that solar panel manufacturers now offer 30 year warranties, with a push toward longer lifetimes. This is a long term issue, not a "today" issue.
Cadmium telluride (CdTe) is also in the solar panels as a thin film between particular layers.
Not really. Only one manufacturer in the world (First Solar) makes CdTe solar arrays, representing about 3.4 percent of the world solar array production. Everybody else goes with silicon.
And the CdTe layers are very thin-- a few microns. The cadmium use is dwarfed by the use of cadmium in yellow and orange paint. But, how many people are shouting "OMG, street signs are toxic. We have to stop making them!"?
...
People attempting to paint solar panels as some super toxic thing are clearly idiots who haven't given two thoughts to what is coming out of LNG fired or coal fired power plants.
Or possibly have an agenda.
Yes, solar panels aren't fodder for fucking daisies, but they sure as shit aren't vaping chromium into the air we breathe on an hourly basis. So for the detractors, fucking get a goddamn sense of scale here damn it.
A good sense of scale is valuable but too often missing, I'm afraid.
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Nobody's arguing against waste management of EOL solar panels, but the claim of OP that the external costs they impose are comparable to the external costs of CO2 pollution is so stupid that they can't even put it into words properly.
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Nobody's arguing against waste management of EOL solar panels, but the claim of OP that the external costs they impose are comparable to the external costs of CO2 pollution is so stupid that they can't even put it into words properly.
Again, whoosh, ... you read into the text things that were not there. It was more about smugness and the mistaken notion that they are no longer consumers of fossil fuels. Plus there was commentary on prematurely forcing the use of EVs when we do not really know the actual lifecycle complications and costs. For example we will need many more batteries than anticipated due to insurance companies forcing battery replacements after minor collisions due to potential fire hazards. These batteries, now classified
Re: Humans are too stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
Speaking of the total picture, does your analysis that solar panels are no better than coal still hold true when considering the total volume of harmful substances emitted by both sources into the environment? Just from a back of the envelope calculation, it would seem that harmful coal byproducts would have a much higher presence in the environment. After all, unlike coal, we aren't burning millions of tons of discarded solar panels daily to generate power.
Waste is not major problem [Re: Humans are too...] (Score:2)
Mostly a media-generated myth.
For the debunking, see:
https://techxplore.com/news/20... [techxplore.com]
https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
https://cleanenergycanada.org/... [cleanenergycanada.org] (see myths 3 and 4)
https://www.pv-magazine.com/20... [pv-magazine.com]
Common knowledge among (Score:2)
Solar panels are part of the effort to avert that self-inflicted fate. Get a f**king grip on reality.
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Not much in terms of quantification, nothing to justify your absurd claim that "solar panels are no better than coal when it comes to the total picture", nothing even close to the order of magnitude of the staggering costs of the carbon emissions generated by burning fossil fuels.
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Hahaha, of course you're posting AC.
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Who is talking about taxing "electricity generating plants" .. we're talking about taxing the pumping of (ob)noxious gas into the atmosphere. Generate electricity in a manner that doesn't eat the planet faster than it can recover. Generate electricity with solar or nuclear. All we're saying is if you damage the environment, then pay the cleanup cost. Isn't that something everyone is supposed to know from kindergarten?
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Utility cost is passed on to consumers, this is a tax on people not a plant.
And hence giving the individuals incentive to use energy more efficiently.
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Carbon dioxide isn't "noxious". If it were, you'd be dead. Braindead rhetoric like this helps no one.
The word "noxious" here is used to mean "has harmful effects". It is not a synonym for "poisonous."
Deliberately misunderstanding the meaning of a word is a form of trolling. Doing so is noxious (or, at least, obnoxious).
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/noxious
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We are constantly bathed in carbon dioxide from all those green things growing around us,
Umm... No. All those green things around us are producing oxygen through a process called photosynthesis. If the algae and trees didn't take CO2 and sunlight to produce sugars and release oxygen, we couldn't live.
We breathe it in on a regular basis, we even produce a little ourselves. All perfectly healthy to do so.
