Brent Batten: Why Republican Francis Rooney supports a carbon tax other conservatives reject

When you think Republican, you don’t usually think tax increase and climate change action.

But Republican Congressman Francis Rooney isn’t usual.

He’s made his top priority since getting to Washington, D.C., obtaining funding for Everglades restoration, and now he’s one of a handful of representatives co-sponsoring a tax on producers of fossil fuels.

House Resolution 7173, dubbed The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act, the bill would impose a fee on carbon dioxide emissions.

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Initially, the fee would be $15 per ton of emissions and go up $10 a ton each year after that.

Rooney says there are various estimates of what that might do to the price of a gallon of gasoline, for instance.

One calculation puts the initial figure at 15 cents per gallon. But coal is the real target since burning it produces five times as much carbon dioxide as burning natural gas.

The purpose of the tax isn’t to raise money for the government, Rooney said.

“I really do feel we need to take measures to disincentivize the burning of coal,” he said. “The main reason for doing it is to drive natural gas and alternative energy.”

Other co-sponsors of the bill include Floridians Charlie Crist, and Ted Deutch, both Democrats.

That’s a natural alliance, Rooney said, because Florida is threatened by sea level rise more than most states.

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Rooney knows there is disagreement over weather warming temperatures represent a crisis but says the dangers of sea level rise should be obvious in a state surrounded on three sides by water.

“It’s really hard to dispute what’s going on in the sea. It’s pretty empirical,” he said.

Rooney envisions a system where the money raised by the tax is routed back to taxpayers, perhaps in the form of tax credits toward things like the payroll tax for Social Security or unemployment insurance.

Workers would see less money withheld from their paychecks under that scenario, he said.

Separate legislation will be required to accomplish that, he acknowledged.

Another option would be to spend the money raised on infrastructure like roads. “Lord knows we need infrastructure,” he said.

In Southwest Florida most roads and facilities are fairly new, so residents may not appreciate how dire the need is in other places, he said.

Quick opposition

A carbon tax has been endorsed by some conservative groups, namely the American Enterprise Institute. The reasoning is that using a tax as a disincentive is better than a new regimen of government regulations.

But the idea is not universally accepted, especially among conservatives.

The group Americans for Tax Reform has denounced the bill as “horrible” and “oppressive.”

Rooney said he met with the group’s founder, Grover Norquist, to discuss the plan.

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Norquist lobbied for other approaches for limiting carbon emissions. Rooney said he told Norquist, “I’m for all of the above.”

The meeting was friendly but, Rooney said, “I don’t think he’s going to stop beating on me.”

Last month, voters in Washington state rejected a carbon tax on the ballot there that would have initially assessed $15 per ton on carbon emissions with annual increases of $2.

And in France, an increase in the carbon tax is cited as a primary factor in riots that have engulfed Paris and other parts of the country.

Rooney says there’s more to the unrest than just the tax though. “The French are upset with a lot of things with (President Emmanuel) Macron. There’s a lot of stuff going sideways in France,” Rooney said.

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Rooney believes the new Democratic majority in the U.S. House will consider H.R. 7173 when it convenes in January.

Getting the bill through the Senate will be a challenge as long as Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is majority leader. “Mitch McConnell is from the ultimate coal state,” Rooney noted.

But Rooney says introduction of the bill may be a conversation starter.

“The disincentivization of coal would be a healthy thing to do,” he said.