Senators attack carbon tax proposals on US imports

Sarah O’Connor
Financial Times
Thursday, July 9, 2009

Senior Democrat senators said on Wednesday they would change a provision that imposes carbon taxes on imports following warnings that the clause in the House’s cap-and-trade bill could spark a global trade war.

The House’s bill contained tough provisions to impose carbon tariffs, aimed at protecting American companies’ competitiveness against imports from countries without equivalent carbon emission controls to those in the US.

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Senator John Kerry, who is helping to write the senate’s version of the bill, said in a hearing on the issue on Wednesday: “We have already come to the conclusion in working on the Senate bill that we’re going to try and change that provision . . . we haven’t landed yet completely on where we come out”.

Max Baucus, the Democrat senator who chairs the senate finance committee, said any provisions that “provoke retaliation from our trading partners will only hurt the same industries we’re trying to help”, adding that he was “confident we can craft legislation that strikes the right balance”.

Full story here.

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