Yes, we can breathe in CO2 in small concentrations. Below 1000 parts per million is acceptable. Above that and things start to get unhealthy. Personnel in closed environments (spacecraft, submarines, scuba rebreathers) need CO2 scrubbers to remove CO2 from exhaled breaths. Ever watched the em
Re: We need carbon dioxide to breathe properly (Score:2)
Thatâ(TM)s like claiming H2O is toxic. Too much of that kills you too. I definitely wouldnâ(TM)t want to inhale it!
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Water is has health benefits. The AC was claiming we need CO2 to regulate breathing. Does atmospheric CO2 assist in breathing? I never heard that before and will have to google that, though it sounds really fishy.
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Nothing fishy about it. Think about chemistry for a minute. Dissolve O2 in water what do you get? Not much change in the water, dissolve N2 in the water and what happens? No real change. Dissolve CO2 in the water and you form carbonic acid, which changes the pH of said water. Biological systems have evolved to respond to those
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Feedback mechanisms in respiration include the amount of CO2 in the blood and the excess acidity of the blood caused by excess carbon dioxide. So, yes, CO2 is used in regulating breathing, but it's less from the ambient atmospheric levels of CO2 than the levels produced by our own metabolism that matters. I think with 0 ppm in the atmosphere, our bodies could cope. But with atmospheric levels much above 5,000 ppm (OSHA's maximum allowed 8-hour Time-We
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Ok, so you tax electricity generating plants. Then what? Do they reduce their power output? Yes. Or do they pass on the tax to the consumers? Also, yes.
Uh...that's the point?
In either case, we reduce electricity availability, which makes life harder. For what?
Ever heard of the invisible hand of the market? Such a "leftist" concept, I know...
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"Man" has not "found a way", "man" has simply not destroyed everything yet. Give "man" another 20-30 years to finish it and even the trolls that never leave their basement will start to notice there is a problem.
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When you make such a bold claim, you must post a DOI of the climate change science that has "warned" you that you'd die by the 90s, thanks.
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You're linked tweet with an old teaser for the upcoming news program did not say that.
Re: Stupid people... (Score:2, Flamebait)
Major difference is that climate change is a fact: believe it or not, it's still there. And the costs to health, agriculture, infrastructure are ramping up fast. Also for those of us who try very hard to avoid it.
Religion OTOH is not fact-based. You can believe in any deity of your liking and nothing can prove you wrong nor right. Merely believing doesn't cause devastating damage to nonbelievers either. Continuing to spew greenhouse gasses into our collective atmosphere does.
If you are religious: how does y
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As an atheist I think Jesus sounds great. A very upstanding fella. His followers on the other hand need to reread their book until it sinks in. Many of them are very judgemental, have a can do no wrong attitude and have really confused what their little book actually says or they take the, well we all sin so no need to be better because I have Jesus in my heart..... That's where my problem with religion comes in.
Not to mention, the whole must accept Jesus or going to hell just doesn't fucking work in an log
Separation of powers (Score:5, Informative)
The executive branches of governments in the US are not allowed to make law. That's for legislatures alone. It's very antithetical to the basic concept of democracy.
Re:Separation of powers (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah - you want to impose a new tax? OK, but do it the correct way, not try to run around the proper procedure. Trying to go around the proper way to do it shows that whoever decided it knew it was not going to be approved, so they tried to sneak it in trough the backdoor.
This really annoys me. Instead of doing ti the proper way, something that is known to be controversial is done by some interested party "semi-illegally" and now the other side has to reverse it. If the issue does not get majority support either way, it lets, at times, a single politician decide for everyone.
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What you describe has pretty much been the history of the entire Biden administration time in office.
Here, the states were just seeing that and trying the same thing...the sad part it, it can often sta
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I would suggest substituting "Biden administration" with "any administration in my lifetime", but Congress has passed laws delegating a lot of decisions to the executive branch, so that usually takes it from semi-legal to perfectly legal. (Though the line is usually quite fuzzy and all administrations have on occasion been ruled in court as having stepped over that line.)
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Well, thankfully....the SCOTUS has recently been slapping the hands of the many executive agencies and telling them to quit overstepping bounds.
The EPA was one of the large ones...and building upon that are other decisions.
Hopefully,
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Why do people pretend that regulatory bodies are not created by law?
