The Big Picture Since 2005 Maine’s carbon dioxide emissions have fallen 41 percent, three times faster than the United States as a whole and eight times faster than other developed countries. Maine is covered almost ninety percent by pine forests, or nearly 18 million acres. Each acre sequesters 1 to 2.5 tons of carbon dioxide per year, or 18 to 45 million tons per year. This far outweighs Maine’s 15 million tons of yearly manmade emissions. Seventy-five percent of electric generation is from carbon dioxide-free sources, including hydro and nuclear power, one of the highest rates in the country. Eliminating…
Author: David Stevenson
David Stevenson
David Stevenson is the director of the Center for Energy & Environmental Policy at the Caesar Rodney Institute in Delaware. Stevenson has published over 100 analytic studies including a major peer reviewed paper published in the Cato Journal this year titled "A Review of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative." He has worked on issues such as the EPA Clean Power Plan, electric grid reliability, the public policy drivers of energy costs and climate change, and served on President Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency Transition Team.
Gasoline taxes may rise 17 cents a gallon and go up from there until everyone is driving an overpriced electric car. Delaware, Maine and nearly a dozen other northeast governments have participated in drawing up the plan, and will work to implement this tax with or without a legislative vote. It is modeled after a carbon dioxide tax on electric power that has been in place for a decade, raised electricity prices and didn’t reduce emissions. Even if it works, it will lower global temperatures by only one one-thousandth of a degree by 2100. Policy experts around the region have…