 Hello, I'm Michael Belowski and this is True North Reports TV Robert Maynard could not be with us today. He is taking his son to Taekwondo class. So that should be fun. I Actually did Taekwondo myself for a bit. I lived in Korea for four years and learned by a instructor Who instructed US military personnel? He was a Korean Korean military person instructing US military on Taekwondo and self-defense and I was able I had the privilege to to learn and obtain a black belt and so Don't mess Anyway, so Lou varicchio will be joining us today by phone. He'll be calling in in a couple of minutes My topic today is going to be the carbon tax. The carbon tax is back again. I apologize if this is a repeat topic, but It just keeps coming up. I don't know what else to say. I've been writing Politics and economy and so forth in Vermont for a couple years now And I I think every single year since about 2015. There has been some variation or another of a carbon tax proposed Usually multiple at one time, but this latest one is called the Essex plan before I dive into the carbon tax I actually Wanted to preface the entire debate conversation with an observation About a sort of philosophical observation of the carbon tax. I want to talk about 1984 the story by Penn named George Orwell real name Eric Blair who wrote about a Uber control controlled society in the future well no longer the future of course, but in any case at that time the future He was writing in the 1940s where everything was controlled economically sociologically free speech everything and So the main character Winston Finds about halfway through the story without giving too much away He he obtains a manual like a like a manual by the secret power elite and the and it explains how How everybody is controlled how the government does it how it suppresses people suppresses the economy and and So the chapter in this book the main character he obtains this manual he reads the book and The greatest challenge of the ruling class any given day of the week to maintain to maintain power is to suppress the middle and lower class economically and artificially and in the story he talks about how The three mega powers of there's like Asia America and like somewhere in the middle probably Europe and Africa There are like three mega states that are at perpetual war and they're constantly building battleships and sinking them and building more Battleships and sinking them and he explains the reason they're at perpetual war is because it absorbs the excess production of modern technology modern capacity human capacity Of course at this time you have the emergence of factories and mass production and the ruling elite are Seeing the middle and the lower class rise up and they need to create these artificial demands To push them back down and hence perpetual war. Now. What does this have to have to do with the carbon tax? the thought that I want to close this preface with is think about the net cause of adding an artificial cost to energy and then think about I Know it's somewhat garbled but Then the notion of a ruling elite Trying to think of ways to artificially suppress the economy because obviously if you've read through the whole book I don't think it mentions a carbon tax, but it does mention Suppressing the economy and now I will get to the article itself It is The carbon okay, this is that true north reports, of course And it is titled the carbon tax resurfaces as an electric subsidy electric power subsidy okay The carbon tax is back again, but with a new name local environment and will local environmentalist Unveiled the Essex plan at the energy action network annual meeting and Champlain College last week in Burlington The tax proposal endorsed by seventh generation focused on adding costs to carbon-based fuels and Transferring the tax revenue to electric utilities. It was promoted Saturday at the climate action through car through carbon pricing event hosted by the Vermont Public Interest Research Group as Envisioned by the plans 13 authors the Essex plan will quote create jobs attract new businesses spur Strategic electrification and provide the cleanest electricity at the lowest rates in New England the authors of the plan The authors say the plan will lower utility bills quote for every Vermont for every Vermonter and Vermont business and quote and offer refundable rebates for low-income and rural Vermonters, so in a nutshell What this tax would do this proposal would do is it would add a cost to carbon-based fuels at an increasing gradual rate You know small in the beginning and then it would increase over the years and it would shift that money To electric utilities, so it's actually like a tax and a subsidy in one shot It's taken money off of the carbon-based energy and then plopping that onto the electric based power and the notion I assume the idea is to try to Subsidize electric alternatives to carbon-based fuels electric cars electric heating oh Lou is up Hello, hi Sorry in my radio studio, there's a loud beep when somebody calls and I I didn't hear anything Anyway, you're here great. I am here great to have you I was just explaining my carbon tax story On true north reports and is explaining how the proposal called the Essex plan Will take will add a cost to carbon-based fuels and shift that money to electric utilities and I'm making a sort of half assumption here, although I think it's pretty accurate they're trying to promote electric cars and electric heating and obviously electric alternatives to carbon-based fuels and Where I was going to go next with that was to say that The issue with that is and we actually kind of talked a lot about this on our prior show But carbon-based Transportation and and