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They may be created BY law.....
But regulatory bodies still cannot MAKE law.
Smashing, yeah capitalism! (Score:3, Insightful)
This is what you get with corporate donations and unregulated elections: the Golden Rule. He with the gold makes the rules. In this case, the fossil fool lobby.
Actually lobbying got us the erroneous tax (Score:2)
This is what you get with corporate donations and unregulated elections: the Golden Rule. He with the gold makes the rules. In this case, the fossil fool lobby.
Not quite, the golden rule applies but those with the "gold" were the green lobby that was trying to work around the legislature. Sorry, but the constitution says no, that the tax must be authorized by the legislature.
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OK, you need this spelt out for you: Corporations use their considerable wealth, resources, & power to place pressure on democracy in various forms over time to increasingly limit legislators' power, make them beholden to corporate sponsorship, capture & corrupt regulators, & take over the public discourse through the media to gain control over democracy. Hence, "He with the gold makes the rules." This means laws that are in the public interest but that corporations don't like never ge
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Whoosh!
Yes, whoosh is exactly your problem. You want to make an anti-corporate rant. But the facts are we had a green overreach and the court rightfully pointed out the constitution.
You also misunderstand "gold" in politics. The currency of politics is votes. Period. Money (gold) is just a tool to acquire votes from people who don't really care one way or the other. Votes are primary, gold is secondary. If you can convince enough people of the importance of a law gold can't reverse that.
Anti-corporate rants
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And you underestimate the influence that 'gold' can have on getting votes.
of course it's a tax (Score:5, Informative)
I have no problem with a sin tax like this but it is a tax and needs to go thru the proper channels.
The only real problem I see with a tax like this is that it just gets passed on to the consumer.
I think it might be better to have a consumer level tax. Instead of giving discounts to heavy consumers,
it would be better to charge the same or more for every kilowatt consumed.
You could do this by having a tax that increases with the amount of electricity consumed.
This would penalize people with very large and inefficient houses.
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Do you not have a deregulated energy market, where the consumer can choose who to buy power from?
In the UK you have a choice of energy supplier for electricity and gas. They pay the companies that own and maintain the infrastructure, and either produce the energy themselves or buy it on the open market.
The cheapest providers are the ones that use only green energy.
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The cheapest providers are the ones that use only green energy.
Sure thing dear. Any chance you could back up your claims? You do know that "green" providers just buy REGO, but that the electricity consumed by UK consumers comes from the common grid? Which is why knowing the mix of the grid is the only important thing.
In 2022, it was [nowtricity.com]:
- 44% gas
- 27% solar/wind
- 18% nuclear
- 6% biomass
Which resulted in 255g CO2eq/kWh for 2022. This is what UK consumers emitted per kWh. You don't emit less because you are paying a "green" energy provider.
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Perhaps you don't understand how electricity works. While the electrons that come out of your sockets might be from a coal plant, what matters is that somewhere else some renewable sources put the same number of electrons into the network.
The alternative is that you are paying someone to use fossil fuels to put those electrons in, which is clearly worse.
As for numbers, use a comparison website. Octopus green plans are usually some of, if not the cheapest on offer.
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In most places...no.
There are VERY few places like that in the US...I'd never heard of such a thing till maybe 2-3 years ago when traveling around and saw an ad for this.
But for, I'd guess 98% of the US, no...each area has one provider, state regulated.
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It's odd how the country most obsessed with capitalism and economic freedom also has many of the worst monopolies. Same thing with broadband.
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It's odd how the country most obsessed with capitalism and economic freedom also has many of the worst monopolies. Same thing with broadband.
It's not odd. It's a symptom of the obsession with capitalism and economic freedom. Capitalism left unregulated almost always results in one company dominating. To have a truly open market, the government has to keep monopolies in check but not only does the USA usually take too much of a hands off approach but the larger monopolies also have become really good at buying off politicians and getting regulations that even help them maintain their monopolies.
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Well, there's a difference here, with "utilities".
I mean, you don't generally have a choice on who you get your water from, do you? Who picks up your trash? Etc.
Utilities here, are generally govt regulated monopolies.
