At least four bills supporting a tax on carbon released into the atmosphere are set to be introduced into Congress this week. What’s most surprising isn't the mechanisms the bills propose, but the names associated with these bills. Because these bills are being sponsored by some of the senators and representatives who have previously been the least friendly to any sort of legislation to address the climate crisis.
These bills are appearing at this point for the same reason that Democrats are going to be holding a single-topic town hall to deal with climate-related issues: An increasing percentage of the public sees the climate crisis as a real, important, and urgent issue. All of these bills represent an effort to show that legislators on both sides of the aisle are making at least some move toward addressing the issue in advance of the 2020 election.
The texts of several of these bills are not yet available. But Roll Call shows that there’s pretty wide variation in the proposed solutions.
For example, a bill sponsored by Democratic Sens. Chris Coons and Dianne Feinstein would apply a carbon tax at $15 per ton of atmospheric carbon, and return the revenues raised directly to low income Americans. This arrangement, which addresses both the climate crisis and income inequity, has been supported by organizations such as the Sierra Club, though the initial carbon pricing in the bill falls well below the price many have recommended.
A second piece of proposed legislation, from Democrat Daniel Lipinski and Republican Francis Rooney, is expected to set a rate of $40 per ton of carbon released, which is in the range of values that have previously been suggested as having an impact. The bill is expected to also use this revenue to lower taxes, though whether that means for low-income Americans or for other groups isn’t yet clear.
The most-supported bill is one sponsored by Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker, along with coal-friendly Democrats such as Joe Manchin, and even coal-state Republicans such as Shelley Moore Capito. However, beyond establishing a “federal advisory board” that would look at ways to make industry less carbon-intensive, it’s not clear that this bill would include either a carbon tax or any other mechanism to directly enforce change.
Naturally, it’s the advisory board bill that’s garnering the most support. In advance of its introduction, it seems to have pulled a bipartisan group of sponsors in the Senate, and a similar group is lining up behind a matching bill in the House. Whether any of the bills featuring a carbon tax will gain broad support isn’t clear, but these are only the first wave, as several more bills are set to be introduced following the August recess.
Even longtime Republican consultant Frank Luntz, one of the primary movers responsible for spreading misinformation on greenhouse gases and helping to promote the idea that “the science is not settled,” has signed on to the effort to promote carbon legislation. That certainly suggests that Republicans are recognizing that the public, and especially younger voters, is increasingly aware that the climate crisis is real. And that Republican opposition to addressing the issue is costing them votes.
But the embrace of the issue is far from universal. Republicans, including Rand Paul, are still introducing bills that would weaken the few existing regulations and open up the expansion of coal-fired power plants. Republicans in the House are even pushing for legislation that would match Donald Trump by making it actually illegal to even mention the impact of carbon.
And that’s where everything above runs into an orange brick wall. Trump’s continued insistence that the climate crisis is a “hoax” has been backed up by the removal of public data from agency websites, the excision of programs aimed at monitoring greenhouse gases, the relaxation of regulations on coal and methane, and the rollback of standards for fuel economy.
So long as Trump doesn’t support a carbon tax, it’s very unlikely there will be a carbon tax, as Republicans have demonstrated no appetite to challenge Trump on any subject. And Frank Luntz’s support means less than nothing at this point, since the only wordsmithing that counts for the GOP these days is whether Trump is saying “infested” or “go back.”
Republicans may be afraid of the movement among voters to recognize the importance of the climate crisis, but they’re far more afraid of Trump. So long as that’s the case, everything they’re doing is just for show.