Reading many comments most everyone has missed the point and decided to read something into it instead.

Where I am, we get our water from Lake Michigan. The federal government has decided that it's perfectly acceptable for BP to dump tons of toxic waste into the lake! Why are they allowed to foul our water supply? What kind of EPA is that? The EPA that says you can foul a water supply up to this limit but not beyond? An EPA that grants people special favors? If I went down to the beach and dumped a quart of used motor oil into the lake I would be arrested! But BP gets to dump tons upon tons of toxic industrial waste from it's refinery because the government said it's okay?

Paul has a solution here. No privilege to pollute. Not it's okay for some to pollute some amounts and other to pollute some other amounts and the average joe is the most restricted. Sure, it's difficult to get things like ICE powered vehicles to work under the thou-shall-not-pollute at all scheme. (new automobiles are at ~98% clean anyway) These are details to work out. We may need to just have the grams per mile limit. But why does BP get to dump solid/liquid waste instead of containing it? They should find an industrial use for the material instead. There's no excuse for that kind of pollution.

Even worse about regulation is some is designed to protect the market for the existing companies as a barrier to entry.

The vast majority of comments I read missed the point because the writers don't understand the entire philosophy.

The missed point is that instead of having the present system that is weighted towards corporations spewing what they want (as approved by government) and having little people then prove they were harmed, the system would be corporation X spewed on to my land so they have to pay. The courts wouldn't require a little guy prove the spew from corporation X killed his dog or anything of the sort, just the mere fact they spewed would be enough for compensation. Corporations wouldn't spew if the court cases went to the damages phase in 30 seconds. The question before the court would amount to 'how much?'.

But what do statist environmentalists want? Government power saying it's ok that corporations just spew Y tons of toxic crap per year instead of some greater amount. What if your neighbor only effectively dumped one quart of used motor oil on your lawn every three months instead of five? Say a law that said one out of 5 quarts of dumped oil was allowed to leach off his property. Sound like a good deal to you if the government says he can? After all the government is looking out for you isn't it? Your neighbor knows the mayor and an EPA bureaucrat so he got a permit to dump oil on your lawn. You, well you don't know the mayor let alone an EPA bureaucrat and for some reason you can't get a permit to dump oil or anything else on your neighbor's lawn.

Sure the present system is better for the environment than the 'though shit' system of the past where corporations could spew as much as they wanted on others property. But this flawed system gives government more power, and let's its cronies get away with all sorts of nonsense. Where do we go from here? What's the next step? The idea that Paul endorses sounds like the next step, revoking the privileges to spew pollution.

And what do the other candidates, say the Rudy and Hillary twins promise us? (the owner of Fox supports BOTH!) More war, more pollution, more of the status quo. More of it being ok for rich (trillions of US$) China not to use even 40 year old pollution control technology. At least Paul has ideas to get to the next step, we know the status-quo favorites aren't going to have any.

On global warming... The correlation that is used to say CO2 causes warming fails under the simple fact that correlation is not causation. Secondly, CO2 levels rise after temperature. There's more where CO2 driven global warming theory fails too.

What's the solution being offered to us? Government micromanagement of our lives. Taking yet more of our income, the product of labor. That is essentially, serfdom under a an unaccountable (world?) government bureaucracy. We will produce they will take. They will tell us what we can do and when. This is bringing back the past... of the dark ages.

We are being told that a monster is going to eat the sun. The only the priests can snatch the sun back from the monster's jaws and bring back the warmth and light is if we do as they say. What we are getting is just a modern version of that. Old style religion where elites take advantage of the ignorance of the masses to scare them and control them.

On 'Internalizing externalities' No contradiction involved. What Paul is referring to is the cost of the pollution control systems getting factored into the use of the fuel.

Furthermore, a tax doesn't do anything except say the wealthy can spew pollution but the serfs cannot. Instead of paying the costs of keeping their spew near zero, they just pay the tiny (for them) tax. You can't afford to pay so you can't do anything. But in a technology standpoint, the market drives the technology to be more and more affordable thusly you still get to do whatever it is. The tax never goes away and makes it pointless to develop the technology. Why? Because the tax is on the input, not the output.

PS: If you think CO2 is pollution stop breathing and reduce it's emission.