Tax the Past?

        Climate activists have found a new way to force us to pay more for energy.

        New York and Vermont passed laws that will raise the price of oil, gas and electricity by taxing the past.

        New York's new law demands fossil fuel companies pay $75 billion for carbon emissions dating back to the year 2000. Other Democrat-controlled states plan to follow suit.

        In my new video, Travis Fisher, energy director at the Cato Institute, argues that taxing the past is wrong: "I've been filling up my gas tank for 25 years. Will they go after me for every time I've filled up my tank?"
        Maybe.

        A more honest way to punish burning of fossil fuel is a carbon tax. "If you want to change people's behavior," says Fisher, "You tell them that their behavior is going to be taxed. This is taxing behavior that's already occurred -- perfectly legal at the time. So, there's no possible change in behavior."

        Politicians don't push a carbon tax because they know voters won't like it. So they pretend oil companies will pay. They know voters don't like oil companies.

        "The deceit from these companies," shouts California Gov. Gavin Newsom, "playing us for fools!"
        He blames fossil fuel companies for his own government's failures. "Wildfires and floods and droughts," he says, "this climate crisis is a fossil fuel crisis!"

        "That just absolves him from any responsibility for anything," says Fisher. "Power out, wildfires, everything is climate change. Nothing is Gov. Newsom's fault."

        But Big Oil is so rich, say activists, they can easily pay. A CNN correspondent claims, "The amount of money they are making, some will certainly see as obscene, unconscionable."

        "'Unconscionable' is actually in (New York's) text," says Fisher, adding that these new laws are an expansion of government power that "(sets) a precedent that they could tax anyone for anything going back as far as they want."
        And yet, the new tax won't change the climate.

        "If New York stopped using fossil fuels altogether," says Fisher, "What impact would that have on the global climate? ... Zero."
        That's because the entire United States, let alone New York, emits just a fraction of the world's carbon.

        In their bill, New York politicians compare fossil fuel producers to tobacco companies, writing, "The actions of many of the biggest fossil fuel companies closely (reflect) the strategy of denial, deflection and delay perfected by the tobacco industry."
        Politicians and greedy lawyers did get tobacco companies to pay more than $200 billion.
        But was that justice? I don't think so.

        The lawyers grabbed $8 billion for themselves. But alleged Big Tobacco bad guys who misled people about cigarettes' risk aren't paying for the settlement. Most had left their companies long before.

        Today's smokers must pay the bill via costlier cigarettes. Likewise, we fossil fuel users will be the ones paying these new fines.
        Although there are big differences between oil and cigarettes.

        "If we all quit cigarettes," says Fisher, "Nothing catastrophic happens. Quit fossil fuels, the world grinds to a halt."
        Eighty percent of our energy comes from coal, oil and natural gas, and that won't change soon. Solar and wind power aren't reliable enough.

        So these new retroactive oil taxes are mostly a way for state politicians to grab more of your money -- in my state's case, an arbitrary $75 billion.

        I ask Fisher, "Isn't it calculated based on things fossil fuel companies did?"
        "No," He replies. "There's sophisticated literature about the social cost of carbon. They decided to skip all of that. Skip the trial. You're just guilty."

        So, in New York and Vermont, everyone who uses fossil fuels will be punished.

        Those of you in California, New Jersey, Maryland and Massachusetts will probably be hit by similar taxes soon.

        "They're coming after everyone's lifestyle. That's only made possible by fossil fuels," says Fisher. "It's a shame because really, when I think about what America could be, we could be so much more prosperous than we are."

        Much more prosperous. But many politicians just won't let that happen.

        Every Tuesday at JohnStossel.com, Stossel posts a new video about the battle between government and freedom. He is the author of "Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media."

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