Here comes the Carbon Tax: Senate Environment panel to take up Sen. Sanders’s carbon tax bill

A Senate panel will begin consideration of a carbon tax bill as part of a broader hearing on climate change in mid-July.

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) told reporters in the Capitol on Thursday that Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) climate bill will surface during that hearing.

 

Boxer has said she wants to get the legislation to the floorthis summer. But it faces a tough path in the Senate, and is likely dead on arrival in the GOP-controlled House.

While liberal Democrats have revived previously moribund climate change discourse in recent months, Republicans and centrist Democrats have their heels dug in against measures that would hike the cost of fossil fuel energy.

A majority of the Senate — 53 members — voted in March to oppose a carbon tax in an amendment to the nonbinding Senate Democratic budget plan.

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