The Politics of Carbon Taxes vs. Regulation (Nathan Richardson, University of South Carolina School of Law)

“I’d take any carbon tax today and then work from there.  My faith in the ability of the Clean Air Act to effect any meaningful climate policy has dramatically declined. … The only way you get a durable long term policy is something new and different from the Clean Air Act.”

“Broadly speaking, the Green New Deal envisions a sort of all-of-the-above approach. …  A carbon price is on the table, as is the most direct government involved approach, and so is a regulatory approach.”

Nathan Richardson is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of South Carolina School of Law and a Visiting Fellow at Resources for the Future (RFF). His areas of expertise and research encompass a wide range of environmental and energy issues, including U.S. climate policy (particularly regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act), state and local regulation of oil and gas development (including hydraulic fracturing), the evolution of the electric utility sector, and the management of forests, particularly in the Southeast. He holds a B.S. from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, and a J.D. from the University of Chicago.