Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Buffett: Cap-and-Trade Is a ‘Regressive’ Tax

From the New York Times' Green Inc. blog:

Warren Buffett has waded into the debate about a cap-and-trade system for slowing greenhouse gas emissions in the United States — something for which President Obama is pushing hard.

Interviewed today on CNBC (transcript), Mr. Buffett responded to a question about cap-and-trade by saying that regulated utilities would pass the costs on to customers, effectively resulting in a carbon tax.

“In the utility business, it’s going to be borne by customers. And it’s a tax like anything else,” he said.

Mr. Buffett, the chief executive of the conglomerate holding company Berkshire Hathaway, also said that the “tax is probably going to be pretty regressive,” and that public utility commissions in various states would determine “what customers it gets passed through to.”>>>MORE