Romney Says Carbon Tax, Carbon Border Adjustment Needed
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said the best thing Congress could do to accelerate the green transition would be to put a price on carbon, and pair that with a carbon border adjustment tax. "That’s the only thing that has a significant impact," he said during an interview at Washington Post Live.
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Romney said it's not fair to blame Republicans for lack of action on this front, because Democrats could have passed such a bill through a process called reconciliation, that allows a bill to pass with a bare majority in the Senate. He said he thinks it didn't happen because Democrats didn't believe they could get "one or two Democratic senators" to agree. But he said the Democrats should have talked to the holdouts and figured out either how to soften the impact on their states, or to exchange that vote for something else they wanted.
"This is something they could have done and should have done," he said. "We’ll be very sorry for that for a long time."
Romney was asked during the Dec. 8 event if he thought he could get Republicans to support a carbon tax/carbon border adjustment tax combination in the next Congress. "Some, but not a lot. But we don’t need a lot," he said. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., has expressed interest in a carbon border adjustment tax, but does not talk about charging U.S. industry for its greenhouse gas emissions (see 2209130052).
Romney expressed concern that advanced batteries and solar panels are "all coming from China," which would turn China into a one-nation solar OPEC in the future.
The Inflation Reduction Act is designed to change that dynamic, since in a few years, electric vehicle batteries with any Chinese critical minerals would not qualify for half the EV tax credit starting in 2025 (see 2208040045). Romney voted against the IRA.