Carbon Tax-and-Dividend Bill to Be Reintroduced

Two members of Congress, a Democrat and a Republican, both from Florida, will reintroduce their bill to put a tax on carbon emissions and return the revenue to the people in the form of a dividend.

“Reps. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., and Francis Rooney, R-Fla., plan to revive a carbon tax bill [Jan. 24], the Washington Examiner has learned,” according to energy and environment reporter, Josh Siegel. The bill has yet to be assigned a number.

The pair, who co-lead the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus, plan to reintroduce legislation, first unveiled in November, that was the first bipartisan carbon tax bill in nearly a decade. The reintroduction is necessary since it’s a new session of Congress.

H.R.7173 – Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act of 2018 was “the second major carbon tax bill introduced by a Republican [last] year, after Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida, the GOP co-chair of the Climate Solutions Caucus, introduced national carbon pricing legislation in September without Democratic help,” reported Siegel earlier. Curbello was unseated by Democratic challenger Debbie Mucarsel-Powell in the midterm elections.

The legislation would impose a tax of $15 per ton of carbon dioxide in 2019, a relatively low starting number. But the price would increase $10 each year, a rapid pace, rising to nearly $100 per ton by 2030, and potentially higher if the emissions targets set in the bill are not met.

In a separate piece, Siegel reports that a “bipartisan coalition of former Federal Reserve chairs, top economic advisers to recent presidents of both parties, and Nobel Prize-winning economists have endorsed a federal carbon tax, one that would distribute all of the revenue to American households, to combat climate change.”

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