With the US pulling out of the Paris climate agreement and President Donald Trump actively rolling back Obama-era efforts to regulate emissions, it may seem an odd time for a national carbon tax to resurface in the halls of Washington. But that’s exactly what’s happened. A bipartisan group of legislators and a Republican-backed, Big Oil-funded lobbying group have rekindled the debate - but done so with the expectation that they are laying the groundwork for a fight that is unlikely to come until after Trump leaves office. Democrats will hold a majority in the House of Representatives next year, but that isn’t enough to make climate legislation likely, with Republicans still controlling the Senate and Trump expected to veto any bills that cross his desk. But that didn’t stop a group of Republican and Democratic representatives from introducing a bill with the backing of the Americans for Carbon Dividends, a lobbying group that has received money from Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips and boasts Royal Dutch Shell, Total and BP as members of its policy institute arm, the Climate Leadership Council (PIW Dec.3’18).
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