January 16, 2024

Dear Members of Congress:

As the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is reportedly going to mark-up the PROVE IT
Act (S. 1863) this week, the undersigned organizations want to express strong opposition to carbon tariffs
and the PROVE IT Act. This legislation is a gateway for a carbon tax on imported goods and a domestic
carbon tax.
It is shocking that legislators would contemplate advancing policy that would increase taxes, drive up
prices for American families, harm workers and those on fixed incomes, and punish energy use.

Yet this is precisely what a carbon tariff does. A carbon tariff is two taxes in one. First, a carbon tariff is a
tax on imported goods, borne by American consumers, workers, and businesses. Once the structure for
imposing a carbon tariff has been established, it can then be used to impose a domestic carbon tax.
To think that the government would develop the administrative infrastructure to impose a domestic
carbon tax without following through is naïve, at best. If the United States were to impose a tax on
imports based on their carbon intensity, then there would be an expectation that domestic goods would be
subjected to a comparable tax-based scheme. In fact, a domestic carbon tax might be required to meet
international trade obligations.

The PROVE IT Act is not a benign government measurement scheme that will exist for knowledge
purposes. It would create a detailed carbon-emissions measuring system for domestic and foreign goods,
putting into place exactly what is needed to implement a carbon tariff and a domestic carbon tax.

Some proponents assert that the PROVE IT Act will help respond to the European Union’s (EU) carbon
tax, otherwise identified as a carbon border adjustment mechanism. The United States should push back
against the EU’s extreme green policies and not, under any circumstances, accept their disastrous
environmental and energy policies.
The EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism and carbon tariffs are a way to impose extraterritorial
regulations. Recently, we have seen these types of regulations domestically, as American farmers know
all too well. Some states have imposed barriers to selling goods, such as eggs and pork, based not on the
nature of the goods but due to moral and ethical preferences on how food should be produced.

Just imagine foreign countries trying to impose their moral preferences on Americans by using tariffs as
leverage over how the U.S. uses energy or how American farmers produce food. Carbon tariffs and the
PROVE IT Act will help establish this precedent.
Maybe even worse than the imposition of all these new taxes is the purpose of the taxes. They are taxes to
punish energy use. Since more than 80 percent of the world’s energy comes from coal, natural gas, and
oil, which produce carbon dioxide emissions, a carbon tariff is a tax on the energy that makes modern life
possible.

It would make medical care, housing, communications, food, and transportation less affordable,
especially for people who already struggle to pay their bills. It would have a disproportionate impact on
the poor and hurt those on fixed incomes, the elderly, and local institutions like hospitals, libraries, and
schools.
The PROVE IT Act and carbon tariffs are not just bad policy, but bad politics. After all, supporting new
taxes and opposing affordable and reliable energy is a toxic concoction.

A new survey sponsored by the American Energy Alliance and the Committee to Unleash Prosperity
found that most Americans opposed a carbon tariff on imported goods, with 63 percent of Republicans
opposed.

This opposition to paying carbon or energy taxes becomes even clearer when respondents were asked
what they are willing to pay each year to address climate change. The median response was just $10, and
35 percent (including 17 percent of Democrats) said they are unwilling to pay anything. American Energy
Alliance president Thomas Pyle captured the results very well:
The results reconfirm what we already knew: voters are not willing to pay any tax associated with
carbon dioxide or energy – including a carbon dioxide or energy tax on imported goods. Those
who believe in limited government and free energy markets continue to be allied with the vast
majority of voters concerning the destructive and pointless nature of carbon dioxide taxes and on
the fundamentals of the climate change issue.
As the markup of the PROVE IT Act approaches, there may be disingenuous gimmicks such as amending
the bill to say it may not be used to impose a carbon tariff. Such a provision does not change the fact that
the foundation would have been created to impose a carbon tariff and domestic carbon tax. Any new
legislation could easily get rid of such a prohibition, and that is exactly what would happen.
The PROVE IT Act and other carbon tariffs efforts show a complete disregard for what matters to
Americans. They want affordable, reliable energy to power their homes and lives, not government
meddling that drives up their household bills. They don’t want federal schemes that treat energy use as a
sin.

We strongly urge legislators to oppose the PROVE IT Act and any other legislation dealing with carbon
tariffs.

Sincerely,
Daren Bakst Thomas J. Pyle
Director, Center for Energy and Environment President
Competitive Enterprise Institute American Energy Alliance
John Droz, Jr. Jason Isaac
Founder CEO
Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) American Energy Institute
Margaret Byfield
Phil Kerpen
Executive Director
President
American Stewards of Liberty
American Commitment
Richard Manning
Kristen Walker
President
Policy Analyst
Americans for Limited Government
The American Consumer Institute
Brent Gardner Kristen A. Ullman
Chief Government Affairs Officer President
Americans for Prosperity Eagle Forum
Craig Richardson
Grover Norquist
President
President
Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E
Americans for Tax Reform
Legal)
David T. Stevenson
Adam Brandon
Director, Center for Energy & Environment
President
Caesar Rodney Institute
FreedomWorks
Ryan Ellis
George Landrith
President
President
Center for a Free Economy
Frontiers of Freedom
Daniel Mitchell
Cameron Sholty
President
Executive Director
Center for Freedom and Prosperity
Heartland Impact
Jeffrey Mazzella
President James Taylor
Center for Individual Freedom President
The Heartland Institute
Isaac Orr
Ryan Walker
Policy Fellow
Executive Vice President
Center of the American Experiment
Heritage Action for America
Craig Rucker
Mario H. Lopez
President
President
Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow
Hispanic Leadership Fund
(CFACT)
Tom Harris
Elizabeth Stelle
Executive Director
Director of Policy Analysis
International Climate Science Coalition
Commonwealth Foundation
Annette Olson
E. Calvin Beisner
Chief Executive Officer
President
The John K. MacIver Institute for Public Policy
Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of
Creation Jon Sanders
Director, Center for Food, Power, and Life
Dr. Steven J. Allen
John Locke Foundation
Vice Chairman
The Conservative Caucus Seton Motley
President
Jerry R. Simmons
Less Government
President/CEO
Domestic Energy Producers Alliance Bob Barr
Chairman, Liberty Guard
Member of Congress, 1995-2003
Brandon Arnold The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
Executive Vice President Deputy Director (Intelligence)
National Taxpayers Union Strategic Threat Assessment Group

Daniel C. Turner David Williams

Donna Jackson Derrick Max

Paul Gessing Ben Zycher

*Affiliation is for identification purposes only.