Possible Bipartisan Support for Carbon Tax

[Benj]

I'll agree that if your primary concern is hitting a specific emissions target, cap and trade makes it easier to hit that target, but the cost of hitting that target is not very predictable.  Conversely a carbon tax makes the economic costs predictable, but the emissions effects less so.  However, the major problem with cap and trade is in its method of allocating the quotas initially.  Frankly, I do not trust them to be allocated efficiently, especially with the credulity for various carbon credit schemes that the market regulators have shown.  Also the economic effects of the carbon tax can to some extent be ameliorated by using the tax raised to cut other taxes.  That can't happen with cap and trade and its grandfathered quotas that are handed out for free in the politically acceptable schemes that have been put in place so far.

Even if you allocate inefficiently, it won't change the efficiency of the end result.  The parties will trade and the result will be an efficient allocation.

The central conceit of cap and trade is that trading will happen efficiently and will not be biased by the initial distribution. It's pretty clear from a practical examination of economic behavior that the Coase Theorem is false in reality (and that was Coase's point in developing the theory, though weirdly latter day theorists have taken it as gospel instead).

[Benj]

Let's think about how a Carbon Tax vote would go down.  Assume the House agrees to wrap it into a large-scale budget deal and it moves to the Senate (big assumption, I know):

Likely Democratic Nays

Manchin
Landrieu
Begich
Heitkamp

Possible Democratic Nays

Pryor
Rockefeller (would vote for it only if he is retiring)
Baucus (would presumably vote for any budget he crafted, though)
Tester (would probably vote with Baucus)
Casey (will want natural gas concessions)
McCaskill
Donnelly

Likely Republican Ayes

Collins
Ayotte
Kirk

Possible Republican Ayes

Heller (solar)
McCain (solar)
Grassley (biofuels)
Ron Johnson (biofuels)

It looks plausible to pass it in a budget agreement under reconciliation, but it could never be done as a stand-alone.

Not sure why you have Heitkamp down as likely nay (unless she's said something explicitly anti-carbon tax). I would think the natural gas industry would love a carbon tax as it dramatically increases natural gas's competitive advantage over coal and oil. Otherwise, I don't think we know anything about Heitkamp's environmental views.

Similar for Casey, though natural gas is not that big in PA yet and unlikely to become so soon as the bottom has really fall out of natural gas exploration for the time being. The glut in supply has caused prices to drop too low for new exploration to be economical.