A new lobbying push will look to pitch Biden-era green corporate welfare and carbon tariffs as America First-aligned to the Trump administration and lawmakers, Axios reported Friday.
The Cleaner Economy Coalition (CEC) is a newly-formed 501(c)(4) entity that “sees an opening in the Trump era” to pursue carbon tariffs and save the 45X tax credit, a costly subsidy for green energy manufacturing unleashed by a bill — the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) — that did not receive a single GOP vote on its way to becoming law, according to Axios. The CEC is hiring lobbyists who formerly worked for President Donald Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and it will have a seven-figure budget at its disposal to try to convince Republicans to back policies long favored by greens and liberals.
“We need an approach that starts with promoting U.S. competitiveness. That has to be the central component to any U.S. climate policy,” Greg Bertelsen, who will lead CEC, told Axios. “We’re leaving huge economic points on the board today, and we are risking ceding enormous economic opportunity in the future.”
“Right now, we are focused on getting in front of the administration and members of Congress on both sides of the aisle,” Bertelsen told the outlet. The CEC will get its funding from corporate contributors and other mission-aligned entities.
Trump campaigned aggressively on rescinding the IRA, Biden’s signature climate bill that some analysts project will cost approximately $4.7 trillion by 2050 if left in its current form.
Notably, more than 20 House Republicans are lining up to try to save certain provisions of the law because their districts are poised to benefit from Biden’s climate largesse.
CEC will also push for “trade penalties against high-CO2 imports,” according to Axios, meaning that the group will be looking to get Republicans in the White House and on Capitol Hill to support de facto carbon tariffs.
Some Republicans have previously supported the PROVE IT Act, a bill that commissions the federal government to study the carbon intensities of certain American products and competing products from other countries as a potential first step toward implementing a European-style carbon tariff. Proponents of the bill on the right side of the aisle have characterized it as a protectionist and tough-on-China measure, but its many critics fear that the federal government will eventually use any metric for assessing carbon intensity of American products inward in the form of carbon taxes once that metric is brought into existence.
CEC did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
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