Bloomberg: French Constitutional Court Rejects Carbon Tax

After the disaster in Copenhagen, global warmers seem to have gone awfully quiet around the world. Now, the French constitutional court rejected a carbon emission tax as inequitable.

French Constitutional Court Rejects Carbon Tax
(12/30/09 Bloomberg)

"France’s constitutional court rejected a proposed tax on carbon emissions, saying a web of exemptions violated the principal of equality and rendered efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions ineffective.

"The government said it will make new proposals on Jan. 20.

"The tax, which would have started on Jan. 1, was set at 17 euros ($24.38) per ton of carbon-dioxide emissions, President Nicolas Sarkozy said in September. To make the tax more palatable, he partially or fully exempted power plants, public transport, airlines, farming and fishing, as well as 1,018 older cement, steel and glass factories.

"In all, 93 percent of all industrial carbon emissions in France would have avoided paying the full tax, the constitutional court said in a decision published on its Web site. The tax would have fallen disproportionately on fuel for heating and cars, it said.

"“The court ruled that the system of exemptions, due to their extensive nature, were contrary to the objective of fighting global warming and contravene the principle of equality before the tax system,” the court said.

"The court rejected all the articles relating to the carbon tax in the government’s 2010 budget."

According to the article, it is the Socialist-led opposition who opposes the carbon tax in France, as hurting the poor and handicap employers.

The cap and trade scheme advocated by the U.S. administration and Democratic Congress is even worse. Polluting industries get to pass the cost of carbon credit to the consumers almost entirely, and the middleman (i.e. the government) get to skim off of the consumers by taking from some and giving it to others as subsidies and credits.

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