A Republican-backed group pushing for Congress to pass a federal carbon tax launched a six-figure advertising campaign on Wednesday.
The campaign from the Americans for Carbon Dividends represents a new and more public phase in its advocacy campaign to promote its plan, which features a carbon tax that would return the revenue to taxpayers.
“The objective is to target D.C. thought leaders and influencers on why a carbon tax and dividend is the right climate solution that all sides can support,” said former Rep. Ryan Costello, a Pennsylvania Republican and managing director of Americans for Carbon Dividends, the advocacy arm of the Climate Leadership Council, a group led by former Republican Secretaries of State James Baker III and George Shultz.
“The public advocacy piece of this is a way to test the political theory that this is an implementable and workable plan that is attractive to a bipartisan coalition,” Costello told the Washington Examiner.
Americans for Carbon Dividends will indefinitely run the 30-second ad, titled “The Bipartisan Climate Solution,” in the D.C. market on platforms including Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post and on social media sites YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, in addition to Hulu.
The Climate Leadership Council’s proposal would impose a gradually rising carbon tax beginning at $40 per ton, increasing 5% every year, and return the money to American people through equal quarterly payments to offset higher energy prices. A family of four would receive roughly $2,000 per year in dividends, the group said.
This would cut U.S. carbon emissions in half by 2035, a greater amount than what the Obama administration pledged to do under the Paris climate accord.
The plan also calls for boosting the annual increase of the tax higher than 5% if the carbon reduction goals are not achieved. Other alternative carbon tax proposals, by contrast, would restore power plant carbon regulations if emissions-cutting goals fail.
Costello said he hopes lawmakers in both chambers introduce bipartisan legislation mirroring the group’s proposal before the end of the current session of Congress on Jan. 3, 2021.
In a bid to win more support, the group recently stripped from its plan a controversial provision that would have protected oil and gas companies from certain lawsuits based on their historical emissions.
The proposal, however, retains a second component of what backers call a “grand bargain” to win over the industry, namely, keeping a plan to scrap or prevent carbon regulations of power plants and all other stationary sources imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency, which would be redundant with the tax.
Despite shedding legal immunity for the industry, the group has retained the backing of oil and gas giants BP, Shell, ConocoPhillips, and Exxon Mobil, which have donated money to Americans for Carbon Dividends in support of the carbon tax and dividend plan.
Businesses and economists contend a carbon tax is the simplest and most efficient way to address greenhouse gas emissions, applying a per-ton fee for large emitters such as power plants and refineries.
Supporters view the approach as a market-based solution, one that would encourage energy producers to switch to cleaner non-fossil fuel alternatives if doing so costs less than paying the tax.
Despite that pitch, most Republicans, even those seeking solutions to climate change, oppose carbon pricing. The exception is two House Republicans, Rep. Francis Rooney of Florida, who is retiring, and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.
Costello hopes his group’s ad campaign changes minds.
“The question is, what solutions are Republicans amenable to?” he said. “We have to make the case. When you consider the revenue goes back to American taxpayers, this will result in more innovation and accelerate the transition to a carbon-neutral economy without growing big new government programs.”
