Energy

Here’s The Latest Astroturfing Effort By Pro-Carbon Tax ‘Conservatives’

Reuters

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Tim Pearce Energy Reporter
Font Size:

More than 30 student-led organizations are banding together in a new bipartisan coalition, Students for Carbon Dividends, to push for a carbon tax on fossil fuel companies, Axios reports.

Twenty-two Republican groups are joining with six Democrats and five environmental clubs on college campuses across the U.S. The millennial coalition is backing a bill in Washington that would place a tax on emissions and pay Americans dividends.

Students for Carbon Dividends was founded by a senior at Yale, Alexander Posner, looking for a conservative solution for climate change. Posner interned with the Climate Leadership Council (CLC), founded by bipartisan backers of carbon tax policies, before launching the coalition.

The CLC was founded in part by billionaire businessman Michael Bloomberg, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking and Harvard economics professor N. Gregory Mankiw. Former Secretary of State James Baker also played a role in starting the group and helped draft some if its carbon tax proposals.

“I really don’t know the extent to which it is man-made, and I don’t think anybody can tell you with certainty that it’s all man-made,” Baker told The Washington Post last year while pitching a carbon tax plan to the Trump administration. However, “the risk is sufficiently strong that we need an insurance policy and this is a damn good insurance policy.”

Millennial Republicans largely agree with the CLC, that climate change is an issue that needs to be addressed by federal and state governments. Fifty-seven percent of young Republicans think the government should probably or definitely act, according to Axios.

Follow Tim Pearce on Twitter

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.