BTU

ironically stumbled on this the day after BO boosted is clean air plan, which is really only a 10% reduction in one sector, whereas earlier plans were much more ambitious (kpfa 8/4/15=<div></div><div><a href="https://www.desmog.com/2023/02/21/oreskes-conway-the-big-myth-free-market-capitalism-climate-change-mont-pelerin-society/">https://www.desmog.com/2023/02/21/oreskes-conway-the-big-myth-free-market-capitalism-climate-change-mont-pelerin-society/</a></div><div>science historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, authors of the classic 2010 book <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2010/06/10/oreskes-conway-exposing-merchants-doubt/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming</a>, have released a new book placing that doubt machine into a longer arc of U.S. business and political history. <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/big-myth-9781635573572/" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market</a> explores an even more ambitious history dating from the dawn of the 20th century to the present day. The book documents how today’s prevailing anti-regulatory and anti-government postures that deride Big Government and cheer for Big Business did not arise simply from grassroots demands. Instead, they arose from well-funded industry campaigns creating what Oreskes and Conway have called a manufactured consensus “quasi-religious belief” in deregulated markets and an accompanying diehard opposition to governmental solutions to public policy problems. <h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; line-height: 1.2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Fighting Public Utilities, Child Labor Laws</h2>One of the first campaigns in that spirit occurred within the electricity utility industry via an organization which eventually became known as the <a href="https://www.desmog.com/edison-electric-institute/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Edison Electric Institute</a>. What is now colloquially called EEI, was launched in 1885 as the National Electric Light Association, or NELA. At the time, it “represented more than five hundred of the largest privately owned electrical utilities, accounting for more than 90 percent of U.S. kilowatt output,” according to the book. In the 1920s, according to Oreskes and Conway, “electricity industry leaders organized one of the largest propaganda campaigns in the history of the United States.” The campaign aimed to persuade the public that municipal-owned electricity was a bad thing, advocating instead for investor-owned utilities. In the end, though, it resulted in higher rates for homeowners and small businesses and bigger profits for company owners and their bankrollers. The initially unpopular campaign framed its activities under the guise of freedom and market efficiency. NELA’s influence operation — involving rewriting K-12 and university textbooks, courting and funding industry-friendly professors, utilizing astroturf campaigns, deploying sophisticated lobbying techniques to facilitate regulatory and legislative capture, and other deceptive practices — <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2015/12/28/miracle-american-oil-continental-resources-corporate-media-oil-exports/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">resembles</a> <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2017/10/29/lng-exports-comments-copy-paste/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">much</a> of the fossil fuel industry’s <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2023/02/13/exxon-shell-bp-api-concerns-carbon-capture/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">political pressure</a> that DeSmog has <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2013/01/31/three-states-pushing-alec-bill-climate-change-denial-schools/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">covered</a> and <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2013/09/16/frackademia-people-money-behind-edf-fracking-methane-emissions-study/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">uncovered</a> <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2017/06/14/your-energy-america-ddc-advocacy-atlantic-coast-pipeline/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">week-in</a> and <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2019/06/06/enbridge-minnesotans-line-3-front-group-oil-pipeline/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">week-out</a> for <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3dyyx/how-a-small-blog-became-a-thorn-in-the-side-of-corporate-climate-denial" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">over a decade and a half</a>. At the time, it was the first of its kind industrial-scale full-court press, and it provided a roadmap for other corporate hegemons in subsequent decades. And NELA’s goal went far beyond merely winning a PR campaign, Oreskes and Conway conclude; it had much deeper ideological underpinnings.“[U]nlike conventional PR, the aim was not simply to create a positive impression of a particular business or even of the whole industry,” they write. “Rather, the goal—expressed outright in numerous documents—was to change the way Americans thought about private property, capitalism, and regulation” altogether.Core to NELA’s campaign, Oreskes and Conway wrote, was the idea “that free-market capitalism was the embodiment of freedom, writ large, and that any restriction on the freedom of any business would put us on a slippery slope to tyranny.” Private ownership of the electricity industry was, up until then, relatively rare in the United States and even more so throughout the industrializing world. But as of 2017, <a href="https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=40913" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">72 percent </a>of U.S. electricity customers got their power from investor-owned utilities. NELA’s campaign, in other words, changed history as we know it. Today, its successor EEI and its member companies continue to <a href="https://www.energyandpolicy.org/eei-campaign-institute/" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">wage</a> <a href="https://www.energyandpolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Ratepayers-funding-Edison-Electric-Institute-and-other-organizations.pdf" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">deceptive</a> PR campaigns to fight renewable energy and <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2018/05/23/koch-edison-electric-institute-wooing-interior-department-vincent-devito/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">bolster</a> the <a href="https://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/07/12553/utility-trade-group-funds-alec-attack-americans-who-use-solar" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">continued consumption</a> of fossil fuels.The NELA campaign’s legacy, however, goes far beyond its sector alone, according to Oreskes and Conway. “Perhaps most importantly, NELA pioneered a strategy of insisting that these claims were true, regardless of the facts,” they wrote.Broadening their view beyond the fossil fuel industry, Oreskes and Conway also detail how the <a href="https://www.desmog.com/national-association-manufacturers/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">National Association of Manufacturers</a> (NAM) propelled similar efforts across other industries during the same era. Like EEI, fast-forwarding to the present-day, NAM has served as a key node of climate denialism. But in its earliest days, NAM maintained a different sinister focus, according to The Big Myth: advocating against child labor laws amid what the authors described as a “pandemic” of workplace deaths both among young workers and the adult workforce. The sheer volume of such deaths served as one of the first major wakeup calls in the need for a more active regulatory state, the book maps out.In making its case for child labor and against regulations protecting children, NAM espoused “that the federal government had no business interfering in business” and called such a notion “socialistic in its origin, philosophy and associations.”<h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; line-height: 1.2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Libertarian Fringe to (Neo)Liberal Mainstream</h2>While both NELA and NAM laid the groundwork for a paradigm that’s alive and well today, their ideas were not adopted globally until the formation of the <a href="https://www.desmog.com/mont-pelerin-society/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Mont Pelerin Society</a>, a group created in 1947 that like EEI and NAM has received close scrutiny from DeSmog for years. Oreskes and Conway devote a whole chapter of The Big Myth to Mont Pelerin. Like NELA and NAM, Mont Pelerin’s roots lay in anti-regulatory and business-funded ideology. But unlike them, Mont Pelerin came out of academia and via professors committed to the now globally pervasive neoliberal ideology they created. Mont Pelerin inspired similar groups that are, like it, still active today, such as the <a href="https://www.desmog.com/koch-industries-inc/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Koch Industries</a>-funded <a href="https://www.desmog.com/institute-humane-studies-george-mason-university/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Institute for Humane Studies</a> at <a href="https://www.desmog.com/george-mason-university/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">George Mason University</a> and the University of Chicago’s free market-oriented Economics Department.  Oreskes and Conway point to a legion of like-minded groups arising by the 1970s, riding the momentum of an academic community devoted to neoliberal ideology, and reacting to the gains made in environmental protection and other areas. Formation of these groups accelerated after the metaphorical call-to-arms made in a memo written to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce by the then-tobacco industry attorney and soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell. Known today as the <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2011/08/23/40th-anniversary-lewis-powell-memo-launching-corporate-propaganda-infrastructure/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Powell Memo</a>, the 1972 letter called for Big Business to undergo “careful long-range planning and implementation, in consistency of action over an indefinite period of years, in the scale of financing available only through joint effort, and in the political power available only through united action and national organizations.”The Powell Memo, Oreskes and Conway concluded, spearheaded free market fundamentalist groups such as the <a href="https://www.desmog.com/cato-institute/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Cato Institute</a>, <a href="https://www.desmog.com/koch-family-foundations//#!