Miami — In his home district as well as in Washington, Rep. Carlos Curbelo is lobbying fellow Republicans to support his carbon tax bill, trying to build momentum where there has been none.
When he became the first Republican in nearly a decade to introduce national carbon pricing legislation to combat climate change two months ago, conservative groups vowed to quickly kill the effort. But Curbelo, undaunted, has been pushing the 42 other Republicans who belong to the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus he co-chairs to support his bill, and has enjoyed some modest successes despite the existing GOP consensus against the idea.
Two other Republicans, Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Francis Rooney of Florida, have co-sponsored the bill. Only one of a half dozen Republicans of the caucus contacted by the Washington Examiner ruled out supporting the carbon tax bill, though none are likely to sign on before the midterm elections, and others have suggested they are open to the idea.
Curbelo, a centrist, who is facing re-election in a blue district, engaged in salesmanship Tuesday while meeting with friendly local professors and environmental groups in his South Florida home office, located unassumingly on the second floor of a strip mall that offers mobile phones, haircuts, and dry cleaning services.
He told the group that he is seeking a senator to introduce a version of his carbon tax bill in the upper chamber — singling out Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. as a potential partner — and planning to hit the road next year, if re-elected, to travel to Republican and Democratic districts across the country to sell the legislation.
“One of my big goals is to figure how we can work together to socialize this idea to help people understand it better,” Curbelo told participants in his roundtable meeting, which the Washington Examiner sat in on. “Any time you talk about a new tax, a lot of people get concerned. We wanted to allay those concerns by replacing an outdated regressive tax with an equitable consumption tax that captures the entire economy.”
The “outdated regressive tax” in question is the federal gas tax. It’s eliminated in Curbelo’s bill, a provision meant to tempt Republicans.
Curbelo’s bill would impose a tax beginning at $24 per ton of carbon dioxide in 2020, rising 2 percent annually above inflation. At the same time, it repeals the federal taxes on gasoline, diesel, and aviation fuels.
“There is a policy reality and political reality, and we try to merge both,” Curbelo said. “We have the need to act on climate. We also have the need to act on infrastructure. That is the one issue where both parties agree, and maybe the only issue the presidential candidates of 2016 agreed on.”
In a nod to Trump, the legislation would use the revenues from the carbon tax to fund improvements to America’s infrastructure. Some of the revenues would be directed to flood-mitigation projects and other initiatives to protect against climate change.
Additionally, 10 percent of the carbon tax proceeds would go toward alleviating energy costs for low-income people, and some would be used to help workers who are displaced by the tax.
Curbelo’s proposal would also prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from issuing regulations to restrict greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, but only if the bill fulfills the carbon emissions reductions goals it sets out.
A independent study, led by Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, found that Curbelo’s legislation would cause little damage to the overall economy, while dramatically reducing planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions.
More than two-thirds of projected emissions reductions are expected to occur in the electric power sector, as the tax would prompt acceleration of the ongoing trend of cheaper, less carbon-intensive natural gas replacing coal, with zero-emission renewables, later on, expected to replace gas.
The study projected that Curbelo’s bill would cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 30 to 40 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 and 27 to 32 percent reductions by 2025, ahead of the goals set in the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan targeting carbon emissions from coal plants. The Trump administration recently proposed a more modest replacement for the Clean Power Plan, after previously vowing to remove the U.S. from the Paris climate change agreement.
Curbelo said he had a positive discussion of the carbon tax plan with Gary Cohn, Trump’s former top economic adviser, before Cohn’s resignation in March. He wants to brief the White House again.
“This is our opportunity to lead and write the rules for climate policy for the world,” Curbelo said. “Trying to take account of political reality, this can be the American way for this administration. Now we get to put in place our policy and try to get the rest of world to follow.”
The supportive constituents who met with Curbelo Tuesday credited him for tackling an issue that’s politically toxic within his own party, even if some of the participants prefer different versions of a carbon tax.
“We can’t downplay how much courage it took to introduce this,” said Julie Hill-Gabriel, vice president of water conservation at Audubon Florida.
“It’s excellent progress starting this bipartisan conversation,” added Kelly Dawson of the Citizens Climate Lobby, who said she prefers a carbon tax-and-dividend plan that distributes the revenue equally to American households.
Despite the outreach to environmentalists and Republicans, it’s unlikely Curbelo’s bill or any carbon tax legislation can pass the GOP-controlled Congress anytime soon.
A week before Curbelo introduced his legislation, all but six House Republicans voted to approve a nonbinding, GOP-leadership-backed resolution declaring a potential carbon tax harmful to the economy.
“It’s important to keep in mind that a very small portion of the Republican base and Republican policymakers support a carbon dioxide tax,” James Taylor, an environmental and climate policy expert at the conservative Heartland Institute, told the Washington Examiner. “It’s pointless, it’s futile, but it’s also economically punishing.”
Many economists, however, say a carbon emissions tax is the most cost-effective way to fight climate change, and thus could appeal to some Republicans.
“Of course he is trying to get me on that [carbon tax] bill, and I am looking at it and considering it,” Rep. Mia Love, R-Utah, a member of the Climate Solutions Caucus, told the Washington Examiner. “Carlos does the introducing and I get to go to my district and talk to them about it and find out how they feel about it. There are some great things in that bill.”
Fellow climate caucus member Rep. Tom Reed, R-N.Y., also said he’s open to a carbon tax bill, although he’s currently leaning against it.
“I don’t support a carbon tax directly, but I am open to a conversation about it,” Reed told the Washington Examiner. “Being close to Carlos on the caucus gives us a natural starting point on a conversation.”
Curbelo tries to be cautious in managing expectations over the carbon tax bill, and says he’s content in the near-term with motivating his party to simply hear him out.
“I try to be as sober about this is as possible,” Curbelo said. “Because there is a significant population if you scare them into doing this, they turn against you. It’s mostly fear of the unknown. The members who take time to look on this are comfortable with it. It doesn’t mean they sign on. But they are unafraid of it.”
