American University Law Review Volume 51 | Issue 6 Article 2 2002 Waiting to Exhale?: Global Warming and Tax Policy Roberta Mann Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/aulr Part of the Environmental Law Commons, and the Tax Law Commons Recommended Citation Mann, Roberta. “Waiting to Exhale?: Global Warming and Tax Policy.” American University Law Review 51, no.6 (June 2002):1135-1222. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Washington College of Law Journals & Law Reviews at Digital Commons @ American University Washington College of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in American University Law Review by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ American University Washington College of Law. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Waiting to Exhale?: Global Warming and Tax Policy Abstract This article explores the links between energy policy, tax policy and global warming. This article focuses on tax policy, because the emerging consensus among legal scholars favors economic incentives rather than command-and-control regulations for reaching environmental goals, and the Federal income tax has proved an effective delivery system for economic incentives. After briefly discussing of the science of global warming and the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change, the article reviews the impact of both existing tax law and current proposals for energy legislation on global warming, as well as potential international law consequences of failure to act to curtail global warming. This analysis also includes a discussion of global warming as "tragedy of the commons" issue and reflects on how psychological factors and economic beliefs may affect the public's level of concern about global warming.