/stream" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Koch Family Foundations</a>, <a href="https://www.desmog.com/scaife-family-foundations/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Scaife Family Foundations</a>, <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2016/01/21/beyond-koch-brothers-scaife-olin-bradley-jane-mayer-dark-money/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Olin Foundation</a>, <a href="https://www.desmog.com/heritage-foundation/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Heritage Foundation</a>, and the <a href="https://www.desmog.com/federalist-society-law-and-public-policy-studies/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Federalist Society</a>, among others. All of these entities, and the groups they fund or work alongside in coalitions, remain powerful forces within U.S. and global politics. The Big Myth further highlights how those think tanks and companies also played a key role in defeating the 2009 and 2010 congressional push, led by then-President Barack Obama, to pass a federal, market-oriented climate bill known as the American Clean Energy and Security Act.[waxman markey]  Critics would charge that the policy approach taken in the bill, emblematically, embodies the very “market fundamentalist” ethos reigning over U.S. politics for the past 100-plus years. During the congressional debate over a bill that would have enshrined the policy lever of cap-and-trade, the <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2013/02/11/study-confirms-tea-party-was-created-big-tobacco-and-billionaires/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Koch-funded Tea Party network</a> also ascended[vid]previous congressional pushes in the 2000s for what was ultimately a business-friendly climate policy, had enjoyed bipartisan support. But The Big Myth explains how as the Tea Party network took flight, Republican Party support for the climate bill — and broader climate action — eroded to a near-zero level. It has mostly remained there since.At the same time, the reality of climate change had and has continued to become all the more clear. That reality though, Oreskes and Conway wrote, clashes with the religion of market fundamentalism. “[H]ad the market fundamentalists spent so much time defending the magic of the market-place that they simply couldn’t accept market failure on a global scale?” the authors asked of the legion of climate-change deniers who helped to kill the bill. “To accept the enormity of what climate change portended for civilization was to accept that capitalism, as practiced, was undermining the very prosperity it was supposed to deliver. And not just in some distant future, but now.”Although this “quasi-religious belief” in the power of the market holds the greatest sway with conservatives, Oreskes and Conway argue that belief in the “magic of the marketplace” has become an intoxicating ideology within liberal circles too, including within climate policy debates.“Even in supposedly liberal enclaves like Cambridge, Massachusetts,” where <a href="https://histsci.fas.harvard.edu/people/naomi-oreskes" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Oreskes teaches at Harvard</a>, “many people think climate change will be best addressed by technological innovation in the marketplace,” the co-authors surmise, perhaps in alluding to the prototypical <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2020/05/24/ernest-moniz-labor-fracking-clean-coal-geoengineering/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">industry-friendly</a> <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2021/07/18/doe-moniz-blueprint-carbon-capture-pipelines/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">policies</a> pushed by former Obama Administration U.S. Secretary of Energy <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2013/04/09/ernest-moniz-keystone-xl-contractor-american-petroleum-institute-fracked-gas-exports/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Ernest Moniz</a> — a professor at the nearby Massachusetts Institute of Technology.“The rise of right-wing think tanks helped spread the pro-market, antigovernment gospel across the country and insert what had been decidedly niche views into the mainstream,” the authors explained of the ideology’s spread. Other scholars have referred to this as the <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2016/01/21/beyond-koch-brothers-scaife-olin-bradley-jane-mayer-dark-money/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">“force field” effect</a>, moving the gravitational pull of what’s possible within U.S. politics further and further toward right-wing, corporate-created policy solutions.The ideological roots of anti-democracy, anti-environmental, and anti-regulatory campaigning explored in The Big Myth also serve as the heart and soul of the book <a href="https://www.desmog.com/climate-cover-up/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming</a>, written by DeSmog co-founders James Hoggan and Richard Littlemore.If you have learned from DeSmog’s reporting shedding light on the climate change denial machine, you’ll love The Big Myth, an excerpt from which follows below. The book is a must-read for all students of the sordid history of public relations and governmental capture. Go <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/big-myth-9781635573572/" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">grab a copy</a> and <a href="https://histsci.fas.harvard.edu/people/naomi-oreskes" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">check</a><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/tr/podcast/widening-the-lens-of-accountability-with/id1439735906?i=1000581948495" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;"> out</a> some <a href="https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-november-16-2022/" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">recent</a> interviews on the book, as well, for further background. A <a href="https://vimeo.com/727392720" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">video</a> of Professor Oreskes discussing the book can also be seen below.<h2 id="h-excerpt-from-the-big-myth" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; line-height: 1.2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Excerpt from The Big Myth</h2>In the 1990s, as capitalism was being declared triumphant in many quarters, scientists had proved that man-made climate change was under way.<span class="modern-footnotes-footnote modern-footnotes-footnote--hover-on-desktop " data-mfn="1" data-mfn-post-scope="0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: initial; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em; padding-left: 2px; padding-right: 2px;"><a role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">1</a> Climate change was textbook market failure. It arose from everyday economic activity— using fossil fuels—but was about to impose a huge external cost, inundating major coastal cities around the globe, making hurricanes and cyclones even more deadly than they already were, and dislocating tens or even hundreds of millions of people. It was also textbook environmental injustice, as poor people would almost certainly bear the brunt of a problem created by the rich.But it also had a textbook answer: putting a price on carbon. Economists called this solution a “Pigouvian tax”—after the Cambridge economist Arthur Pigou, who in the early twentieth century had helped develop the concept of negative externalities. (Pigou also suggested it would be reasonable for governments to subsidize activities that had “positive externalities,” such as education.) The idea of pricing social and environmental costs of carbon was hardly radical; Pigou was firmly mainstream, a respected scholar at Cambridge University, a leading figure in what came to be known as the Cambridge school of economics.<span class="modern-footnotes-footnote modern-footnotes-footnote--hover-on-desktop " data-mfn="2" data-mfn-post-scope="0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: initial; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em; padding-left: 2px; padding-right: 2px;"><a role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">2</a> The obvious benefit of the Pigouvian approach was that it remedied the market failure directly by embedding information—in this case scientific information—into the price of fossil fuels. Then consumers could decide for themselves whether or not to buy more expensive fossil fuels, and producers of alternatives could compete on a level playing field.The Clinton administration proposed to address climate change through a Pigouvian tax, the so-called “BTU” tax (referring to the heat content of fuels as measured in British Thermal Units).<span class="modern-footnotes-footnote modern-footnotes-footnote--hover-on-desktop " data-mfn="3" data-mfn-post-scope="0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: initial; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em; padding-left: 2px; padding-right: 2px;"><a role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; box-shadow: none;">3</a> But it was opposed—indeed, ridiculed—by a broad coalition of conservatives, including, the Chamber of Commerce, the American Petroleum Institute, and virtually every right-wing think tank in America.<span class="modern-footnotes-footnote modern-footnotes-footnote--hover-on-desktop " data-mfn="4" data-mfn-post-scope="0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: initial; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em; padding-left: 2px; padding-right: 2px;"><a role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">4</a> error footnote?  124 in book“Public Utilities Propaganda in the Schools, June 28, 1928,” Editorial Research Reports 1928, vol.II,<a href="https://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre1928062800">https://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre1928062800</a>The notorious Global Climate Coalition, a network of fossil fuel producers and users that in the 1990s successfully prevented the U.S. Congress from ratifying the Kyoto protocol to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, was originally established as a committee of the National Association of Manufacturers. Even though the idea of putting a price on carbon was a mainstream economic approach to market failure, Republicans framed it as just another example of Democrats’ penchant to “tax and spend.” The Wall Street Journal mocked it as Al Gore’s “favorite tax.”<span class="modern-footnotes-footnote modern-footnotes-footnote--hover-on-desktop " data-mfn="5" data-mfn-post-scope="0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: initial; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em; padding-left: 2px; padding-right: 2px;"><a role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">5</a>In his 1979 paper on nonmarket failure, economist Charles Wolf had slipped into his conclusion the idea that one cause of nonmarket failure was “premature but politically effective demands for government action.”<span class="modern-footnotes-footnote modern-footnotes-footnote--hover-on-desktop " data-mfn="6" data-mfn-post-scope="0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: initial; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em; padding-left: 2px; padding-right: 2px;"><a role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; box-shadow: none;">6</a> In the 1990s, many Republicans picked up on this theme, arguing that it was premature to act on climate change. Even at the time, that was wrong: scientists already had a consensus that man-made climate change was under way and likely to be very costly.