No April Fool: Coal Industry Asks For $1 Billion Tax On Fossil Fuels

David Sassoon’s April Fool’s post at Solve Climate, Exxon & Peabody Energy Issue Call For Stiff Carbon Tax, claims that the CEOs of the largest oil and coal companies wrote a “letter to the White House and Congressional leadership today urging immediate adoption of a stiff tax on carbon” but concludes “happy April Fools to one and all.”

In a strange twist, the coal industry did in fact send a letter yesterday to Congress asking for a tax on carbon. A letter to Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) from the United Mine Workers of America and the National Mining Association — the lobbying organization for Peabody and other coal companies supports the Environmental Protection Agency proposal “that the Congress create a ‘Carbon Capture and Storage Early Deployment Fund’ supported by a modest fee on fossil-fueled electric generation to assist in raising the funds and defraying the risks associated with developing CCS technologies” at “approximately $1 billion per year.” The EPA working group estimated such a fee would increase electricity prices approximately 0.6%.

So Peabody’s lobbyists actually did call for a $1 billion tax on fossil fuels — so long as the proceeds go to the coal industry.