Comments Regarding CBAM

Dear Ms. Kreps,

Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments on the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and EU proposals to expand CBAM coverage to hundreds of product categories.1

The USTR invites comments on four issues:

• CBAM’s current impact on the costs, regulatory burden, and access to the EU’s market for U.S. producers, including small- and medium-sized producers; workers; direct and indirect exports; and overall trade with the EU;
• The potential impact of the EU’s three proposals (the Commission, Council and Parliament proposals) to expand CBAM coverage to additional products on the costs, processes, and access to the EU’s market for U.S. producers, including small-and medium-sized producers; workers, direct and indirect exports; and overall trade with the EU;
• Whether CBAM and the EU’s three proposals (the Commission, Council and Parliament proposals) disadvantage, advantage, or have other impacts and potential impacts on U.S. companies as compared to EU companies or third-country companies; and
• Whether and what enforcement action may be appropriate to remedy any negative effects of CBAM.

These comments have a very particular focus. They do not provide specific detailed information on the current and future costs of the EU CBAM on US producers. CEI is confident USTR will receive valuable information on such matters from other commenters, especially industries subject to CBAM reporting and verification requirements and product charges.

On issues (1) and (2), CEI states our overall assessment that the CBAM is a system of climate-themed trade protection and extraterritorial interference with US business practices and markets. Indeed, increasing the price of US products in the EU market can only make them less competitive.2 The CBAM’s extraterritorial reach is beyond dispute. A core CBAM objective as stated in Article 1.1 of the basic text is “creating incentives for the reduction of emissions by operators in third countries.”3 Thus, we take it as a given, that the CBAM potentially undermines US competitiveness, consumer welfare, and the US government’s ability to implement a pro-growth energy abundance agenda.

Similarly, concerning issue (3), the EU Commission, Council and Parliament proposals to expand CBAM coverage from the current six carbon-intensive categories to 100, 300, or 400 clearly have a great potential to multiply dramatically the CBAM’s detrimental impacts on US business, consumers, and policy direction.

Our comments are chiefly on issue (4), and here our focus is on what type of trade remedy the USTR and other policymakers should not pursue. Simply stated, establishing a system of US carbon border taxes would entail substantial risks to US economic liberty and efficiency. It would be a cure worse than the disease.

We believe such comments are valuable because this proceeding and others sure to follow provide high-profile opportunities for border tax advocates to present their case, whether their pitch is for an “America First” trade retaliation system or a new era of US/EU trade and climate policy coordination.

The comments develop the following key points:

• The US government cannot adopt carbon border taxes without sooner or later adopting domestic carbon taxes.
• In today’s policy climate, a carbon tax “involves the power to destroy” the fossil fuels on which Americans depend for 82 percent of US energy.
• The potential costs of carbon taxes far outweigh the potential benefits, and an administration that champions a carbon tax invites fierce popular blowback.
• Any policy that makes carbon intensity a touchstone of trade policy would also make it a decision factor in prices, contracts, investment decisions, corporate governance, and business lobbying, potentially vitiating climate policy rollbacks achieved by President Trump and 119th Congress.
• Creating the carbon intensity database required to implement border taxes could set the stage for narrow partisan majorities to enact carbon taxes via reconciliation bills, much as Senate Democrats did when Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, which included first-ever climate taxes on US oil and gas facilities.
• Neither PROVE IT Act-style math checking nor America’s “carbon advantage” in certain product categories immunizes US manufacturers from CBAM carbon charges.
• The USTR should search for remedies that do not involve importing EU climate policy, which would be a big win for EU extraterritorial regulatory ambition.

The US government cannot adopt carbon border taxes without sooner or later adopting domestic carbon taxes.

A key rationale for a carbon border tax is to “level the playing field” for manufacturers in countries that “put a price on carbon,” whether via carbon taxes or emissions trading schemes.4 The tax aims to mitigate losses domestic producers incur when competing with producers from countries with less stringent climate policies.

