Senior Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who once served as the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over the U.S. tax code, said he could support a carbon tax if it replaced the income tax. Speaking to hospital workers in Jones County as part of his annual visit to each of Iowas 99 counties, Sen. Grassley addressed a number of policy issues, including climate change. While Grassley said he does not consider the science of climate change to be settled, he would not oppose efforts to combat it. Grassley indicated a carbon tax would be preferable to a regulatory approach, but would put U.S. agriculture at a global disadvantage unless other nations adopted similar policies. Im not convinced that the rest of the world would follow us, he said. Im relying on an international treaty to solve the global warming problem. Then it would put India and China on a level playing field with us. The Senate Finance committee is in the early stages of a process to reform the U.S. tax code.
