Seattle Times: McDermott to roll out carbon tax bill to address climate change

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WASHINGTON — Cap and trade is all but dead. Cap and dividend didn’t get far. And Congress is too busy with looming budget cuts, expiring tax cuts and other problems to deal with global warming.
It’s against that backdrop that Rep. Jim McDermott on Thursday planned to introduce the latest version of his legislation to combat climate change.

The Seattle Democrat is touting his Managed Carbon Price Act as a two-fer response to the federal deficit and extreme weather patterns that have gripped half of the United States in a drought.
The bill aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by putting a rising price on that pollution. At the same time, it sets targets to gradually lower total greenhouse gas emissions, to just 20 percent of what was released into the atmosphere in 2005 by the middle of this century.

McDermott’s staff say the bill would avoid creating volatility in energy prices that has dogged the cap and trade system in place in the European Union.