One week after President Trump’s inauguration, the calls began anew for a carbon tax. Leading the charge for a new national energy tax were former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, former Secretaries of State George Shultz and Jim Baker – all of whom served under Republican presidents. The Left, including the media, salivated. A carbon tax was how we would finally ‘solve’ climate change, curb the rising seas, and lead the world into a fossil-fuel-free future! Aspirational progressive tunnel vision missed what had just occurred, with the election of a unified Republican Congress and a conservative in the White House.
Trump proclaimed that his presidency would be defined by an “America First energy agenda.” He pulled out of the Paris climate accord, halted the Clean Power Plan, approved the Dakota Access and Keystone XL Pipelines, expedited energy extraction permitting, and opened up offshore leasing for drilling. On top of this, Republicans passed historic tax reform, which included finally opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This energy rich region of Alaska was shut down for development by President Bill Clinton.
To suggest that the radical agenda of environmentalists and their allies in Congress has been unsuccessful over the last 18 months would be an understatement. We’ve reversed more than a decade of burdensome policies that harm U.S. interests. It certainly wasn’t a concern over the questionable expenses of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt that led to their calling for his head; it was his deregulatory agenda that drove them mad. They’ve unsuccessfully tried the same game with Department of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. The Left has targeted him because they believe it is the job of the DOI secretary to find creative ways to hamper traditional energy development, not facilitate and speed it up.
In the meantime, the calls for a national energy tax continue. Just last month, seven-figure swamp lobbyists Trent Lott and John Breaux rolled out their support for a “simple and elegant” tax on carbon dioxide emissions. Realizing the insufficient appetite for a new “tax,” the former senators disingenuously relabeled it as a “fee.” Their $40 per ton carbon tax would immediately result in a 36 cent per gallon increase in the gas tax. Proponents of the tax admit that the price of home heating would increase by 22 percent and coal would increase by an average of 264 percent.
The revenue generated from this tax would constitute the largest tax increase in U.S. history.
To offset some of these astronomical increases in energy costs, the plan would create a new national federally managed welfare program, paying the average family of four $2,000 a year for their troubles. If payments equaled tax collections, a program of that scale would greatly exceed the size of Obamacare, giving Uncle Sam the responsibility of managing another $1.7 trillion over a decade.
A massive new energy tax isn’t a political winner. When Australia imposed a carbon tax in 2012, it was so unpopular that it was fully repealed two years later. Growing opposition in Canada is resulting in election victories for candidates opposed to the tax, with former Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently explaining: “It becomes more unpopular every single day it is in existence. So I say … let the other guys do a carbon tax because we can all win the next federal and provincial elections on that issue alone.”
The carbon tax-welfare scheme is a far cry from anything remotely conservative. It’s a plan designed to harm American manufacturers, raise prices for every single American consumer, and prop up uncompetitive expensive sources of energy like solar and wind. It places trust in the federal government to manage yet another massive welfare program, while giving the Left a significant opportunity to extract more and more money from taxpayers. Killing a carbon tax dead in its tracks isn’t only good policy, it’s a basic IQ test for modern day conservatives.
In the lead up to this year’s midterm elections, it’s important that Republicans send a strong signal and reminder to voters that no matter how creative proponents of a carbon tax get, it’s dead on arrival while they’re in charge. To that end, there will be a vote on a congressional resolution sponsored by Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., expressing opposition to a carbon tax in the House of Representatives this week. This same resolution passed without a single Republican vote against it in 2016 and deserves strong affirmation again in 2018.
Paul Blair (@gopaulblair) is the director of strategic initiatives at Americans for Tax Reform.