<span class="modern-footnotes-footnote modern-footnotes-footnote--hover-on-desktop " data-mfn="7" data-mfn-post-scope="0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: initial; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em; padding-left: 2px; padding-right: 2px;"><a role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">7</a> To act in the 1990s would have been appropriate. It would have been timely. But Clinton was unable to generate congressional support for action; Republican opposition made it clear that any proposal to put a price on carbon would be dead on arrival. In 1999, when Vice President Al Gore ran for president on a platform prioritizing climate change, journalist Gregg Easterbrook (brother of Judge Frank Easterbrook) embarrassed him on the campaign trail with a false story that his mentor—climate champion Roger Revelle—had experienced a deathbed conversion and died thinking climate change was not a serious problem.<span class="modern-footnotes-footnote modern-footnotes-footnote--hover-on-desktop " data-mfn="8" data-mfn-post-scope="0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: initial; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em; padding-left: 2px; padding-right: 2px;"><a role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; box-shadow: none;">8</a> (He had not.)As the 1990s became the 2000s—and scientists declared the evidence “unequivocal”—market fundamentalist did not adjust their views. To the contrary, their opposition hardened.<span class="modern-footnotes-footnote modern-footnotes-footnote--hover-on-desktop " data-mfn="9" data-mfn-post-scope="0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: initial; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em; padding-left: 2px; padding-right: 2px;"><a role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">9</a>In 2006, Lord Nicholas Stern, former chief economist of the World Bank, concluded on behalf of the UK government that, yes, fixing climate change would be expensive—perhaps as much as 1 percent of global GDP per annum—but not fixing it would cost much more: at least 5 percent and perhaps as much as 20 percent.<span class="modern-footnotes-footnote modern-footnotes-footnote--hover-on-desktop " data-mfn="10" data-mfn-post-scope="0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: initial; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em; padding-left: 2px; padding-right: 2px;"><a role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; box-shadow: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">1</a><a role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; box-shadow: none;">0</a> Here was a solid argument from a man who could scarcely be accused of being any kind of -ist other than an economist. In response, conservatives dug in deeper. Senator Ted Cruz promoted the canard that global warming had stopped; Senator James Inhofe called it a liberal conspiracy to bring down capitalism.<span class="modern-footnotes-footnote modern-footnotes-footnote--hover-on-desktop " data-mfn="11" data-mfn-post-scope="0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: initial; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em; padding-left: 2px; padding-right: 2px;"><a role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">11</a> No matter what solutions were proposed—market-friendly or not—the right wing found reasons to oppose them. The science wasn’t settled (they claimed). It would be too expensive to fix. We could just adapt. It was all a hoax. Often these claims were couched in libertarian terms, as when in 2011 former House Speaker Newt Gingrich deemed the push to address climate change “the newest excuse to take control of lives.”<span class="modern-footnotes-footnote modern-footnotes-footnote--hover-on-desktop " data-mfn="12" data-mfn-post-scope="0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: initial; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em; padding-left: 2px; padding-right: 2px;"><a role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">12</a>The singular exception to climate denial in Republican Party leadership was Senator John McCain. He and conservative Democrat Joe Lieberman introduced Climate Stewardship acts in 2003, 2005, and 2007 to address the carbon dioxide emissions that drive climate change by creating an emissions trading system—a proven mechanism, albeit more complicated than a Pigouvian tax. But when given the chance to use it to address climate change, Republicans refused.<span class="modern-footnotes-footnote modern-footnotes-footnote--hover-on-desktop " data-mfn="13" data-mfn-post-scope="0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: initial; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em; padding-left: 2px; padding-right: 2px;"><a role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">13</a> The 2003 bill failed on mostly party lines, with a few Democrats and nearly all Republicans in opposition. But it was a closer call than many expected, and soon Congress faced intense lobbying pressure against climate legislation, particularly from NAM and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The 2005 version came to a vote and failed 60–38, with only a handful of Republicans voting yea.<span class="modern-footnotes-footnote modern-footnotes-footnote--hover-on-desktop " data-mfn="14" data-mfn-post-scope="0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: initial; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em; padding-left: 2px; padding-right: 2px;"><a role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">14</a> Two years after that, McCain could not even persuade Republican leaders to bring a climate bill to the Senate floor.<span class="modern-footnotes-footnote modern-footnotes-footnote--hover-on-desktop " data-mfn="15" data-mfn-post-scope="0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: initial; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em; padding-left: 2px; padding-right: 2px;"><a role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">15</a>In 2009, Congress tried once more, with the American Clean Energy and Security Act (better known as Waxman-Markey, for its primary sponsors, Massachusetts representative Ed Markey and California representative Henry Waxman). For the fourth time in a decade, Congress had the opportunity to address climate change using a market mechanism, and for the fourth time rejected it. The bill barely passed the Democratic-led House; nearly all Republicans voted against, as did Democrats from fossil-fuel-producing states (and a few Democrats who found the bill too weak). The Senate never brought it to a vote. Democrats concluded they could not overcome the “wall of opposition” they faced from their Republican colleagues, opposition fortified by fierce lobbying.<span class="modern-footnotes-footnote modern-footnotes-footnote--hover-on-desktop " data-mfn="16" data-mfn-post-scope="0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: initial; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em; padding-left: 2px; padding-right: 2px;"><a role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; box-shadow: none;">16</a> One analysis concluded that, in the eighteen months between January 2009 and June 2010, electric utilities, oil and gas companies, trade associations, and think tanks spent at least $500 million against climate change legislation.<span class="modern-footnotes-footnote modern-footnotes-footnote--hover-on-desktop " data-mfn="17" data-mfn-post-scope="0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: initial; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em; padding-left: 2px; padding-right: 2px;"><a role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; box-shadow: none;">17</a> Another study tracing anti-climate lobbying back to 2003 places the figure at closer to $1 billion.<span class="modern-footnotes-footnote modern-footnotes-footnote--hover-on-desktop " data-mfn="18" data-mfn-post-scope="0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: initial; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em; padding-left: 2px; padding-right: 2px;"><a role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; box-shadow: none;">18</a>The fossil fuel industry’s economic interests in preventing climate action have always been obvious; less understood is how it has camouflaged those interests. No one ever said, “I am denying climate change to protect corporate profits.” They said they were protecting jobs, protecting the economy, and protecting free markets from government “encroachment.” They said they were fighting for capitalism and freedom.But historically, capitalism has never been just one thing: Adam Smith’s eighteenth-century vision of a democratic, distributed marketplace populated by small bankers and businessmen was a far cry from the industrial capitalism that developed in early nineteenth-century England and Germany—with its cruel “Satanic mills”—or the monopolies and managerial capitalism that came to dominate America in the late nineteenth century, much less the globally financed capitalism that emerged at the end of the twentieth century. China has liberalized its markets while continuing to oppress and even murder its ethnic and religious minorities. There are many capitalisms. American market fundamentalists fight for a form of capitalism that is both brutal and ignorant: that brushes aside market failure, anticompetitive practices, and external costs, in part by denying the facts of science, the facts of history, and the necessary role of government in making capitalism work.<span class="modern-footnotes-footnote modern-footnotes-footnote--hover-on-desktop " data-mfn="19" data-mfn-post-scope="0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: initial; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em; padding-left: 2px; padding-right: 2px;"><a role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-0000000069385b1600000000164185f1_52111" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">19</a>The question is not whether government should set limits that prevent individual autonomy from producing collective harm, the question is where we draw the lines. That is not an economic question, it is a political one. Market fundamentalists have managed to distract from the political aspects of these decisions and frame them as questions of “economic freedom.” Thus, a reasonable response to climate change is rejected as unreasonable “government encroachment.”All this may make one wonder: was this ever really about capitalism? Or freedom? Or was it all just one long, semi-continuous, shape-shifting defense of the prerogatives of big business? Of freedom for capital and capitalists? Or had the market fundamentalists spent so much time defending the magic of the market- place that they simply couldn’t accept market failure on a global scale? To accept the enormity of what climate change portended for civilization was to accept that capitalism, as practiced, was undermining the very prosperity it was supposed to deliver. And not just in some distant future, but now.</div><div>ref bib...</div><div></div>=frontline 5 22late 80's (after hansen?) FF deniers pretty sure gov't action on AGW, rallied to ~, doubted they cd win but "ran the table"; dems knew W-M beat ended action for a decade?!<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">1992<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Chapter iii. The Environmental Presidency<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">GOV. BILL CLINTON, Arkansas, 1983-1992:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The man standing beside me today has what it takes to lead this nation from the day we take office. Sen. Al Gore of Tennessee.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MARC CHUPKA, White House economist, 1993-94:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">When Bill Clinton announced that his running mate was going to be Al Gore, that was very exciting.