Some self-styled “America First” policymakers, who engage CBAM issues mostly through the lens of trade retaliation rather than climate policy, may suppose carbon border taxes need not facilitate the enactment of domestic carbon taxes. That is incorrect.

First, by promising protection from less regulated foreign competition, a carbon border tax saps industry’s will to fight costly5 and infeasible6 domestic climate policies. That is not mere theory. European industry’s unwillingness to organize opposition to the EU’s onerous Green Deal is partly due to border taxes being a core component of the program.7

Second, enacting a policy that imposes carbon taxes solely on foreign-made goods would immediately trigger pressure campaigns for domestic carbon taxes. Invoking “fair trade” and America’s alleged “responsibility to lead on climate,” EU officials, green groups, renewable energy lobbyists, and blue-state politicians would urge Congress to level the playing field—against carbon-intensive US firms.

As a Cato Institute analysis by Gabriella Beaumont-Smith observes, “In particular, most scholars believe that a carbon tariff without a corresponding domestic measure would violate several WTO rules and not qualify for any general exception because there are less protectionist measures available to achieve the same public policy objectives.”8 Indeed, the basic WTO provision is unambiguous: “The products of the territory of any contracting party imported into the territory of any other contracting party shall not be subject, directly or indirectly, to internal taxes or other internal charges of any kind in excess of those applied, directly or indirectly, to like domestic products” (WTO Article III.2).9

Note, too, that the qualifying US carbon price for avoiding CBAM tariff liability is not limited to product-specific emissions intensity charges. Article 3(29) of Regulation (EU) 2023/956 defines “carbon price” as “the monetary amount paid in a third country, under a carbonemissions reduction scheme, in the form of a tax, levy or fee or in the form of emission allowances under a greenhouse gas emissions trading system, calculated on greenhouse gases covered by such a measure, and released during the production of goods.” Article 9(1) states that “an authorized CBAM declarant may claim in the CBAM declaration a reduction in the number of CBAM certificates to be surrendered in order to take into account the carbon price paid in a third country for the declared embedded emissions.”

Third, within the EU CBAM’s legal framework, the only way for US firms to avoid paying EU border taxes is to either cease emitting GHGs or pay commensurate domestic carbon taxes.10 Imposing carbon border taxes on EU firms would not eliminate CBAM tariff liabilities for US exporters.

Nor would the PROVE IT Act11 provide such protection by checking the accuracy of EU estimates of US carbon intensities.12 Although products with lower carbon intensities pay lower CBAM charges, having lower carbon intensities than equivalent EU products would not shield US exports from EU border charges. EU CBAM liability is determined by the imported good’s production process emissions multiplied by the EU ETS carbon price13—not by the good’s carbon intensity compared to a competing EU good.

Fourth, since most US policymakers would rather have US firms pay taxes to the US Treasury than to EU member states,14 establishing a US border tax system would likely revive lobbying for carbon taxes as a “green” solution to America’s fiscal woes.15

Fifth, mere creation of an official database of US carbon emission intensities could enable narrow partisan majorities to enact carbon taxes in future reconciliation proceedings. For example, in the Inflation Reduction Act, Democrats took an existing methaneemissions reporting program16 and used the data to impose first-ever climate taxes on the oil and gas industry. They accomplished that feat through a Senate vote of 51-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie breaker.17

In today’s policy climate, a carbon tax “involves the power to destroy” the fossil fuels on which Americans depend for 82 percent of US energy.

The previous five points confirm what both theory18 and practice19 suggest—carbon border taxes and domestic carbon taxes are reciprocal and complementary aspects of the same policy.

Why does that matter? “The power to tax involves the power to destroy.”20 Carbon taxes penalize carbon-based fuels by design, not collateral impact. Especially in an era of Net-Zero ambition, carbon taxes have a unique power to destroy the economic viability of the fossil fuels that supply 82 percent of U.S. energy.21

We are far from the days when carbon pricing advocates were constrained by Pigouvian notions of social efficiency.22 Net-Zero advocates demand deep decarbonization, not mere internalization of negative externalities. Two recent studies illustrate the influence of Net-Zero politics on carbon tax advocacy.

