Vice President Kamala Harris supported a carbon tax when she last ran for president in the 2020 election cycle, but her campaign ignored repeated requests from the Daily Caller News Foundation to clarify whether she still supported a carbon tax. [emphasis, links added]
During a 2019 town hall meeting hosted by CNN, Harris unequivocally supported a carbon tax, adding Any additional costs passed on to consumers “should never be a reason” not to impose them.
DCNF contacted the Harris campaign multiple times over four days to ask if Harris still supported a carbon tax as she did in the 2020 cycle, But the campaign did not respond to any of those inquiries.
A carbon tax is a government fee on carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions to incentivize emissions reductions, according to the Tax Policy Center.
Supporters of carbon taxes often describe them as a market-friendly mechanism that would help reduce emissions across the U.S. economy while generating tax revenue, But opponents say a carbon tax would only increase costs for businesses and consumers and do little to reduce emissions.
“So you said in the new plan released today, You talked about the climate pollution fee. Just to try to understand what this is, this is going to happen to big companies and they're going to pay for it,” CNN's Erin Burnett, who hosted the town hall event, told Harry Si said. “But how do you make sure they don't do what they want to do, which is pass it on to consumers immediately?”
“Well, one, we're going to do it in the same way that we've always done it in the industry, which is There must be some connection between fees and bad behaviorand there must be—— We have to monitor whether it spreads to consumers. Harris responded.
“But I’m telling you, that should never be a reason not to actually impose a fee — especially a carbon fee.”
Before the CNN event, Harris' 2020 campaign released a sweeping climate change plan that included “gradual increases in carbon fees”The paper also described Harris as one of two Democratic candidates this cycle, Politico reported At that time, he supported the imposition of a “carbon tax”.
Read the break from The Daily Caller