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">There was an anticipation of a much greater effort to tackle climate change.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">BILL CLINTON:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We will finally give the United States a real environmental presidency.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">AL GORE:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Then President-elect Clinton understood clearly that that's why I was on the ticket. That's why I agreed to run as vice president.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MALE NEWSREADER:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">He has won this presidential race, along with Sen. Al Gore, now the vice president-elect.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">JANE McMULLEN:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Now you’re in the White House—<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">AL GORE:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Yeah.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">JANE McMULLEN:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">—to tackle it. Did you feel a sense of responsibility?<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">AL GORE:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Oh, absolutely. That was the principal task that I set for myself entering the White House. And I went to work right away to try to get a carbon tax in our first budget plan.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MARC CHUPKA:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Sen. Gore asked me to produce some quantitative results of how much various energy taxes would reduce emissions.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Feb. 17, 1993<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Our plan does include a broad-based tax on energy, and it is environmentally responsible. It will help us in the future as well as in the present with the deficit.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MARC CHUPKA:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I was excited that a fairly bold step had been proposed.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MALE NEWSREADER:It’s called a "BTU tax."<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">FEMALE NEWSREADER:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The tax is likely to be levied at the producer or distributor level, though consumers would feel it as energy companies passed it along in their prices.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MARC CHUPKA:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It’s a tax policy. You don’t expect everyone to love it. But the opposition to this particular proposal was very strong, very strident, very aggressive.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MALE NEWSREADER:Koch Industries has been called the biggest company you never heard of. The sprawling giant includes pipelines, petrochemicals, asphalt plants, trading floors. Based in Wichita, Kansas, it sells everything from gasoline to beef.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">JEFF NESBIT, Comms. Dir., Citizens for a Sound Economy, 1993:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I would say that virtually no one in the early 1990s had ever heard of Koch Industries.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MALE NEWSREADER:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Koch's core business is distribution. It owns 37,000 miles of international pipeline.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">JEFF NESBIT:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">They can take the heaviest oil, the dirtiest oil, the hardest to turn into a useful product and refine it. And they became the best in the world at doing that. I think it's still probably the second-largest privately held company in the world.The two brothers who ran Koch Industries were Charles and David Koch. They had their sights set on how they were going to deal with issues that were existential to their industry. It's the heart of what they do, so they're going to fight and hang on to that till the bitter end.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">JERRY TAYLOR, Cato Institute, 1991-2014:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Cato Institute was a public policy think tank. It was founded by Charles Koch. And Charles was heavily invested in energy policy discussions back in that time, particularly the emergence of climate change.The Cato Institute position was that climate change is real, but the climate change that we're seeing today is far, far more modest than what the computer models say we should have seen by now. We need to know a lot more before we should be spending trillions of dollars to address it.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">JEFF NESBIT:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">So the Kochs had funding directed at the Cato Institute as a libertarian think tank; they also had funding that went to Citizens for a Sound Economy, which was built for a slightly different purpose, which was to be a quote, grassroots mobilizer.JERRY TAYLOR:Coming out of the gate, we then get served up with a proposed BTU tax. It was obvious to us at the Cato Institute that once that tax is in place, it's going to be very hard to get rid of.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">JEFF NESBIT:We walked over from Citizens for a Sound Economy over to the American Petroleum Institute, and we met with the entire leadership of API. And the meeting was all about, let's just knock out the BTU tax in its infancy.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">JERRY TAYLOR:We would be meeting in various locales in Washington with over 100 people in the room. It was a real war room situation.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">JERRY JASINOWSKI, President of the National Association of Manufacturers :[Archive] This coalition is one of the fastest growing and strongest that I've seen. We will stop the BTU tax and I believe substitute spending cuts in its place. Thank you very much for coming.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">OklahomaRON HOWELL, Former consultant, Koch Industries:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We were known, and I think we made ourselves known that way, as the oil capital of the world. Almost everywhere you'd look had behind it oil industry dollars.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I thought that the tax was a bad idea for America, but predominantly a bad idea for Oklahoma. Oklahoma was not in a good spot at that time at all. Oil wells were being shut. That meant a lot of lost jobs, a lot of lost companies. And this was putting the heel of the boot down hard.I got a call from Koch Industries telling me the industry is very concerned about this, but we're worried that this word isn't getting out. Our particular goal was to focus on Sen. Boren.JEFF NESBIT:David Boren was a moderate Democrat who chaired the relevant committee that would deal with the Clinton budget.RON HOWELL:We were hearing that he wanted to be left to do his own revising of it behind closed doors.JEFF NESBIT:They basically said if we can get David Boren to flip, we win. So they said, we're going to do whatever it takes.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">RON HOWELL:We set about what I would call a grasstops and a grassroots campaign. The grassroots were encouraged to call Sen. Boren and let him know that you do not want a tax, after seeing an ad that showed "take shower, pay a tax; start your car, pay a tax."<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">JEFF NESBIT:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Everybody was given their marching orders out of this playbook. People would stand up behind politicians with signs about no BTU tax. There were rallies.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ENERGY INDUSTRY SPOKESMAN:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">—cost to the average household in Oklahoma is going to be roughly about $500 a year.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">RON HOWELL:My main role was what I would call the grasstops. You may be a civic leader, you may be a CEO. Often it would be Mr. Koch would call them, or myself, and talk them through "Did you know it does this, this, this and this?" Encourage strongly Sen. Boren kill it.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">JEFF NESBIT:What they told the public and what the policymakers were led to believe was that there was an army of folks who were ready to march in the streets. Maybe there were a handful of folks who thought, "Oh, gosh, I should call my senator and register my complaint," but they had no such grassroots army. It was funded and fueled by the corporate interests.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MALE NEWSREADER:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CSE says its work isn’t done yet. It’s joined forces with other lobbying groups, stoking the flames of the prairie fire, hoping they’ll spread and burn the BTU tax for good.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">RON HOWELL:I remember a very late night or early morning phone call, and it was actually Sen. Boren's communications guy. "We want those ads to stop. And we want the CEOs to quit calling us, and in return, Sen. Boren’s going to announce his intentions to vote against it."<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">SEN. DAVID BOREN, D-Oklahoma, 1979-94 :<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Our proposal is fairer than that put forward by the administration—that is the BTU tax, which is the tax which is a part of the administration's plan that does hit lower- and middle-income Americans.JEFF NESBIT:He folded right away. It’s like wow, this can really work. We can pick our targets strategically and win, even when we’re not in political power.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">NARRATOR:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">At the time, David Boren disputed he was influenced by the oil industry. He said he was responding to concerns from the American public, and he opposed the tax because it would hurt consumers and businesspeople.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MALE NEWSREADER:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">President Clinton has pulled the plug on his proposed BTU energy tax.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">FEMALE NEWSREADER:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Critics said it would cost jobs and devastate the economy, and there weren't enough votes in the Senate to pass it. Besides, who the heck knew what it was?<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MALE NEWSREADER:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This is after all a nation addicted to its cars and to the idea of driving down the open road.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">AL GORE:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It was extremely disappointing to not get the votes. It was just the raw power of all the money that they threw into this. But we just decided to regroup and try to skin the cat a different way.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MARC CHUPKA:They never proposed another energy tax. It was just considered radioactive.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">JEFF NESBIT:I think some of the leadership of the Koch network were really quite excited that it worked so well. So that's how that playbook first began. It was developed right then. What I didn’t know at the time was that it would become the beginning of something much bigger. And that playbook is still in use today.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I don't feel embarrassed or regretful. In hindsight, I shouldn't have done that. There's no question I shouldn't have done that. But they were my client. I was a contractor. I was paid, I'm going to do my job. And my job was to do that.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">NARRATOR:<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.725em; hyphens: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Charles Koch did not respond to questions about the campaign against the BTU tax. In 1994, a top Koch executive said, "Our belief is that the tax, over time, may have destroyed our business."...Correction: Burson-Marsteller and the Global Climate Coalitionby Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber
http://www.prwatch.org/files/pdfs/prwatch/prwv8n3.pdf  (dnlded)
Nearly four years ago, a report on global warming inthe Fourth Quarter 1997 issue of PR Watch stated thatthe Burson-Marsteller PR firm created the Global ClimateCoalition to help the oil and auto industries downplaythe dangers of global warming. We based thisstatement on a source which we regarded as reliable.Burson-Marsteller made no attempt to deny this claimuntil July 2001. Following a recent denial from BursonMarsteller,however, we have undertaken a thoroughreview of our files and have spoken with several sources,none of whom can substantiate this claim. We are thereforeretracting our statement that Burson-Marstellercreated the Global Climate Coalition.We should point out that Burson-Marsteller has beensubscribing to PR Watch since 1995, so they received ourFourth Quarter 1997 issue at the time of its publication.Since Burson-Marsteller is in the business of “reputationmanagement,” its failure to request a correction previouslyon this point is rather striking—particularly sinceour article was subsequently cited on this point in dozensof other published news stories.The most important issue, however, is the questionof whether Burson-Marsteller has participated in thepetroleum industry’s campaigns to block measuresaimed at preventing global warming. B-M may not haveactually created the GCC, but its work for the petroleumindustry on this issue is beyond dispute.In 1993, for example, Burson-Marsteller led a $1.8million campaign to defeat President Clinton’s proposedBTU tax on fossil fuels, the centerpiece of Clinton’s planto combat global warming. Journalist David Helvargdescribed this campaign as follows in the December1996 issue of The Nation: “Clinton committed theUnited States ‘to reducing our emissions of greenhousegases to their 1990 levels by the year 2000.’ The Administration’splan to accomplish this included a deficit reducingenergy tax and increased gasoline taxes of upto 25 cents a gallon. Then a computer-driven ‘grassroots’ letter and phone-in campaign orchestrated by theAmerican Energy Alliance, along with an oil-fundedpush by PR giant Burson-Marsteller, helped underminesupport for the energy tax. The Administration abandonedthe tax in the Senate after House Democrats,braving the wrath of industry, had passed it. Relationsbetween the White House and Congressional Democratssoured quickly after that. Congress also voted to keepthe gas tax below 5 cents, guaranteeing that with thelowest fuel prices in the developed world, alternativeenergy sources would remain noncompetitive.”Burson-Marsteller’s campaign against the BTU taxwas also described in Time, which reported on June 21,1993 that the National Association of Manufacturers(the original sponsor of the Global Climate Coalition)“got together with the American Petroleum Institute,1,600 large companies, small businesses and farmers toform the American Energy Alliance (AEA), a groupdesigned solely to defeat the BTU tax. The coalition paidmore than $1 million to Burson-Marsteller, a public relationsfirm, to deploy nearly 45 staff members in 23 statesduring the past two months. . . . Burson’s operativesdrafted anti-BTU editorials and sent them to copyhungryweekly newspapers. They helped school boardsfigure their estimated annual energy taxes. They commissionedlocal economists to produce studies aboutpotential job loss and then organized rallies and pressconferences to publicize the results. They bombardedTV and radio stations with feeds from local businessowners angry about the BTU tax. ‘It was unlike anythingI’ve ever seen,’ said Brent Stanghelle, farm-news directorof radio station KMON in Great Falls, Montana. ‘Itwas like spring planting—frantic, crazy. I couldn’t beginto take all the calls.’”
Campaigns and Elections magazine noted in May 1994that the campaign against Clinton’s BTU proposal wasrun by a Burson-Marsteller division called the “AdvocacyCommunications Team,” headed by James E.McAvoy, a former aide to Dan Quayle and Bob Dole.Burson-Marsteller’s role in the campaign was also notedin the Legal Times (May 31, 1993), New York Times (June14, 1993), Christian Science Monitor (June 15, 1993) andPolitical Finance and Lobby Reporter (June 25, 1993). Itwas also mentioned on May 4, 1993 in the Oil Daily, apetroleum industry trade publication, which stated,“Among the petroleum industry groups joining the multimillion-dollarcampaign are the American PetroleumInstitute, the National Petroleum Refiners Associationand major oil companies, including Amoco Corp., AshlandOil Inc., Chevron Corp., Diamond Shamrock Inc.,Exxon Corp., Fina Inc., Phillips Petroleum Co. andTexaco Inc. The alliance is spearheaded by the NationalAssociation of Manufacturers (NAM). . . . The alliancehas hired the public relations powerhouse BursonMarstellerand a direct-mail firm called Direct ImpactInc. to conduct the public relations campaign.”
Finally, Burson-Marsteller itself has boasted aboutthe success of this campaign. The February 1994 issueof O’Dwyer’s PR Services Report carried a section titled“Profiles of Top Environmental PR Firms,” submittedby the PR firms themselves. Burson-Marsteller’s profilestated, “B-M’s client the American Energy Alliance wascredited by Treasury Secretary Lloyd-Bentsen in aWashington Post article as ‘one of the most sophisticatedjobs I’ve seen by lobbyists in a long time.’” The 1994issue of Washington Representatives, a comprehensivedirectory of Washington lobbyists and PR firms, also liststhe American Energy Alliance as one of BursonMarsteller’sclients.We have been trying to determine how our sourcemight have concluded that Burson-Marsteller created theGlobal Climate Coalition. It is hard to reconstruct whatmight have happened four years ago, but it is possiblethat confusion might have arisen about the differencebetween the GCC and the American Energy Alliance.In any case, Burson-Marsteller continues to workclosely with the petroleum and automobile industries.The 1997 issue of O’Dwyer’s Directory of Public RelationsFirms listed the American Petroleum Institute, BritishPetroleum, Chevron, Ford Motor Company, Mitsubishi,and Pennzoil among its clients. Other clients historicallyhave included Occidental Petroleum, Caterpillar and thegovernment of Saudi Arabia.
On November 3, 1998, the New York Times reportedthat Burson-Marsteller was behind a front group called“Californians for Realistic Vehicle Standards,” formed tooppose restrictions on automobile emissions of nitrogenoxide and other polluting gases. “The address of themonth-old lobbying group is the Sacramento headquartersof the California Chamber of Commerce,while the group’s phone number is that of the Sacramentooffice of Burson-Marsteller, an internationalpublic relations firm often used by the auto industry.Detroit auto makers provided the bulk of the money forthe new group,” the New York Times stated.Burson-Marsteller is also behind a deceptively-namedgroup called the “Foundation for Clean Air Progress”(FCAP). Judging from its name, you might think thatFCAP supports measures to control air pollution. In fact,it was formed specifically to pressure the U.S. EnvironmentalProtection Agency (EPA) not to adopt tougherair pollution controls. The Washington Post reported onJune 17, 1997 that FCAP participates in a “multimillion-dollarcampaign to turn back EPA regulations forsmog and soot. . . . The nerve center behind the attackis a coalition of more than 500 businesses and tradegroups that calls itself the Air Quality Standards Coalition.Created specifically to battle the clean air proposals,the coalition operates out of the offices of theNational Association of Manufacturers, a Washington basedtrade group. Its leadership includes top managersof petroleum, automotive and utility companies as wellas longtime Washington insiders such as C. BoydenGray, a counsel to former president George Bush. Thesame industries would likely bear the brunt of the costsfor the new regulations, which the EPA estimates at morethan $ 6 billion a year. . . . Exxon, a member of the coalition,recently sent notices to its credit card customersurging them to oppose the EPA regulations. Other companieshelped pay for TV and newspapers ads producedby the Foundation for Clean Air Progress, a nonprofitinstitute funded by energy, transportation and manufacturingcompanies that operates out of the offices ofthe public relations firm, Burson-Marsteller.”According to Frank O’Donnell, executive director ofa genuine environmental group called the Clean AirTrust, FCAP “was formed to distract the public fromthe dangers of air pollution. It tries to ignore the fact thatair pollution—much of it produced by the foundation’sfinancial backers—is still linked to tens of thousands ofpremature deaths a year.” O’Donnell noted that FCAP’smembers are also major sources of greenhouse gases(U.S. Newswire, March 16, 1998).The Tennessean reported on July 14, 1996 that FCAPwas “made up of 20 organizations” including “the AmericanPetroleum Institute, Petroleum Marketers Associationof America, American Trucking Associations,American Farm Bureau Federation and the TransportationCoalition for Clean Air. . . . The foundationitself is not listed with Washington, D.C., telephonedirectory assistance. Burson-Marsteller staffers answercalls made to a number listed in a handout.” 
PR Week Offers FreeAdvice to Philip MorrisThe Philip Morris tobacco company was recentlyforced to apologized for its role in commissioning areport which claimed that the Czech Republic benefitseconomically from the premature deaths of citizens. Evereager to help an old friend, the August 6 issue of PR Weekasked PR pros, “How can Philip Morris regain PRground following the publication of the Czech report?”Advice from the experts included:• “More advertisements praising the philanthropic activitiesof its Kraft and Miller subsidiaries would be wise.”• “The best thing for it to do is minimize its publicprofile.”• “Partner itself with a consumer watchdog group.”• “Fire all of those involved in commissioning thesestudies, and obtain confidentiality statements fromeach of them.”• “Resist interview requests; any interviews on  this willbe no-win situations.” endit
=<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/09/news/09iht-plan_1.html">http://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/09/news/09iht-plan_1.html</a>