fuels are not Quite a caught as cost efficient as their carbon alternatives Well, you know the the other thing that probably the third rail here in Vermont is and I wouldn't say it's off topic, but Nobody ever talks about wood heat and what he would is a carbon-based fuel and A lot of Vermonters burn wood, you know, we we hear a lot about promoting, you know wood chip wood pellet Fuel and that sort of thing, but you know you burn wood it produces a lot of carbon dioxide goes up to chimney Along with water vapor and and other You know particulate pollution that comes from wood wood heat Yet, that's never discussed. I always find that interesting and The then if you think about this tax is on carbon-based fuels, so presumably This will be shifting some people if it was implemented, of course It would be shifting some people towards wood heat Exactly, exactly. I mean if I get a heavy tax on my Heating oil I may just go and you know, I used to have a wood furnace It was an old thing. I took it out. It was a backup heat source But I may just go back and start burning wood again mm-hmm and One of the authors of the report who I interviewed for this article Mark Koran Founder and co-owner of Black River produce talked about how part at least for him part of this Appeal of the carbon tax was indeed to move People towards wood heat and I have a quote. He says But then all of a sudden oil Came way back down. He's talking about the price of oil Oil came way back down and I thought well It's cheaper for us to burn oil than it is to burn wood pellets that are made here in Windsor, Vermont 15 miles away. So here he's making the argument and a totally reasonable argument I suppose that you know, he thinks that it's it's better to tax the oil because it will Push people towards the local economy. You've got wood pellets are I at least in this case produced right here 15 miles away from him and I imagine a lot of the wood pellets if not all of them are produced around here and So for him it's like well, this is going to support the local economy Which is a totally legitimate argument But as you just pointed out if the idea is to reduce carbon footprint, then there's that too Exactly that it doesn't work You know, so it's sort of everybody has blinders on In in some of this, you know, if you want to be totally logical, you know, I wouldn't think Supporting the manufacturer wood pellets makes any sense. I mean, I don't agree with that but Yeah, that it's you start getting into this parsing of What's carbon-based and what isn't and right doesn't make sense to me? so my large takeaway from this whole Essex plan I'd taking money away from carbon-based fuels and pushing it in the electric energy sector the the issue with that is Electric power as we discussed with the cars in the prior show it is more expensive the electric cars are heavily subsidized right now Electric heat while getting more efficient than it's been. I think that they call it the cold heat pumps They are a newer and more efficient technology for Electric heating, but they are still not quite up to par with the prices or I should say down in prices With with carbon-based fuels So it sounds sounds great and wonderful on the surface Well, we're gonna take money from one thing and put money in another But you're taking money from the cheaper thing and putting it into the more expensive alternative and we just need to Be clear about that and we have another caller. Okay Oops, I dropped on one. Uh-oh Hello, somebody's there. Yep We're Lou's gonna have to call back. Oops. Sorry Lou Okay, who's calling? Yep, I'm here. Can you hear me? All right? Yeah, this phone call is kind of like the whole carbon tax thing is totally confusing My comment is you know, we're talking about You know, if we end up going forward with a carbon tax initiative Which we know the far left is going to push push push push for whatever their agenda might be just because they want to tax tax tax and then we start talking about maybe we start taxing more on On wood burning people etc. I get a question for you We're talking about maybe burning more wood Or burning less wood whatever Don't you and I'm not sure how familiar you are with this, but isn't it amusing that you see tons of trucks leaving Vermont Mm-hmm logs on them. I'm sure. Yeah, they probably yes. Well, no, hold on They're leaving Mm-hmm these same trucks Are meeting trucks with logs on them coming into Vermont Mm-hmm. Where's the logic? That doesn't sound very logical to me It's a true fact that it happened After day after day especially in the Northeast Kingdom Especially in the Southeast part of the state as well Mm-hmm. It's just like we we take one truck load of wood We send it out of state and sell it to somebody we got another truck load of wood coming in And we're buying it. Where is oh? No, I hung up on the other guy Oh, sorry. Sorry Anyway, Lou you're back or I lost the collar We're gonna have to figure out how to how to get two people on it once. I apologize if you're still so anyway Well, we'll get that down before the next episode So he was talking basically about Good products being shipped around between the dates. