The cap v tax debate is slowly getting personal, or at least corporate:
A top executive with Exxon Mobil Corp. yesterday repeated a call last month by company CEO Rex Tillerson for a carbon tax rather than a cap-and-trade system that has emerged as the preferred approach of leading Democrats and President Obama. ...
"A carbon tax is better positioned than a cap and trade as a policy option," Dolan said at the Cambridge Energy Research Associates conference, adding it would help reduce emissions "without introducing the uncertainly of new financial intermediaries, the volatility of fluctuating prices, or the complexity of vast, new bureaucratic agencies."
Enter BP:
[E]arlier yesterday, BP PLC's chief executive, Tony Hayward, argued in favor of a cap-and-trade plan because it provides certainty based on an actual emissions cap, while a carbon tax does not guarantee that emissions will fall.
"Cap and trade is the best option because it gives environmental certainty based on an absolute emissions cap," Hayward said. "There is no guarantee that a carbon tax will limit emissions at all"
That's strictly speaking not news. "BP -- along with ConocoPhillips and Shell Oil Co. -- are members of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a coalition of businesses and environmental groups that back an economywide cap to slow, stop and reverse greenhouse gas emissions." So yes, we'd expect them to argue for a cap.
It's good to see the CEOs go at it themselves, though.
