Dave Roberts reports that Rep. John Dingell really is serious about putting forward a carbon-tax bill in the House. Right now, he's proposing to put some of the revenue into the Medicare and Social Security trust funds, although it's not clear that the plan would be totally revenue-neutral, which is probably the only way to sell a carbon tax in this country. Better to just cut a refund check to every American or something.

On the other hand, this account says that Dingell's plan would raise gas prices by 50 cents, which means that he's considering a carbon tax of about 55$ a ton--which, if I'm not mistaken, would be well within what economists think is necessary for the United States to do its part to stabilize carbon concentrations at around 450 ppm. Not a halfhearted measure by any means.