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Maybe it's new....but never seen or heard of this in the areas I've lived and visited in the US in my life...South, South East...and South West
Re:of course it's a tax (Score:4, Insightful)
I have no problem with a sin tax like this but it is a tax and needs to go thru the proper channels.
That's my issue with the story headline. It's not like carbon taxes are permanently barred in Pennsylvania, it's that the the judge ruled they must be enacted by the legislature. That shouldn't be controversial. Alas, here we are.
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sin? It's literally what is powering our civilization and rose us out of medieval squalor. People need the power and so they buy it, to also say that it is evil and to tax it, making people pay even more for it, is absurd.
Maybe i should have used the word "luxury tax" or "discretionary spending tax" or just "consumption tax" or "use tax"
The government needs revenue and whatever you tax you tend to get less of so it makes more sense to tax consumption than income.
Mirror world (Score:3)
That's funny. In Canada we have a "carbon charge" on natural gas, but they say it's not a tax, so you actually have to pay sales tax on your carbon charge. Then we get a quarterly "climate action incentive payment" to offset the cost of the carbon charge, so... Everybody wins!
A tax, and a bad 1 at that. (Score:2)
Failing to pay the true cost (Score:5, Insightful)
Is an illegal subsidy and inhibits legitimate competition. Fossil fuels are very expensive, which is why they need to be subsidised at a level the IMF estimates at $11 million every minute, and that's before factoring in the impact of greenhouse gases that must now by paid for by the taxpayer as we can't leave them there. THAT is a tax.
You cannot have genuine competition in the energy sector unless either all sectors of energy get equal subsidies, including for hidden costs, or no sector gets subsidised, including hidden costs.
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Is an illegal subsidy and inhibits legitimate competition. Fossil fuels are very expensive, which is why they need to be subsidised at a level the IMF estimates at $11 million every minute, and that's before factoring in the impact of greenhouse gases that must now by paid for by the taxpayer as we can't leave them there. THAT is a tax.
You cannot have genuine competition in the energy sector unless either all sectors of energy get equal subsidies, including for hidden costs, or no sector gets subsidised, including hidden costs.
There is no defined "true cost" associated with carbon emissions, and that "11M a minute" number is entirely based on them. This is from their report:: "Our analysis shows that consumers did not pay for over $5 trillion of environmental costs last year". They pull these numbers right out of their collective asses and pretend they mean something. They do not.
I wonder what happens when people realize... (Score:2)
Worrying about this is a First World problem. I mean this quite literally. When the hegemony is gone, and it's fleeting fast, how do you force the rest of the world to cooperate with this? To this point, they have done so because of huge economic transfers. When you can't afford that anymore and you have to worry about your own defense in a multipolar world, what happens?
The old guns and butter thing hasn't gone away. Except in this case it is guns, butter, or alternative energy.
Interesting definition of "permanent". (Score:3, Insightful)
> a tax... would have required legislative approval
So in other words, the ruling is "permanent" until the legislature actually votes?
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> the new ruling makes that decision permanent ...
> a tax... would have required legislative approval
So in other words, the ruling is "permanent" until the legislature actually votes?
Yup. The court struck down the illegal regulation.
They can always try to pass the tax legally, but they don't have the support of the legislature at this time. The legislature represents the people, so in effect this tax doesn't have the support of the people. I can't imagine why, who wouldn't want a new tax on energy that would raise their costs considerably.
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LOL. Wanna bet whether the plaintiffs in this case would support a direct ballot initiative on the question?
If the people want a direct ballot initiative on this issue they can follow the legal process to get it on the ballot.
Meanwhile the opposition will follow the legal process to keep it off the ballot.
That's how the system works. And if you don't like it, you can always follow the legal process to try to change it.
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You sick, un-American fucks.
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Oh, so you invoke "the people" when corrupt legislators do whatever they want, but if the opportunity came along for the people to literally speak for themselves, they would need the permission of a "process" controlled by an oligarchy.
You sick, un-American fucks.
The people speak for themselves on election day. That's how the American system works
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Oh, so you invoke "the people" when corrupt legislators do whatever they want, but if the opportunity came along for the people to literally speak for themselves, they would need the permission of a "process" controlled by an oligarchy.
