The group, led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, with former Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Henry M. Paulson Jr., a former secretary of the Treasury, says
that taxing carbon pollution produced by burning fossil fuels is “a conservative climate solution” based on free-market principles.
A Conservative Climate Solution’: Republican Group Calls for Carbon Tax -
A group of Republican elder statesmen is calling for a tax on carbon emissions to fight climate change.
The Baker proposal would substitute the carbon tax for the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, a complex set of rules to regulate emissions which President Trump has pledged to repeal
and which is tied up in court challenges, as well as other climate regulations.
A survey taken just after the 2016 election by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication found
that 66 percent of registered voters supported a carbon tax on fossil fuel companies, with the money used to reduce personal taxes.
Mr. Baker is scheduled to meet on Wednesday with White House officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, Jared Kushner, the senior adviser to the president,
and Gary D. Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, as well as Ivanka Trump.
He suggested that even former President Ronald Reagan would have blessed the plan: “I’m not at all sure the Gipper wouldn’t have
been very happy with this.” He said he had no idea how the proposal would be received by the current White House or Congress.