Surely Sen. Ed Markey didn’t have Climate Czar John Kerry in thoughts when he filed his invoice taxing “fat cats” flying all over the world in carbon-polluting personal jets.
Markey stated that one % of the world’s inhabitants is answerable for half of all aviation emissions.
“The one percent can’t free ride on our environment and our infrastructure at a discount,” Markey stated.
Markey final week despatched out an electronic mail looking for signature help for his invoice.
It can’t be true about Kerry, although. Markey owes his Senate seat to fellow Democrat Kerry. So, it’s unlikely that he would activate him.
But hardly had Kerry completed taking a beating earlier than a Republican-led committee listening to for allegedly flying all over the world on personal jets, then Markey filed his invoice blasting the wealthy for flying personal and polluting the world.
Kerry’s explosive listening to earlier than a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on oversight — the place Republicans have been gunning for him — befell Thursday, July 13. Markey filed his invoice the next Wednesday.
And in case you didn’t get his tax-the-rich message, Markey calls his invoice the “FATCAT” act. It stands for the Fueling Alternative Transportation with Carbon Aviation Tax. It’s Markey’s concept of a joke. It provides virtually a $2 surcharge to the present gas tax per gallon for personal jet journey.
In submitting the invoice, Markey stated, “Billionaires and the ultra-wealthy are getting a bargain, paying less in taxes each year to fly private and contribute more pollution than millions of drivers combined on the roads below.”
Or to place it in one other approach, Markey maintains that one hour of flying personal negates the local weather advantages of driving an electrical automobile for a complete 12 months.
“It’s time to ground these fat cats and make them pay their fair share so that we can invest in building public transportation that communities across the country and our economy need,” he stated.
“Not convinced?” Markey’s employees requested in a follow-up electronic mail final week. “Get this: private jets pollute as much as 14 times more than commercial flights and 50 times more than trains.”
Markey, a former member of the House, was elected to fill Kerry’s Senate time period in 2013 after Kerry resigned to turn into President Barack Obama’s secretary of state.
Markey obtained a leap on any potential opponents again then after Kerry gave him advance discover of his resignation. As it was, U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch of South Boston ran anyway however misplaced to Markey within the Democrat main. Markey has held the seat ever since.
While it’s far-fetched to suppose that Markey focused Kerry, the coincidence is fascinating.
After belittling Kerry over his world-traveling local weather change diplomacy, Kerry was hammered by GOP committee members over his local weather change journey to China, in addition to his use of personal jets.
Rep. Michael McCaul, committee chairman, stated China was not an sincere dealer and was firing up fossil coal crops “pretty much every day if not (every) week.”
But it was GOP Rep. Cory Mills of Florida who obtained Kerry’s goat when referred to claims that Kerry used personal jets to get round.
Kerry, clearly angered, stated the cost was “one of the most outrageously persistent lies” in opposition to him.
He stated that since his appointment as Joe Biden’s local weather envoy, he has flown solely on business planes or navy planes, not personal jets.
Kerry stated it was “a stupid lie” that he traveled by personal jet to attend the listening to.
The Heinz/Kerry household jet, a Gulfstream GIV-SP that Kerry as soon as used, was apparently bought a 12 months in the past following a sequence of destructive tales.
Given his haughty demeanor and elusive authorities life-style, Kerry in some ways is his personal worst enemy, in addition to a public relations catastrophe.
Much of the ridicule and animus towards him goes again to October 2019 when he traveled by personal jet to Iceland to obtain an award that might have been mailed to him after a Zoom look.
Asked about it, Kerry stated that his journey by personal jet was “the only choice for somebody like me.”
No doubt Eddie Markey, regardless of his invoice, agrees.
Peter Lucas is a veteran Massachusetts political reporter and columnist.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”