You sick, un-American fucks.
The people speak for themselves on election day.
Modulo gerrymandering and the parties' success at distracting with noise and confusion. The gerrymandering aspect favors the entrenched party and the noise and confusion aspect favors the party that doesn't want to do anything, because it's hard to both sow noise and confusion and sell an actual platform at the same time.
That's how the American system works
Sure, but let's not pretend that the result is an accurate reflection of the will of the people. This is why ballot initiatives are so important -- and why forces opposed to the will of the
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Oh, so you invoke "the people" when corrupt legislators do whatever they want, but if the opportunity came along for the people to literally speak for themselves, they would need the permission of a "process" controlled by an oligarchy.
You sick, un-American fucks.
The people speak for themselves on election day.
Modulo gerrymandering and the parties' success at distracting with noise and confusion. The gerrymandering aspect favors the entrenched party and the noise and confusion aspect favors the party that doesn't want to do anything, because it's hard to both sow noise and confusion and sell an actual platform at the same time.
That's how the American system works
Sure, but let's not pretend that the result is an accurate reflection of the will of the people. This is why ballot initiatives are so important -- and why forces opposed to the will of the people fight hard to keep them off the ballot.
Granting everything, this is still how the system works. If they want a referendum in PA this might help: https://cms6.revize.com/revize... [revize.com]
I suspect that a bill to raise energy costs via carbon taxes is unlikely to pass. Nobody wants their expenses to go up. They couldn't even pass this one in Seattle: https://www.seattletimes.com/s... [seattletimes.com] . This study tries to explain why it failed: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050... [mdpi.com]
"Our results from the state of Washington suggest that it may be very difficult to pass a re
Inflammatory Title (Score:5, Informative)
Just to be clear, I support having companies pay for their pollution, but the Governor should not be able to create laws by himself. The title should say "Pennsylvania Court Permanently Blocks Governor's Effort To Bypass Legislature."
Re:Another lawless auction-house GOP ruling. (Score:4, Informative)
The legal argument was presented in TFS:
The ruling is a victory for Republican lawmakers and coal-related interests that argued that the carbon-pricing plan amounted to a tax, and therefore would have required legislative approval.
What you quoted are policy reasons why the legislature shouldn't go along with the governor's plan.
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Oh please. They claim that every regulation "amounts to a tax," and then claim that taxes are illegal under the Bible, and then claim that if their own arguments cost them money in some other case, then they should be disregarded. There's no law among those people.
What the hell are you talking about? The plaintiffs followed the law, they filed a lawsuit, and the judges ruled in their favor.. This was an unconstitutionally enacted tax. If you want it you have to get it passed legally. That IS the law.
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They should be grateful they're not all in jail.
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You can't be serious. These vampires have grubbed and sucked every cent out of the taxpayer for over a century, be it from legislation, regulation, court cases, and wars they bought, and rewarded their victims with poisoned air and a heating climate. Now anything the government does that costs them money is a "tax". And even when all branches of government are aligned on it, they still sue and claim they have some kind of divine right to harm humanity.
They should be grateful they're not all in jail.
You wrote: There's no law among those people.
They filed a lawsuit and won in court. That IS the law. The person who did not follow the law was the governor.
Don't like the law, follow the legal process to change it.
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So said the owners of Dredd Scott. Sorry to hear you're a sociopath like them who doesn't understand the nature of law.
The coal industry hasn't "followed the legal process to change it." They just buy judges.
This was about an energy plant, not the coal industry.
Why would they want to "follow the legal process" to raise their costs of production? That makes no sense.
And the owners of Dred Scott followed the legal process too. Not agreeing with the decision doesn't make it illegal.
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"Sorry to hear you're a sociopath like them who doesn't understand the nature of law."
"Because the nature of law is that *I* have to approve of it."
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These vampires have grubbed and sucked every cent out of the taxpayer
So now you are invoking the vampire clause in their state constitution? Perhaps you should point out the applicable paragraphs that describe grubbing and sucking and re-file the lawsuit in their courts.
Name-calling will get you nowhere (besides laughed out of courts and the minds of most of the public).
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