API "Supports" Carbon Tax, But Nothing Specific, Wants "Sensible Legislation", Blah Blah Blah
The American Petroleum Institute, the leading oil and gas lobbying group, on Thursday backed the idea of the government putting a price on carbon emissions, provided the Biden administration avoids other measures the group terms “regulatory duplication.” “Confronting the challenge of climate change and building a lower-carbon future will require a combination of government policies, industry initiatives and continuous innovation,” API President Mike Sommers said in a statement.
API did not say how big a carbon tax should be. Many of its members have long used $40 a ton as an internal price to judge the viability of their projects, but economists specializing in climate change have warned that a price two or three times as large would be needed to change behavior enough to effectively curb greenhouse gasses.
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Environmental groups were unimpressed with API’s shift. Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, labeled it “self-serving greenwashing.” “Nobody should fall for the oil industry’s new PR ploy, which will do nothing to fight the climate emergency,” Siegel said. “API is trying desperately to distract the Biden administration from the crucial work of keeping polluting fossil fuels in the ground.”
The change in policy capped a week in which Biden administration officials began discussions with a variety of players in search of agreement on government climate policy. The Thursday forum organized by the Interior Department featured leaders from Native American communities, the oil and gas industry, environmental groups and organized labor. They discussed how to move forward with oil and gas leasing on federal lands while addressing the need to reduce emissions and fight climate change. About 25 percent of the greenhouse-gas emissions produced by the United States come from oil and gas drilling on land owned by the federal government.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/03/25/carbon-tax-biden/
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Notably, the API is not announcing blanket support for just any form of carbon pricing, nor is it supporting a specific proposal.
Instead, the group said it will "advocate for sensible legislation that prices carbon across all economic sectors while avoiding regulatory duplication." The API laid out a series of principles that must be met before lending any support, including that US companies wouldn't be left at a competitive disadvantage globally. Sommers said both a carbon tax and a cap-and-trade program broadly fits within such a framework.
"This shouldn't be punitive against the oil-and-gas industry. We are an emitter, but we are not the only emitter," Sommers said.
Sommers said the API "absolutely" could withhold support for carbon pricing legislation that may emerge from Congress. "It's not as if we would support any carbon tax or cap-and-trade program that is slapped onto a piece of legislation," Sommers said.
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https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/25/business/oil-lobby-carbon-pricing-api/index.html
