Also, if you make 100% of the revenue go immediately into re-investment there is little economic impact to to depress any economic activity. Arguably it would have no impact as it would dramatically increase re-investment (This is not true of any other tax I am aware of, but no other tax has 100% re-investment)

As for the tea-party. I believe if you said that you were using the money to make government more energy efficient (and therefore decrease cost-of-business for the government to continue running, and therefore it will require less in the future to run) and required that the money low interest/interest free loans come from private banks/institutions and the money simply pays the interest for a set number of years, they would have little room to argue as it would not increase the size of government. Also, it would arguably be (somewhat) temporary as we will most likely go carbon neutral or carbon negative by the end of my lifetime.

But I agree, I would absolutely support your proposition if we could get it passed (and yes, yours would have a higher probability of getting passed). I’m just dreaming about ideal solutions…

Although, if you started my proposition in California, Colorado, New York, Mass., New Jersey, etc and showed how it spurred re-investment and lowered government costs, I think it stands a fair chance. You just have to have a state willing to run it as a proof of concept.

Pass the revenues on to end-users and the price of electricity won’t change. The economy will be fine and swarms of teabaggers won’t be waving their walkers at town halls because their power bill went up.

Spending the money on efficiency, etc. would be better but it’s all about the art of finding the possible….

I wouldn’t mind that at all… although it would probably be better overall to use the revenue to implement energy efficiency improvements. Especially to fund efficiency improvements in public buildings and non-for-profits. They could also use a portion to give people and businesses low-interest or interest-free loans for energy efficient upgrades.

Then not only do we offset the price increase (through lower consumption) but we do double duty at increasing the percentage of energy we get from renewables by reducing total demand.

Thoughts?

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As for the Energy hog label – we already have the Energy Star label which has low enough standards. If it doesn’t qualify for the Energy Star standards it’s by default and Energy Hog. I really think we should just implement scaled ratings. Average every product on the market together and establish that as a C rating. Then you say

A+ = 70% More efficient than average
A = 60%
A- = 50%
B+ = 40%
B = 30%
B- = 20%
C+ = 10%
C = 0 (average by definition)
C- = -5%
D+ = -10%
D = -15%
D- = -20%
F = -25% Less efficient than average

Then you update this every year. As products get more efficient on average, it will be harder and harder to get the highest rankings. Also, you could potentially ban anything that fails from being sold the following year, forcing the shift upward, but some might say that would be government overstepping its bounds. Comments?

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Create an “Energy Hog” label and slap it on stuff that uses significantly more power than comparable stuff.

Yeah, I know. But a guy can always dream….