Carbon Taxes

1.  What action has Exxon taken to promote a carbon tax?

• Exxon has endorsed the Climate Leadership Council's carbon tax proposal and is putting up $1 million to lobby for it.

2.  How does this article define a carbon tax?

• A per-ton tax on the carbon dioxide emissions embedded in fuels or other products.

3.  What would be the predicted impact of a $50 per ton carbon tax?

• Emissions would fall 39 to 46 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, which is much ahead of the Paris goal.

4.  How expensive would the tax need to be to reduce emissions by 80%?

• It would have to exceed $100 per ton.

5.  Which industry would be most impacted by the implementation of a carbon tax?

• Electricity

6. How would the carbon tax impact the transportation industry?

• A $50 carbon tax would reduce emissions from the transportation industry just 2 percent, because there aren't really liquid fuel alternatives, and the only way to reduce emissions would be to drive less.

7. Why is the carbon tax likely to be a regressive tax?

• It is regressive because it hits the poor harder than the rich because the poor spend a larger percentage of their income on energy services.

Foreign Policy Trouble!

1. What is the last that anyone knows about journalist Jamal Khashoggi?

• Jamal Khashoggi was last seen October 2 walking to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to obtain a document verifying his divorce so that he could marry his Turkish fiancée.

2. What does Turkey say happened?  What does Saudi Arabia say happened?

• Turkey says that they have concrete evidence that Khashoggi was gruesomely murdered in the building.
• Saudi Arabia says that nothing happened and that he went out through a back exit.

3. Why would the Saudi Arabian government have motive to murder him?

• The Saudi government had motive to murder him because he fled Saudi Arabia out of fear of arrest from criticizing a prince. He resettled in the United States and is a contributor to the Washington Post criticizing the Saudi government, so they have motive to murder him. 

4. How has Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman tried to change Saudi Arabia?

• He has tried to change Saudi Arabia loosening restrictions on women driving and opening up cinemas in the Kingdom, but he’s also led a purge of opposition within his government and led a bloody war with Yemen that’s left tens of thousands dead.

5. How did Khashoggi come to work for The Washington Post instead of the Saudi paper Al Watan?

• He left Saudi Arabia because he of fear of arrest by the Crown Prince for criticizing the government. He settled down in the US and began contributing to The Washington Post so that he could criticize the Saudi government safely from afar.

6. Why did he visit the Saudi Consulate in Turkey?

• To file paperwork needed for his upcoming wedding to a Turkish woman, Hatice Cengiz.

7.  The US is an ally of both.  Why don't they get along?

• Saudi Arabia is engaged in an ongoing blockade of Qatar, one of Turkey’s allies, and Riyadh doesn’t agree with Turkey’s embrace of political Islam or its close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

8. How is the president responding to the issue?  How are Senators responding?

• The president says that US-Saudi relations are excellent, but they are still trying to figure out the fate of the journalist through Saudi and Turkish investigators. Senators turned up the pressure on the Trump administration by requesting that the US impose sanctions on anyone who was responsible for the journalist’s disappearance. They called for the Global Magnitsky Act, which allows the US to sanction individuals who have committed human rights abuses anywhere in the world.

9. Why doesn't the president want to cause too much trouble with Saudi Arabia?

• He didn’t want to risk losing a lucrative weapons sale to Saudi Arabia.

New SCOTUS Term

1. What is the earliest that Brett Kavanaugh could join the Supreme Court if he is approved by the Senate?

• Kavanaugh can join the SCOTUS in a week at the earliest.

2. What does the Supreme Court do without a 9th justice?

• The SCOTUS performs perfectly fine with 8 justices.

3. What is the potential problem with having only 8 justices?

• The only problem is if they are in the situation where there is a 4-4 vote on a case and they can't make a ruling. They can just wait a few months until it is possible to make a 5-4 vote with the 9th judge.

4. How many cases are already scheduled to be heard by the Court?

• 23 cases.

5. If Judge Kavanaugh does join the Court, what happens to the cases that he has not heard?

• He can look at the transcripts and notes and give his input if the justices want it.

6. What is the upcoming Supreme Court case about that deals with the 8th amendment?

• It deals if  the Eighth Amendment stops the execution of someone who no longer remembers the crime they committed after suffering several strokes.

7. What is the result if the Supreme Court decision is a 4-4 tie?

• The lower court's ruling stays in effect.