Republican bill would impose fee on imports from foreign polluters

Three Senate Republicans introduced legislation that would impose import fees on foreign polluters, earning rare praise from the Sierra Club.

The Foreign Pollution Fee Act, introduced by Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), would impose the fee on energy and industrial imports, with the fee determined based on the exporting country’s pollution levels relative to the U.S. Affected imports would include steel, cement, aluminum, wind turbines, fossil fuels and solar panel components. 

The bill, which Cassidy first shared with Politico Thursday, would not levy any such fees on American companies, which some climate hawks believe to be necessary under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules. It would, however, go beyond the provisions of a bipartisan bill introduced by Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) in August to study U.S. industries’ “carbon advantage” relative to other countries. Cassidy and Graham co-sponsored that legislation.

The Sierra Club, a frequent critic of Republicans on energy policy, praised the proposal in a statement Thursday.

“We commend Senate Republicans for putting forward a climate-forward trade policy. The Foreign Pollution Fee Act would benefit American manufacturers and ensure that bigger polluters elsewhere in the world do not undercut domestic producers,” Harry Manin, the environmental group’s deputy legislative director for Industrial Policy and Trade, said in a statement. “It sends a strong signal to polluting international manufacturers that if they want to enter the U.S. market, they need to clean up their acts.”

Both U.S. climate envoy John Kerry and some Republicans have repeatedly said other nations that are major sources of greenhouse gas emissions, such as China and India, must be part of international emissions reduction efforts. Cassidy explicitly invoked competition with Beijing in a statement accompanying the bill.

“It makes absolutely no sense that we allow China to pollute freely and export their products to the U.S.—displacing U.S jobs, manufacturing, and excellence,” Cassidy said. “The Foreign Pollution Fee begins to hold China accountable for their lack of environmental standards while expanding domestic production, increasing opportunities for the American family, and decreasing global emissions.”