Global warming and taxes

Last week, President Obama rejected the Keystone Pipeline and we won a major battle in the war against climate change. But there's much more we could be doing that would fight climate change, spur innovation, and create jobs.

Our terribly outdated, crazy quilt of a tax code actually encourages the production of dirty, carbon-polluting fuels. It’s a relic of the past and it is suffocating innovation in the clean energy sector.

Here’s how bad it is: every year, the big oil conglomerates get to pad their profits with a big fat check coming straight out of our tax dollars. Meanwhile, clean energy companies often have no guarantee that they’ll get any of the piecemeal incentives sprinkled into the tax code.

I’m fighting to change that.

My proposal in the U.S. Senate would change the calculus for energy producers and big consumers, shifting the incentives toward the production of clean, renewable energy while encouraging energy efficiency and conservation.

Call me impatient, but I say it’s time to rip up the energy tax code altogether and replace it with new rules that meet our climate challenge head on.

Are you with me?

Ron