Congestion pricing goes well with other eco-efficient policies

Kitchen Linker is a big fan of congestion pricing. While not as important as (much) higher gas taxes replacing less efficient taxes, congestion pricing is another win-win: more efficient and more environmentally friendly transportation system.

Save the environment and the economy, yada yadda yaddda.

Taxing planes

That is plane trips tax the environment. "Jane Galt" says:

If you take just two cross country and two overseas trips a year . . . not a big number for today's more mobile young adults . . . you're consuming as much carbon as you would by driving a huge gas-guzzling SUV 12,000 miles a year.

So Kitchen Linker says,

• Discourage low-value plane trips with a pigouvian tax.
• Stop subsidizing airlines. There are many subsidies, see a recent New York Times story about a smaller one.
• Lead the way with "only travel when strictly necessary" policies, replace travel with tele-, video-, and "second life" meetings.

On the other hand, air tavel has been getting much more efficient, which surprised me a little bit.