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BTU tax 1993 first attempt at US carbon legislation?  NAM and GCC,  American Enenrgy Alliance (BM)  handed Clinton his ass, dems understood danger

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RS 9/14

Arizona Sen. Dennis DeConcini was "surprised and disappointed" at the decision to drop the case. "Our investigation was some of the finest work the Senate has ever done," he said. "There was an overwhelming case against Koch." But Koch did not avoid all punishment. Under the False Claims Act, which allows private citizens to file lawsuits on behalf of the government, Bill sued the company, accusing it of defrauding the feds of royalty income on its "volume enhanced" purchases of Native oil. A jury concluded Koch had submitted more than 24,000 false claims, exposing Koch to some $214 million in penalties. Koch later settled, paying $25 million.

Self interest continued to define Koch Industries' adventures in public policy. In the early 1990s, in a high-profile initiative of the first-term Clinton White House, the administration was pushing for a levy on the heat content of fuels. Known as the BTU tax, it was the earliest attempt by the federal government to recoup damages from climate polluters. But Koch Industries could not stand losing its most valuable subsidy: the public policy that allowed it to treat the atmosphere as an open sewer. Richard Fink, head of Koch Company's Public Sector and the longtime mastermind of the Koch brothers' political empire, confessed to The Wichita Eagle in 1994 that Koch could not compete if it actually had to pay for the damage it did to the environment: "Our belief is that the tax, over time, may have destroyed our business."

To fight this threat, the Kochs funded a "grassroots" uprising – one that foreshadowed the emergence, decades later, of the Tea Party. The effort was run through Citizens for a Sound Economy, to which the brothers had spent a decade giving nearly $8 million to create what David Koch called "a sales force" to communicate the brothers' political agenda through town hall meetings and anti-tax rallies designed to look like spontaneous demonstrations. In 1994, David Koch bragged that CSE's campaign "played a key role in defeating the administration's plans for a huge and cumbersome BTU tax."

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koch nyer:

By 1993, when Bill Clinton became President, Citizens for a Sound Economy had become a prototype for the kind of corporate-backed opposition campaigns that have proliferated during the Obama era. The group waged a successful assault on Clinton’s proposed B.T.U. tax on energy, for instance, running advertisements, staging media events, and targeting opponents. And it mobilized anti-tax rallies outside the Capitol—rallies that NPR described as “designed to strike fear into the hearts of wavering Democrats.” Dan Glickman, a former Democratic congressman from Wichita, who supported the B.T.U. tax, recalled, “I’d been in Congress eighteen years. The Kochs actually engaged against me and funded my opponent. They used a lot of resources and effort—their employees, too.” Glickman suffered a surprise defeat. “I can’t prove it, but I think I was probably their victim,” he said.

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sierra club?

Take the Clinton administration’s ill-fated 1993 proposal for an energy tax. Designed to curb the nation’s appetite for imported oil and gasoline, the legislation was defeated with the help of a massive press and public-relations campaign mounted by CSE. It targeted Senator David Boren (D-Okla.), the swing vote on two key committees. After being hammered on radio and television as well as in print, Boren, who now heads the University of Oklahoma, agreed to oppose the Clinton tax, thus effectively killing it.

Within days of his decision, Boren was being supported by the same Koch interests that were funding CSE. In the three-month period from April 22 to July 8, 1993, in fact, Boren received at least $22,500 from the oil industry.

silver or lead?

=

Anti-fossil fuel tax campaign

In 1993 Burson-Marsteller led a $1.8m campaign to defeat a proposed tax on fossil fuels. President Clinton’s BTU (British Thermal Unit) Tax was the U.S.'s most ambitious measure to combat climate change. The BTU Tax was to be levied on fossil fuels, specifically on the heat generating capacity of fossil fuels. (A BTU is a measure of how much heat a given mass of fuel releases.) A $.25 per gallon gasoline tax and other levies were at the center of Clinton’s plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2000. The National Association of Manufacturers (a sponsor of the Global Climate Coalition), the American Petroleum Institute, more than 1,600 large and small companies, as well as farmers organized to create the American Energy Alliance (AEA), specifically to derail the BTU tax.

The AEA hired B-M to orchestrate the campaign. Deploying some 45 staff in 23 states, B-M organised a "grassroots" letter writing and phone-in campaign. It placed anti-BTU articles and editorials in the press, commissioned sceptical economists to write reports, and obtained media access for businesspeople to express their views. It also lobbied against the tax in Washington, D.C. Congressional support for the BTU tax quickly withered and Clinton’s plan was defeated. Congress voted for the tax to be kept below $.05 per gallon. Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen described the BTU campaign as “one of the most sophisticated jobs I've seen by lobbyists in a long time.”

An energy tax is a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax" title="Tax" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">tax</a> that increases the price of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy" title="Energy" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">energy</a> (Fisher et al., 1996, p. 416).<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_tax#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[1]</a> Arguments in favour of energy taxes have included the pursuit of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroeconomic" title="Macroeconomic" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">macroeconomic</a> objectives, e.g., <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_deficit" title="Fiscal deficit" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">fiscal deficit</a> reduction in the 1990s, as well as environmental benefits, i.e., reduced pollution (Nellor, 1994, p. 1).<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_tax#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[2]</a> A weakness of energy taxes is that they impose a burden (or cost) in the form of reduced economic output and employment (p. 19).

<h2 style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border: none; display: inline; background-image: none;">Contents</h2>

[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_tax#" class="internal" id="togglelink" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">hide</a>] </div>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_tax#United_States" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">1 United States</a>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-2" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_tax#Colorado" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">1.1 Colorado</a></li>

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<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_tax#References" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">2 References</a></li>

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<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">United States<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="-webkit-user-select: none; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; padding-right: 0.25em; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate; direction: ltr;">[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Energy_tax&action=edit&section=1" title="Edit section: United States" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">edit source</a> | <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Energy_tax&veaction=edit&section=1" title="Edit section: United States" class="mw-editsection-visualeditor" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">editbeta</a>]</h2>

<p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In 1993, then President <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton" title="Bill Clinton" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Bill Clinton</a> proposed a BTU tax. A BTU tax is a type of energy tax (Baron, 1997, p. 14).<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_tax#cite_note-3" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[3]</a> The tax would have taxed all fuel sources based on their heat content except for wind, solar, and geothermal. It was never adopted. The BTU tax passed the House, but was rejected by the Senate in light of the lobbying effort mobilized against its adoption. The rejected proposal was watered down, as the Clinton administration tried to salvage their efforts by offering to exempt manufacturers and base the tax on the cost rather than the heat content of energy.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_tax#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[4]</a> Many of the House Democrats who voted for the tax and who lost their seats in the 1994 midterm election, blamed their loss on their vote for the BTU tax. Getting "BTU'd" became Beltway slang at the time for those who lost reelection by voting for the controversial proposal.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_tax#cite_note-5" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[5]</a>

<h3 style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-style: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Colorado<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="-webkit-user-select: none; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; padding-right: 0.25em; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate; direction: ltr;">[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Energy_tax&action=edit&section=2" title="Edit section: Colorado" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">edit source</a> | <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Energy_tax&veaction=edit&section=2" title="Edit section: Colorado" class="mw-editsection-visualeditor" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">editbeta</a>]</h3>

<p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On 7 November 2006, citizens of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulder_Colorado" title="Boulder Colorado" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Boulder Colorado</a> (a college town with roughly 100,000 residents situated in the foothills of the Rocky Mtns) voted in favor of initiative 202, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_Action_Plan" title="Climate Action Plan" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Climate Action Plan</a> Tax. This marks the first time in the nation that a municipal government has imposed an energy tax directly upon its residents to combat global warming. The CAP tax applies to energy consumption with deductions for carbon-neutral and renewable energy sources (such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xcel_Energy" title="Xcel Energy" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Xcel Energy</a>’s WindSource). The tax appears on consumer’s energy bills, and is used to fund the city’s Office of Environmental Affairs which, is in charge of programs designed to reduce Boulder's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_footprint" title="Carbon footprint" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">carbon footprint</a>.

