John D. Graham, who worked for President George W. Bush as Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, outlined what a conservative climate platform could look like for the GOP. In an op-ed published in the Hill, Graham highlighted a revenue-neutral carbon tax as the most effective means of reducing emissions. The tax could “replace numerous, intrusive regulations on personal and corporate behavior,” he wrote. He also called for a border tax so that “companies that disobey environmental laws [don’t] gain an unfair advantage.”
“There shouldn’t be a price advantage for imports from big-time polluters,” according to Graham, who currently serves as Dean of Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs. He called for rules such as the Clean Power Plan and fuel economy standards to be “scrapped” because “sometimes businesses have better solutions to environmental problems than a regulation permits.” He also called for elimination of subsidies and tax breaks for fossil fuel and renewable energy to get “the federal government out of the energy business.”
While Graham’s plan is starkly different from what the GOP passed at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland last week, Graham suggested his platform could “reassure swing voters that a conservative Republican environmental policy is appealing.”