Donald Trump claimed Friday that a report in The Hill incorrectly said he supports a tax on carbon, but the report only quotes one of Trump’s own advisors saying he wants Trump to support it.
“Your story about me & the carbon tax is absolutely incorrect—it is just the opposite. I will not support or endorse a carbon tax!” Trump said in a tweet directed at The Hill.
The Hill reported that Trump’s energy adviser, Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., had said he would “push the presidential candidate to endorse a tax on carbon dioxide emissions.”
The report, titled “Trump adviser pushes him to back carbon tax,” never claimed Trump had come out in support of efforts to curb carbon emissions.
Cramer’s remarks were made during an interview with E&E Daily.
“[M]y advice would be, while I’m a skeptic, as well, he is a product of political populism, and political populism believes that there needs [to be] some addressing of climate change,” Cramer said.
The congressman said he is preparing energy policy papers for the presumed GOP nominee, and said the white papers would include a carbon tax.
Cramer explained that efforts to curb carbon emissions could serve as a useful tool to appease the public’s desire to see more done for the environment.
“I’ve been skeptical, but I don’t resist the reality that we’re heading toward our goal of a more carbon-constrained world,” he said.
“I would still tell him, ‘Yeah, we need to stop and repeal the Clean Power Plan,'” he added, referring to the Obama White House initiative that limits power plants emissions. “If in fact he wants a more carbon-restrained energy policy, he ought to work with real scientists and work with Congress to come up with a better one.”
Trump has said climate change is a hoax, and once told a crowd of supporters that it “was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”