The CAP tax will generate roughly $1 million annually. The City Council has the authority to increase the rates as needed. As of October 2009, the rate is assigned as follows:<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_tax#cite_note-6" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[6]</a>

<table class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em 0px; border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); border-collapse: collapse; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);"><tbody><tr><th style=" border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em; background-color: rgb(242, 242, 242); text-align: center;">Electricity User Type</th><th style=" border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em; background-color: rgb(242, 242, 242); text-align: center;">Tax Rate</th><th style=" border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em; background-color: rgb(242, 242, 242); text-align: center;">Average Annual Tax</th></tr><tr><td style=" border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em;">Residential</td><td style=" border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em;">$0.0049/kWh</td><td style=" border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em;">$21</td></tr><tr><td style=" border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em;">Commercial</td><td style=" border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em;">$0.0009/kWh</td><td style=" border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em;">$94</td></tr><tr><td style=" border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em;">Industrial</td><td style=" border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em;">$0.0003/kWh</td><td style=" border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em;">$9,600</td></tr></tbody></table>

<h2 style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">References</h2><div>
</div><div>=</div><div><a href="https://www.carbontax.org/some-history/">https://www.carbontax.org/some-history/</a></div><div>
</div><div>This page summarizes some past efforts to increase energy taxes in the U.S.Clinton Btu Tax (1993)In 1993, the Clinton Administration proposed a general tax on all energy forms, as part of a broader deficit-reduction plan and also to promote energy conservation. The tax was to be levied on coal, natural gas, liquefied petroleum gases, gasoline, nuclear-generated electricity, hydro-electricity, and imported electricity, at a base rate of 25.7 cents per million Btu, with an additional 34.2 cents per million Btu on refined petroleum products. Opposition was broad-based, ranging from oil companies and farmers to major energy-users such as aluminum corporations and their advocates at the National Association of Manufacturers. The “Transportation Fuels Tax” became law on Oct. 1, 1993, but not as the broad-based tax originally proposed. As enacted, the law imposed an average tax of 13.814 cents per gallon on gasoline, diesel, and special motor fuels. <a href="http://www.american.edu/TED/usbtutax.htm" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;"> </a>An unfortunate legacy of the Btu tax proposal has been to discourage elected officials from seeking higher levies on fuels or even fuel-based emissions. Indeed, as <a href="http://grist.org/article/national-clean-energy-summit-wonk-in-chief/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">Grist’s Dave Roberts reported</a>, Bill Clinton himself, addressing the National Clean Energy Summit in August 2008, said he supports pricing carbon via a cap-and-trade system because “I tried [a carbon tax] once. It didn’t work for me.” Unfortunately, Clinton’s framing of his Btu tax as a carbon tax is both inaccurate and unhelpful. In his remarks, the former president also missed a chance to draw lessons from the 1993 failure. One is that a tax proposal geared toward a societal outcome (e.g., climate protection) rather than revenue should be revenue-neutral. A second is that the design of the tax should avoid the smorgasbord of exemptions that weighed down the 1993 proposal.Recently, in a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/05/business/energy-environment/large-companies-prepared-to-pay-price-on-carbon.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">major story</a> that led the NY Times front page on Dec. 5, 2013, the paper’s new climate-beat reporter Coral Davenport picked up Clinton’s meme:Past efforts to enact a carbon price in Washington have failed largely because powerful fossil-fuel groups financed campaigns against lawmakers who supported a carbon tax. In 1994, dozens of Democratic lawmakers lost their jobs after Al Gore, who was vice president at the time, urged them to vote for a <a title="More articles about climate and energy legislation." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/energy-environment/climate-and-energy-legislation/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">climate change bill</a> that would have effectively taxed carbon pollution. In 2009, President Obama urged House Democrats to vote for a <a title="More articles about carbon caps and emissions trading programs." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/g/greenhouse_gas_emissions/cap_and_trade/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">cap-and-trade</a> bill that would have required companies whose carbon-dioxide emissions exceeded set levels to buy emissions rights from those who emitted less. The next year, Tea Party groups spent millions to successfully unseat members who voted for the bill. (emphasis added)Actually, the Btu tax was promoted as a broad-based environmental measure and a revenue-raiser, and hardly if at all as a climate measure. Moreover, the backlash against it was far from the lone catalyst of the Democrats’ resounding defeat in the 1994 midterm elections. The party was caught short by then-GOP leader Newt Gingrich’s astute political branding (the “Contract for America”) and by the National Rifle Association’s pushback against the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">federal assault weapons ban</a> enacted earlier that year. As NY Times Sunday Magazine writer Robert Draper noted in his Dec. 15 cover story, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/magazine/inside-the-power-of-the-nra.html?pagewanted=all" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">Inside the Power of the N.R.A.</a>, “[W]hen President Bill Clinton and Congress passed a ban on assault weapons[,] the gun group then targeted the bill’s proponents during the midterm elections. Many of them lost and Republicans became the majority. ‘The N.R.A. is the reason Republicans control the House,’ Clinton ruefully observed.” In short, the idea that a “carbon tax” bill flipped control of the House in 1994 is historical revisionism run amok. (Otherwise, Davenport’s account is solid.)Minnesota Carbon Tax (mid-1990s)In the 1990s, energy activists in Minnesota led in part by the <a href="http://www.ilsr.org/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">Institute for Local Self-Reliance</a> undertook an effort to enact a billion-dollar state “tax shift” to raise energy prices while reducing taxes on income and/or property. The proposal was debated extensively but was never enacted into law. The Institute has <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.ilsr.org/ilsrs-minnesota-carbon-tax-shift-archives/&sa=U&ei=zv-hUr6LDs_TqQHr5IHwDw&ved=0CAUQFjAA&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNG5W11FhluaG97XcIBa3qoPKuvF7g" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">archived</a> key documents in support of the initiative, including testimony, fact sheets, economic analyses and draft legislation.Other State InitiativesThe <a href="http://serconline.org/index.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">State Environmental Resource Center</a> compiled brief accounts of past carbon tax initiatives in Minnesota and five other states: CA, MD, OR, TX, VT. Although SERC has ceased operation (its office is now the Wisconsin office for Defenders of Wildlife), their helpful page may still be accessed <a href="http://serconline.org/carbontaxing/stateactivity.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">here</a>.John Anderson 50-50 Tax (1980)In August 1979, Rep. John Anderson (IL) called for a 50-cent-per gallon energy conservation tax on motor vehicle fuels to reduce consumption and dependence on foreign oil. He proposed using the revenues from the tax to reduce payroll taxes by 50 percent, increase Social Security benefits, compensate those who were not on a payroll and thus not subject to the payroll tax, exempt farmers and allow tax credits for businesses “unfairly penalized.” (See Anderson’s <a href="http://www.4president.org/brochures/andersonlucey1980brochure.htm" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">Campaign Brochure</a>.) In making his proposal, Congressman Anderson was not naive about the politics of proposing a gas tax:<blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 20px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; border-left: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“I am under no illusions regarding the popularity of this tax,” he acknowledged, and went on to state, prophetically, “But higher gasoline taxes in this country are unavoidable. We have no choice. Either we tax ourselves by means of a gasoline tax, or OPEC will tax us in the form of higher and higher prices for crude oil.” (Unfortunately, the Sept. 11, 1979 news clip with this quote is no longer Web-available.)</blockquote>At that time, of course, the importance of taxing fuels other than gasoline to reduce emissions of CO2 emissions was not yet recognized.</div><div>
</div><div>=</div><div>ggl 8 23<a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=btu+tax+clinton+gore"> </a><a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=btu+tax+clinton+gore">https://www.google.com/search?q=btu+tax+clinton+gore</a></div><div>
</div><div><div>
</div><div>The BTU Tax Experience</div><div>
