CARBON TAX CENTER - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- CTC 's Board Chair
Alex Matthiessen, CTC's board chair, is the principal of Blue Marble Group, an eco-political consultancy from which he manages the Move NY Campaign to reform traffic tolling in New York City and secure new financing for the city and region's transportation network. Alex also advises for-profit companies in gaining approvals for green projects as well as the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation on climate initiatives. From 2000-2010, he was CEO and president of Riverkeeper, the organization at the forefront of the decades-long campaign to restore the Hudson River and protect the NYC watershed. Previously, Alex served as a special assistant in the Office of U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and was grassroots program director for the Rainforest Action Network. He also serves on the board of Catskill Mountainkeeper. Alex holds a Masters of Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a BA in Biology and Environmental Studies from the University of California at Santa Cruz.
Job Titles:
- Bill Clinton Council of Economic Advisers Chair
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Charles Komanoff co-founded the Carbon Tax Center and serves as CTC's director. Charles, a math-and-economics honors graduate of Harvard, has built a distinctive career as energy-policy analyst, transport economist and environmental activist, as well as a visionary advocate of fresh ideas. In addition to directing the Carbon Tax Center he advises the Move NY Campaign to restructure road tolling and transportation finance in New York City. In the 1980s and 1990s Charles helped jump-start the livable streets movement in NYC and nationally as "re-founder" and president of the bicycling-advocacy group Transportation Alternatives and leader of the pedestrian-rights group Right Of Way. Earlier in his career, Charles developed a rigorous narrative documenting the faltering economics of the U.S. nuclear power industry, and as an expert witness for state government agencies helped shield electricity ratepayers from nuclear-related utility cost overruns. His published works include books, long-form journalism in the New York Review of Books, New York Magazine and Orion, and op-eds in the New York Times and other papers.
Job Titles:
- National Public Radio Reporter
Donald Marron served as economic adviser to President G.W. Bush, acting director of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office and executive director of the Joint Committee on Taxation. Marron now co-directs the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. In a 2013 paper, he and Eric Toder analyzed the climate and macro-economic benefits of a carbon tax "shift" to reduce top corporate income tax rates. In the Cato Online Forum (November 2014) Marron outlined the conservative principles behind his proposal to combine effective climate policy with pro-growth economic policy:
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Ernst R. ("Hasty") Habicht, Jr., Ph.D. is an energy policy consultant to investment banks, utilities, large energy users, not-for-profit groups and governmental agencies, specializing in the interaction of economic incentives and emerging technologies. Hasty was founder and the first director of the Environmental Defense Fund's energy program, where he concentrated EDF's resources on changing electricity pricing policies to reflect the level of system demand. This led to Wisconsin's adoption of time-of-day pricing in the 1970s and became a foundation of EDF's efforts to improve environmental outcomes by unifying economic and scientific analysis and applying marginal-cost pricing principles to natural gas, water resources and transportation. Hasty has published papers and articles on energy technology and regulation in policy journals and national media and has served as an expert witness before numerous regulatory authorities. Hasty earned degrees in chemistry from Harvard College and Stanford University and has held postdoctoral and academic positions at the University of California at San Diego.
Job Titles:
- Nobel - Winning Economist
Nobel-winning economist Gary Becker and Reagan-Nixon cabinet secretary George Shultz proposed to replace costly clean energy subsidies with a far more effective revenue-neutral carbon tax.
Job Titles:
- Treasury Secretary, President of Harvard University
Lawrence Summers, who has served as Treasury Secretary, President of Harvard University and Chief Economist of the World Bank, trenchantly articulated the compelling reasons and auspicious timing for a carbon tax in an op-ed in both the Financial Times and the Washington Post (January 5, 2015).
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Executive Director of the Sallan Foundation
Nancy E. Anderson, Ph.D. is executive director of the Sallan Foundation, an urban environmental non-profit corporation that advances knowledge and convenes events concerning greener cities, climate change, high-performance buildings and urban energy policy. Earlier, as senior environmental advisor to the NYC Comptroller, Nancy successfully counseled the Comptroller to stop the sale of the City's water supply, created the Alliance for Clean Water Action, and formulated the scope of work and acted as liaison to the National Academy of Sciences' landmark NYC watershed study. Nancy's earlier positions in City government included director of environmental development, director of regulatory review, senior policy analyst in the Comptroller's office, where she authored the Community Hazardous Materials Right-to-Know Law, and in the Sanitation Department's Environmental Enforcement Unit. Nancy received her Ph.D. in Sociology from New York University in 1980.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Co - Founder and Chairman of Sonecon
Robert J. Shapiro, Ph.D. is co-founder and chairman of Sonecon, LLC, an advisory firm that analyzes changing economic and political conditions in the United States and around the world and their relationship to government policies. Dr. Shapiro is also a senior fellow of the Georgetown University School of Business, advisor to the International Monetary Fund, director of the Globalization Center at NDN, chairman of the U.S. Climate Task Force and co-chair of America Task Force Argentina. From 1997 to 2001, Dr. Shapiro was U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs. Earlier he co-founded the Progressive Policy Institute and also served as principal economic advisor to Bill Clinton in his 1991-1992 presidential campaign and senior economic advisor to Al Gore and John Kerry in their presidential campaigns. In 2008 and 2012, he advised the campaigns and transition of Barack Obama. Dr. Shapiro also was Legislative Director for Senator Daniel P. Moynihan and Associate Editor of U.S. News & World Report. He has been a Fellow of Harvard University, the Brookings Institution, and the National Bureau of Economic Research. Dr. Shapiro holds a Ph.D. and M.A. from Harvard, a M.Sc. from the London School of Economics, and an A.B. from the University of Chicago.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Ted Loewenthal, MD, recently retired from a rewarding 35-year career as a physician in clinical practice. Recognized as a leading gastroenterologist in Connecticut, he was affiliated with Hartford Hospital where he oversaw gastrointestinal endoscopy and related quality of care issues. Dr. Loewenthal is the lead environmental trustee for the Common Sense Fund. His energy and passion are directed to addressing global warming. He recently joined the board of Inside Climate News, which won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for its incisive coverage of climate change, energy and the environment. A graduate from Harvard in chemistry, Ted earned his MD at Tufts University School of Medicine.
Economist and columnist Thomas Friedman urged climate hawks and deficit hawks to find common cause in support of a deficit-reducing carbon tax.