Senate Democrats Say Tariffs Needed in Climate Law
Business Week – April 15 (Bloomberg) — Legislation to cut greenhouse-gas emissions from U.S. industry must include tariffs on some imports to maintain “a level playing field for domestic manufacturers,” a group of Senate Democrats said today.
The fees should apply to imports from countries “that do not have in place comparable greenhouse gas emissions reduction requirements to those adopted by the United States,” Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown and eight other Senate Democrats said in a letter to lawmakers who are trying to revamp stalled climate- change legislation.
Senators John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, and Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, may release a new proposal to limit U.S. greenhouse gas emissions next week. Cap-and-trade legislation, in which companies would buy and sell a declining number of pollution rights, failed to advance in the Senate after passing the House last year.
