CLIMATE CHANGE/TAXES: “Exxon Mobil, other oil companies and a number of other corporate giants will announce on Tuesday [6-20-17] that they are supporting a plan to tax carbon emissions that was put forth this year by a group of Republican elder statesmen.
The group, the Climate Leadership Council, unveiled a ‘conservative climate solution’ in February that would fight global warming by taxing greenhouse gas emissions and returning the money to taxpayers as a ‘climate dividend.’ The underlying idea is that, by making energy derived from fossil fuels more expensive, the free market will move more quickly and effectively toward renewable energy and other low-carbon solutions.
Exxon Mobil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Total S.A. are expected to publicly back the plan on Tuesday, and they have a number of reasons to lend their support. The plan calls for scrapping Obama-era regulations intended to fight climate change, arguing that a market-driven approach will have the same effect in reducing emissions as the regulations would.
The oil giants could simply pass the cost of new taxes on to customers. And to protect American companies, the plan would introduce so-called border adjustments, intended to increase the cost of goods coming from nations that do not have a similar carbon tax.”
-John Schwartz, “Exxon Mobil Lends Its Support to a Carbon Tax Proposal,” The New York Times online, June 20, 2017