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I think I and I apologize if I butcher this But to summarize and everybody else heard it. I think what he's getting with getting that is It's just an efficient to be once you start moving things large distances Either away from Vermont or to Vermont if you're using that material to try and save on carbon It kind of defeats the purpose and I'm and yeah, I think and I'm paraphrasing here but that's what I felt like I heard the caller saying and You know, I wanted to mention earlier this week I was down in Manchester at Byrne Burton Academy and The Republicans hosted a very interesting legislative forum which the public attended you know problems Vermont faces and You know, one of the things and I was surprised that it was kind of bipartisan agreement that Vermont definitely needs tax reform Although no discussion of tax up at least in theory I would think It it would definitely go along with what what the Democrats and Republican legislators on this panel We're talking about they were all from Bennington County But you know while there seems to be some bipartisan agreement that you know things like property tax and and there's a You know a lot of burden on on a certain sector in the Vermont population basically the working Vermonter Is You know, what about carbon tax? That seems to be moved from the discussion when when we talk about tax reform is why are we moving toward yet another tax? Yeah So again, you know, the old logic argument Comes up is it doesn't really make make much sense. I in my sort of opening monologue to the show before you called I Reference the chapter in the book 1984 by George Orwell, which is this pen name. It's real names Eric Blair and the purpose of that was in The book 1984 which is all about a society that's suppressed and controlled by by a sort of global government he talks about how When the main character Winston finds like a manual on how they control everybody it talks about how they need to create an artificial pressure sort of artificial cost on The economies of the world and they achieve that through perpetual war You know battleships are built and then they're destroyed and battleships are built again and they're destroyed and the reason they have to do that is because Without people wasting their production they would rise up and you know presumably be able to challenge the ruling class And the reason I brought that up for the carbon tax was I feel like To add a cost to energy I mean that I understand that Mr. Orwell or Eric Blair may not have ever envisioned the carbon tax in his time But when I read that book For the first time and then years later heard about the carbon tax the connection in my mind just went like snap like wait a second To me it's it feels like the perfect Artificial sort of barometer to push down on the economy, you know 48, which is when he wrote the novel But it certainly has far more reaching effects. I mean his whole satire on on government control I mean if you add a cost to energy Everything's gonna go up and anything and everything you can think of it's gonna cost more if you add a cost to energy And and they they present it as well. We're gonna make electric energy cheaper. Well, that's fine But you're taking that from a tax on what's already cheaper So the net the net impact is still going to be a higher cost than energy That's that's my my observation I don't think you're alone. I think a lot of the critics of the carbon tax are pretty much saying exactly what you're saying yeah, I Got for those who want to read the article It is at True North reports. It is not on the main page But if you click on TR TNR news Carbon tax resurfaces as electric power subsidy and it's got an interview with one of the founders Who makes a totally logical and reasonable argument for some of the positive things that would happen from it? And then it also has a some comments from some of the critics Rob Roper of the Ethan Allen Institute And I believe those are the two main people profile. Oh, okay, so wow this show moves quick What why don't we move to we're at the ten minute warning. We have another topic. I Have I cued up an article here. This is Middlebury professor break silence on assault blames radical campus elements This is one of your articles Why don't you introduce this one that you wrote well, sir Allison Stanger Individual who invited author To the campus which coverage of the disruption of the students who shouted down Murray the author and Then Charles Murray up. Yeah, then professor Sanger When when it became clear within in fact, I was at that Oh, you were there that lack lecture. Yes, and it was oh my gosh quite a memorable experience, but She ushered Murray out of the plan was to take him to a room on campus where they would stream, you know, let him continue the lecture Did then afterwards? The author and Sanger were confronted by Our students and some other questionable individuals whether or not they were students or anti-fud type people who were at And you know there to disrupt roughed up individuals and You didn't hear much from Sanger after the incident. She was injured. She understand had a neck injury was in the local hospital in Middlebury and then Surprisingly went on sabbatical she sort of Disappeared from from campus view and then she popped up a couple weeks ago With Brian Lamb on C-span and did a an interview which you can view if you go to C-span site You do the door actually read my article. I have the link there Yeah, might be easier than searching for it, but you know she Kind of tells all although she I don't think she went as Hard as she could have one on the disruption on campus but she pretty much blamed the leftist elements on campus and also outside agitators on Creating, you know the whole mishap. You know what? We got the interview queued up I'm just gonna play a minute or two of it if that's all right All right, we'll see how this works Is I myself at Harvard benefited enormously from interacting with some of the great conservative thinkers there people like Harvey Mansfield James Q. Wilson even Samuel Huntington. These are professors with whom you could disagree profoundly But that interaction was so important For my own personal development that I wanted to be