Representative John Dingell, chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will propose a carbon tax plan as part of an effort to show just how unpopular such a scheme would be. His proposal calls for a 50-cent jump from the current 18.4 cents per gallon in addition to a double digit tax per ton of emissions. Dingell launched the idea on C-Span’s Newsmakers program. A more palatable solution is the cap-and-trade schemes favored by Congress which previously imposed a cap on emissions used to curb acid rain.
Saying airline emissions have increased by 73 percent since 1990, Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, wants airlines to not only recognize their contribution to climate change but do something about it by reducing emissions. Lautenberg pointed to a U.S. Department of Energy finding that airlines consume 20 percent more energy per passenger mile than railroads. The problem with that, however, is the U.S. does not have a railroad network that offers the speed and productivity of airlines, nor do they serve as many points as the airline network.
ATA president James May, however, recently testified that airlines provide the greenest form of mass transportation.