</div><div>DigitalCommons@Pace</div><div>https://digitalcommons.pace.edu › cgi › viewcontent</div><div>by D Erlandson · 1994 · Cited by 71 — Gore's support, coupled with a number of additional factors, set the stage for the acceptance of a broad-based energy tax by the Clinton Administration.</div><div>People also ask</div><div>What was Clinton's BTU tax?</div><div>Feedback</div><div>
</div><div>CLINTON BACKS OFF PLAN FOR NEW TAX ON HEAT IN ...</div><div>
</div><div>The New York Times</div><div>https://www.nytimes.com › 1993/06/09 › clinton-backs-...</div><div>Jun 9, 1993 — The B.T.U. tax Mr. Clinton offered would raise $72 billion of the $250 billion in additional taxes the President has proposed for the next five ...</div><div>
</div><div>Al Gore's Favorite Tax</div><div>
</div><div>Wall Street Journal</div><div>https://www.wsj.com › articles</div><div>The 4.3 levy was a compromise worked out in the Senate after Democrats John Breaux and David Boren killed the Clinton-Gore BTU tax proposal that passed the ...</div><div>
</div><div>Some History</div><div>
</div><div>Carbon Tax Center</div><div>https://www.carbontax.org › some-history</div><div>Clinton Btu Tax (1993). In 1993, the Clinton Administration proposed a general tax on all energy forms, as part of a broader deficit-reduction plan and also to ...</div><div>
</div><div>Clinton's Stealth BTU Tax</div><div>
</div><div>Competitive Enterprise Institute</div><div>https://cei.org › Publication</div><div>Oct 1, 1996 — The tax on BTUs (or "British Thermal Units") was estimated to cost approximately $30 billion per year, or over $300 per family of four. Some ...</div><div>
</div><div>Roll Call Vote 103 rd Congress - 1 st Session</div><div>
</div><div>Senate.gov</div><div>https://www.senate.gov › LIS › vote_103_1_00068</div><div>... an exemption for biomass-derived ethanol under the administration's Btu energy tax and to offset lost revenues by reducing new spending increases.</div><div>
</div><div>The Three Major Problems with a Carbon Tax</div><div>
</div><div>Manhattan Institute</div><div>https://manhattan.institute › article › the-three-major-p...</div><div>Feb 4, 2019 — Al Gore proposed a carbon tax back in 1992. The Clinton administration tried, and failed, to impose a “Btu” tax on all forms of energy. The ...</div><div>
</div><div>Carbon-tax idea resurfaces In Washington</div><div>
</div><div>Times Record News</div><div>https://www.timesrecordnews.com › story › 2018/08/11</div><div>Aug 11, 2018 — The Clinton-Gore idea was called the BTU tax, which was based on the energy content of energy. It was named after the energy measurement of ...</div><div>
</div><div>Carbon Tax Kills Jobs, Raises Energy Prices</div><div>
</div><div>National Review</div><div>https://www.nationalreview.com › 2017/03 › carbon-t...</div><div>Mar 23, 2017 — Bill Clinton and Al Gore tried to pass a BTU tax in 1993. Its defeat helped usher in a Republican-controlled Congress for the first time in ...</div><div>
</div><div>Gore's carbon tax makes good sense</div><div>
</div><div>Politico</div><div>https://www.politico.com › story › 2009/09 › gores-ca...</div><div>Sep 23, 2009 — A carbon tax could be designed to take into account the geographic location of the taxpayer, so that taxpayers in states reliant on coal receive ...</div><div>
</div><div>CEOs' Support for Bill Clinton's Tax Increase Package ...</div><div>
</div><div>Cambridge University Press & Assessment</div><div>https://www.cambridge.org › core › journals › article › u...</div><div>by S HAYASAKI · 2023 — Cohen (R-ME), proposed an alternative reconciliation package that eliminated the BTU tax and imposed a cap on entitlement spending to make ...</div><div>
</div><div>Deficit-Reduction Bill Narrowly Passes - CQ Press Library</div><div>
</div><div>CQ Press Library</div><div>https://library.cqpress.com › cqalmanac › document</div><div>But the battle over the bill forced Clinton to give up other major features — most notably, his proposal for a $71.5 billion tax on almost all forms of energy.</div><div>
</div><div>CLINTON REVISES ENERGY TAX PLAN</div><div>
</div><div>Chicago Tribune</div><div>https://www.chicagotribune.com › news › ct-xpm-1993-...</div><div>Jun 9, 1993 — But even an energy sales tax may be too burdensome for some Democratic opponents of the Btu tax. Sen. David Boren (D-Okla.), who holds the swing ...</div><div>
</div><div>The Back–door Btu Tax</div><div>
</div><div>Taylor & Francis Online</div><div>https://www.tandfonline.com › doi › pdf</div><div>by GR Schleede · 2000 · Cited by 1 — in 1993 of the hated Clinton-Gore “Btu Tax.” However, some of these same people seem to have forgotten that political leaders who are committed to a ...</div><div>
</div><div>A Fool's Errand: Al Gore's $15 Trillion Carbon Tax</div><div>The Heartland Institute</div><div>https://heartland.org › opinion › a-fools-errand-al-gor...</div><div>May 15, 2017 — Gore would start the tax at $50 per ton, which would increase to $100 per ton over time, essentially destroying the market for continued robust ...</div><div>
</div><div>ENERGY TAX WILL BECOME LAW, GORE SAYS</div><div>
</div><div>Deseret News</div><div>https://www.deseret.com › energy-tax-will-become-la...</div><div>May 17, 1993 — Vice President Al Gore said Tuesday the administration will not abandon its proposed energy tax and opposes putting caps on mandatory ...</div><div>
</div><div>Andrew Revkin</div><div>
</div><div>Twitter</div><div>https://twitter.com › Revkin › status</div><div>May 11, 2018 — That Clinton/Gore setback on the BTU tax in the ... /2a My '08 interview with former President Clinton on this carbon tax defeat: ...</div><div>
</div><div>Clinton and the Economy: The Paradox of Policy Success ...</div><div>
</div><div>JSTOR</div><div>https://www.jstor.org › stable</div><div>by MS Weatherford · 1996 · Cited by 34 — on the heat output, or British thermal unit (Btu), of various forms of energy, the tax was advocated by Vice President Al Gore because it finessed several.</div><div>Images for btu tax clinton gore</div><div>Andrew Revkin ✍    ☮️ on Twitter: "That Clinton/Gore ...</div><div>Al Gore's Favorite Tax - WSJ</div><div>CLINTON BACKS OFF PLAN FOR NEW TAX ON HEAT IN FUELS - The ...</div><div>A Fool's Errand: Al Gore's $15 Trillion Carbon Tax – The ...</div><div>Energy Tax Quest: Levy That Draws Least Outcry - The New ...</div><div>Gore on warming: tax carbon, not payrolls</div><div>Americans baffled by 'climate law' and tax breaks. Al Gore ...</div><div>Alex Mills: Carbon tax would be 'major deterrent' on economy</div><div>Gore's carbon tax makes good sense - POLITICO</div><div>Gore Meets Resistance in Effort for Steps on Global Warming ...</div><div>View all</div><div>Feedback</div><div>View all</div><div>
</div><div>Clinton appears set to choose inconspicuous way to raise ...</div><div>
</div><div>Baltimore Sun</div><div>https://www.baltimoresun.com › news › bs-xpm-1993-0...</div><div>Feb 16, 1993 — For example, the gasoline tax would have to be raised by a nickel a gallon to raise $20 billion over four years. Under a BTU-based tax, the tax ...</div><div>
</div><div>SENATE PASSES CLINTON BUDGET BILL, 51-50, AFTER ...</div><div>
</div><div>Washington Post</div><div>https://www.washingtonpost.com › 1993/08/07 › senat...</div><div>Aug 7, 1993 — His proposed broad-based energy tax, billed as a way to promote conservation and lessen U.S. dependence on foreign oil, was reduced to a 4.3- ...</div><div>
</div><div>HOUSE PANEL OKAYS BTU TAX PACKAGE</div><div>
</div><div>Oil & Gas Journal</div><div>https://www.ogj.com › home › article › house-panel-o...</div><div>May 24, 1993 — The House ways and means committee has passed President Clinton's tax package after changing collection points for the BTU tax on U.S. fuels ...</div><div>
</div><div>The "Gore Tax", by Fred Foldvary, Ph.D.</div><div>
</div><div>Progress.org</div><div>https://www.progress.org › articles › the-gore-tax</div><div>If Al Gore had made climate change the single top priority during his Vice Presidency, he would have promoted the green tax shift, and then the "Gore tax" would ...</div><div>
</div><div>Clinton backs off energy tax to save rest of budget plan</div><div>
</div><div>Tampa Bay Times</div><div>https://www.tampabay.com › archive › 1993/06/09 › cli...</div><div>Jun 9, 1993 — As recently as last weekend, Clinton's top economic advisers insisted publicly that a tax based on the number of British thermal units generated ...</div><div>
</div><div>Al Gore on Whether or Not a Carbon Tax Would Work in the US</div><div>
</div><div>PBS</div><div>https://www.pbs.org › Home › Video</div><div>
</div><div>3:03</div><div>As pressure continues to build, Christiane speaks with former Vice President Al Gore about the momentum for finally tackling this crisis. Read ...</div><div>PBS · Sep 24, 2019</div><div>
</div><div>The Carbon Tax Is Doomed</div><div>
</div><div>Jacobin</div><div>https://jacobin.com › 2016/10 › oil-fossil-fuel-climate-...</div><div>Oct 9, 2016 — The idea is that environmental costs not reflected by the market could be monetized into prices. Al Gore mainstreamed this logic in his 1993 ...</div><div>
</div><div>How the Electric Utilities Industry Created One of the ' ...</div><div>
</div><div>DeSmog</div><div>https://www.desmog.com › 2023/02/21 › oreskes-con...</div><div>Feb 21, 2023 — The Clinton administration proposed to address climate change through a Pigouvian tax, the so-called “BTU” tax (referring to the heat content of ...</div><div>
</div><div>How US politics is letting the world down - Document</div><div>Gale Research</div><div>https://go.gale.com › i.do</div><div>by S Retallack · 1999 · Cited by 9 — Congress has also prevented the Clinton Administration from increasing the BTU or energy tax, as well as from increasing the 1999 budget for the development of ...</div><div>
</div><div>Tax Reform Prospects</div><div>
</div><div>Committee for Economic Development</div><div>https://www.ced.org › blog › entry › tax-reform-prosp...</div><div>That proposal was of course the brainchild of then-Vice President Al Gore. Voting for the BTU tax in the House was perceived to be an act of considerable ...</div><div>
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