available to other students Charles Murray 1994 appeared on this program was called book notes at the time talked about the bell curve I just want to run this You know the whole book is about this Distribution and this change what about the bell curve as a title and dick and I dick hernstein and I heard it and It was one of those cases where we said yeah, that's a wonderful title. What's it mean? It refers to that picture on the front of the book that's it looks like a bell and It's a phenomenon. You see in all kinds of things in nature whether it's height or weight or in this case IQ so you just heard an excerpt of the Video and it's kind of the opposite of what happened at last week's show. We couldn't hear it, but apparently the audience did so That's better better that way than how it went last week anyway or last month Well, anyway, so let's just continue from there even though we didn't hear what she said the audience did and you can continue to explain Well, maybe if I might chime in real quick my observation is If you disagree with something and you feel like that idea is poor and and should be you know poo-pooed and and be kind of challenged and put down in society You need to let that happen in the free market of ideas the moment that you start using violence You're not only discrediting yourself, but you're adding credibility to the Source that you're trying to suppress Yeah, I mean in defense of all the students who were nonviolent and that was the majority You know, I guess one could only complain that their disruptive behavior Kind of gave them a black eye in my opinion because you know one thinks of a college campus Can exchange ideas they didn't define the guest lecturer there as able to give his ideas which they branded as racist and You know conservative which disagree with the racist part definitely perhaps conservative, but it probably more libertarian And I think Everyone lost in that whole incident is You know gave the college a black eye And a lot of negative press which I think is going to take a long time for them to recover and Unfortunately The author who was there wasn't even there to speak about the bell curve the controversial bell curve Book which he co-authored back in the 80s. He was there to discuss a new book a newer book I should say yeah, which he never even got an opportunity to do so. I think everybody lost Yeah, I mean it doesn't and it just I think it just illustrates the new McCarthyism on college campuses where You know, if you were perceived as not being politically correct you shut up Right, right Yeah, it shocked me. You know, it's funny. I actually found out about this story in national news I wasn't reading Vermont news when I stumbled on I'm not talking about the one that you wrote in particular When this hit the headlines when it first happened, right? It happened in March And I think I was scanning the headlines on drudge report and I saw Middlebury College and I thought to myself That's Vermont So I clicked on it and I was quite shocked. Well, I want to say I was shocked But with all that Unfortunately with all the headlines going on around the nation and you know, you had all those riots in a thing It was Berkeley University When they try to have you see Berkeley, right? So again, I mean I'm I'm just trying to think if I really believe that and I don't I think it'd be a whole other debate to even get into it But if I really believe that this author is a bad person and needs to be Shunned it needs to happen in a free market of ideas, you know that once you once you resort to violence It's just discrediting everybody, you know, you know, and it's crediting actually I bet now there's going to be some people who are going to go look at the bell curve and say why why what? Why was I discouraged from knowing about this? Yes. Yeah, it's well, and you know, and the professor professor sang her I mean, she had every good intention. She you know Since she's a political You know teaches political science on campus that you know, she thought it was good for students To come in and maybe have a discussion and you know, ask him some hard questions if they disagreed with him But they didn't even give him the opportunity to express himself and and I you know, and I'm surmising this But I bet a lot of the students Never even read the book have no idea what he said and we're just taking a few radical interpretations of his work and running with it and you know white and basically tarring and feathering the man Right, you know, I just think it was it not only a black eye to the college But I think the whole state of Vermont suffered our image Once again of being you know sort of a monolithic state where You know a lot of thoughts just aren't permitted Yeah, it's Again, it kind of it surprised me, but it didn't surprise me. Yeah, I mean, I'm naturally cynical So it didn't surprise me but actually to have attended the event and gone in you know as a member of the fourth estate to be there to cover it for true north reports and I also And the editor of the Vermont Eagle of weekly newspaper in which is published in Middlebury I went to cover the events for both the news outlets and It was gosh, it was embarrassing not not to me, but yeah, and it had to have been I could just See especially the the folks from the media department at the college I mean they were just Besides themselves knowing there was nothing they could do to calm these students down. They were Really literally out of control. Well with that we were at the 10 minute 10 second warning So you were listening to Lou Vericchio and Michael Balowski of true north reports and we each write for other newspapers as well Thank you for watching be seeing you be seeing you