OK, politics is stupid, so there's no intellectual content to posts that mention political behaviors, so this is more of an anthropological perspective on the bizarre habits inside the beltway. What A Carbon Tax Proposal Looks Like:

A bipartisan group of legislators has introduced in the U.S. Congress a proposal for a revenue neutral carbon tax.

The economic downturn calls for action to stimulate the economy, such as reducing the amount of taxes taken out of each paycheck.

Our ongoing dependence on foreign oil from hostile nations also calls for action to reduce that dependence and move to fuels of the future.

Even if you disagree with the science of climate change, everyone agrees that less carbon in the atmosphere would not hurt us.

The preposterous idea that it is possible to impose a new tax and not increase government revenues, especially when the debt and deficit are high and rising steeply, isn't worth much comment. Won't happen. The idea that there is concern about dependence on foreign oil is equally preposterous.

It's only a matter of time before President Barack Obama's vast popularity runs aground on his energy policies. In the name of saving the planet from global warming, he has delayed new oil drilling . . .

All of these things are happening at a time when natural gas is abundant and cheap. The new technology of horizontal fraccing has made it economically feasible to drill into vast shale deposits in many states, even famously difficult ones like Michigan and New York. Many cars could run on natural gas, much like many buses do already. . .

New oil and gas technologies could also help the U.S. from importing so much oil. But the Obama administration is stalling and trying to stop the offshore drilling approved by the previous Congress. The White House has also shut down previously permitted onshore drilling and burdened drillers with costly new restrictions. . .

A sure way to reduce dependence is to develop our own resources, though even that is only true for a narrow definition of dependence that does not consider the dependency embedded in goods and materials imported from our trading partners.

It's mildly interesting how much oil is around and unused.

The new study shows the oil content of sediments is highest closest to the seeps and tails off with distance, creating an oil fallout shadow. It estimates the amount of oil in the sediments down current from the seeps to be the equivalent of approximately 8-80 Exxon Valdez oil spills. . .

There is an oil spill everyday at Coal Oil Point (COP), the natural seeps off Santa Barbara, California, where 20-25 tons of oil have leaked from the seafloor each day for the last several hundred thousand years. . .

"So much oil seeps up and floats on the sea surface. It's something we've long wondered. We know some of it will come ashore as tar balls, but it doesn't stick around. And then there are the massive slicks. You can see them, sometimes extending 20 miles from the seeps. But what really is the ultimate fate?"

That's a lot of oil spills, though apparently microbial life is fully adequate to the cleanup task - to them it's food - but wouldn't make much of a dent in out petroleum consumption. It does undermine the idea that drilling and production pose catastrophic risks.

This is mostly just theatre, and the tickets are expensive.

Liberal and environmental organisations, as well as the major corporations that support climate change legislation, say they are being vastly outspent by fossil fuel interests. . .

The oil and coal industry spent $76.1m on ads from 1 January to 27 April, according to CMAG data seen by the Guardian. Environmental groups, led by Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection, the Environmental Defence Fund and the Sierra Club, spent $28.6m on ads in the same period, Tracey said.

Despite its global significance, the fate of the draft “cap and trade” bill now lies in the hands of just a dozen Democrats, who have yet to back Obama’s energy transformation.

Neither caps nor taxes will have any effect on climate. The amounts of carbon in question are trivial on a global scale. These are merely ways to avoid the issue while exploiting it to raise revenue and distribute pork to those who have supported politicians. Politics is not only stupid, it's expensive.

I wonder if the idea of good governance will ever gain any traction?