Conservative groups fight carbon tax proposal

A coalition of conservative groups is fighting back against Republicans who are pushing for a tax on carbon dioxide emissions.

The groups, including American Energy Alliance, Heritage Action for America and Americans for Tax Reform, are asking for a meeting with high-level White House officials to rebut last week’s meeting and presentation by former Republican officials like James Baker and Martin Feldstein.

“Such a policy would place undue economic burdens on American families and businesses by intentionally increasing the cost of the energy they rely on every day,” the conservative groups’ leaders wrote to Gary Cohn, director of the White House National Economic Council.

{mosads}“A carbon tax would also be regressive — doing the most harm to our nation’s economically disadvantaged — and would destroy American jobs, particularly in the manufacturing sector.”

The authors of the letter include some close Trump allies, like American Energy Alliance President Tom Pyle and the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Myron Ebell, both of whom served in leading roles in Trump’s transition team.

The Republicans pitching the carbon tax last week framed it as a conservative solution to climate change that would reduce the size of government by repealing nearly all of President Obama’s climate regulations.

But Trump is unlikely to come out in favor of a carbon tax.

He ruled it out completely during his campaign and said he believes that human-caused climate change is a hoax. Furthermore, the Republican-led House overwhelmingly passed a non-binding resolution last year strongly denouncing a carbon tax.