Stern et al. (2022) complain that US government estimates of the social cost of carbon (SCC) are “far lower than those needed to limit warming to well below 2°C or reach net zeroby 2050.” The authors call on the Biden administration to set a “social cost of carbon consistent with a net-zero climate goal.”23

In Pigouvian theory, analysis determines policy. The SCC—the estimated negative externality from an incremental ton of CO2 emissions—determines the level at which carbon taxes are set, and the market translates those taxes into some unspecified level of emission reductions. In contrast, Stern et al. want CO2 reduction targets to determine (or at least substantially influence) official SCC estimates.

To be sure, critics have long argued that SCC values are assumption-dependent, politically manipulated guestimates, not empirically validated magnitudes.24 Nonetheless, in past decades, carbon tax advocates did not openly start with a predetermined emission reduction target and call for SCC values to be selected accordingly.

In the US government’s 2021 SCC report about which Stern et al. complained, the central SCC estimate for 2050 is $85/ton of CO2.²⁵ In the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2023 revision of US government social cost methodologies, the central SCC estimate for 2050 is $310/ton.26 A legislated carbon tax rising to $310 by 2050 would have significant, adverse effects on electricity prices, economic growth, household income, and employment.27

But even a $310 per ton carbon tax is modest in the world of Net-Zero advocacy. Peng et al. (2021) find nothing amiss in a US carbon tax rising to nearly $1,600 per ton by 2050, which they project would reduce US CO2 emissions 80 percent below 2005 levels.²⁸ Nor do theybalk at an even higher tax achieving a 95 percent reduction (roughly equivalent to Net-Zero), which they project would cost the economy nearly 12 percent of GDP in 2050.29

Danish economist Bjorn Lomborg put Peng et al.’s numbers in perspective:

Total expenditure on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid came to 11.6% of GDP in 2019. The annual cost of trying to hit Mr. Biden’s [Net-Zero] target will rise to $4.4 trillion by 2050. That’s more than everything the federal government is projected to take in this year in tax revenue. It breaks down to $11,300 per person per year, or almost 500 times more than what a majority of Americans is willing to pay.30

The potential costs of carbon taxes far outweigh the potential benefits; an administration that champions a carbon tax invites fierce popular blowback.

A mythical carbon tax steep enough to achieve US Net-Zero emissions by 2050 could cost trillions of dollars annually31 yet avert less than 0.2°C of global warming by 2100.32 Lesser carbon taxes would cost less but also achieve less mitigation. The benefit-cost ratio is always abysmal.

Besides, Americans in general dislike energy taxes because they dislike high energy prices. Net-zero policies flout what American Enterprise Institute economist Roger Pielke, Jr. calls the “iron law” of climate politics, namely, voters are not willing to sacrifice their economic welfare for climate change mitigation. That means “substantially increasing the costs of energy, which supports every aspect of modern life, is off the table as a policy option for achieving deep decarbonization.”33

The salience of energy affordability issues in the November 2026 election cycle confirms the iron law. Iran War-related energy prices recast President Trump and the GOP as unconcerned with affordability, even though high energy prices were a feature, not a bug, of many Net Zero energy policies they dismantled.

Pielke, Jr. reported strong confirmation of the iron law in pre-election polling data on fuel cost increases sparked by the Iran war.34 Here are his data:

• For 2026, carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels are expected to fall by 0.4%.
• Decarbonization accelerated by 0.4 percentage points, far from the 8% to 9% per year implied by 2050 deep decarbonization targets.
• Consumers paid an extra $869 billion to producers, which works out to roughly $21,100 for every tonne of carbon avoided.
• And in every country where pollsters asked, the public responded to higher energy prices by demanding lower ones: 77% of Britons wanted a cap on fuel prices, 51% of Americans blamed the president for [pain at] the pump, and his approval on prices fell to −47.

