Conservative carbon tax backers see silver lining in house opposition
“We are having some traction, so that is why the politics are rearing their ugly head this week on the House floor condemning the carbon tax as a tool,” Catrina Rorke, energy policy director at the free-market R Street Institute, said during a June 8 webinar on the conservative case for a carbon tax, hosted by the American Sustainable Business Council.
…R Street’s Rorke echoed concern about EPA regulations being a rationale for embracing a carbon tax, characterizing it as a solution conservatives should embrace rather than falling further behind in the policy debate over climate change.
“We are not starting from square one. . . we are starting behind and we need to catch up,” she said.
But Rorke’s comments also underscore the additional difficulties conservative carbon tax proponents face in selling their idea, in that she called for it to not only replace the EPA’s GHG rules but also DOE energy efficiency standards and vehicle fuel economy rules.