Pielke, Jr. comments: “Governments have responded as the iron law predicts, with subsidies, price caps, tax cuts, and more coal. Very high carbon prices would produce economic pain and small emissions reductions at enormous cost. No democratic government would be able to keep such prices in place long enough to find out what effects they might have over a decade.”

Carbon border taxes are a gateway or bridge to domestic carbon taxes. Cognizant of the “iron law,” a prudent administration will resist pressure or enticement to take that first step.

The USTR should search for remedies that do not involve importing EU climate policy.

A suggestive approach—i.e. not a blueprint or model—is the international coalition mobilized by Secretaries Marco Rubio, Christopher Wright, and Sean Duffy to oppose the International Maritime Organization’s adoption of its Net Zero Framework.35 Under the NZF, transport vessels must reduce their annual greenhouse gas fuel intensity (GFI). If a ship emits above its GFI target, it must pay a “contribution” (i.e., a tax) into the IMO “Net-Zero Fund.”

Rather than quibble over the IMO’s estimates of US and foreign vessel carbon intensities, the Secretaries rallied a coalition of countries against the NZF.36 They denied the legitimacy of an international carbon tax and took action to upend it. They warned foreign

ministries that ships from countries supporting the tax could be hit with additional fees orcommercial penalties or even denied US port access.37 Feeling the heat, the IMO put NZF adoption on hold for one year. Secretary Rubio vowed to be back with a bigger coalition if the IMO does not relent.38 More than one year has elapsed and NZF adoption remains unresolved.

I make no claim here that this example provides a blueprint for addressing the CBAM. The IMO is an international bureaucracy, the EU is a political and economic union of sovereign states. The CBAM is already on the books. The NZF was and remains a proposal.

Nonetheless, this example is food for thought. In considering remedies, the USTR should be careful to challenge, not ratify, the premise that carbon intensity should be a central organizing principle of modern economic life.

Conclusion

In the 120th Congress, the major party is expected to champion Net Zero climate policies. Vigilance will be needed to preserve the energy policy victories achieved by President Trump and the 119th Congress. Those include:

• The EPA’s rescission of the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding and repeal of all greenhouse gas emission standards for light-, medium-, and heavy duty on-road vehicles;42
• Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement39 and initiation of withdrawal from the UN Framework Convention;40
• Trump and Congress’s repeal of the Biden EPA waivers authorizing California’s Advanced Clean Cars II program;41
• Trump and Congress’s repeal of the Biden EPA rule implementing the IRA methane tax;43
• The One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s repeal44 and reduction45 of numerous IRA green subsidies;
• The Interior Department’s acceleration of oil and gas lease sales;46
• The Security and Exchange Commission’s abandonment47 and proposed rescission48 of its 2024 climate risk disclosure rule;
• The Department of Transportation’s reset of the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program to ensure CAFE standards do not compel vehicle electrification;49
• The EPA’s partial repeal of the Biden administration’s “carbon pollution standards” for coal and natural gas power plants50 and proposed rescission of Clean Air Act § 111 authority to regulate GHG emissions from US power plants;51
• Trump’s disbanding of the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases;52
• The Office of Management and Budget’s subsequent determination that it is “no longer Federal government policy to maintain a uniform estimate of the monetized impacts of greenhouse gas emissions;”53 and,
• The Office of Science and Technology Policy’s proposed amendment to the 2023 Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5) withdrawing official support from climate change impact assessments based on implausible emission scenarios.54

Adopting carbon border taxes would undermine the clarity and coherence of the President’s energy freedom agenda, import the EU’s carbon intensity focus into US trade policy, with inevitable ramifications for US capital and credit markets, corporate governance, and business lobbying.

Carbon border taxes cannot eliminate CBAM charges on US products unless the US adopts carbon taxes, which at any price level produce more economic pain than environmental gain.

Even an official carbon intensity database along the line of the PROVE IT Act could provide a springboard for enacting carbon taxes via future budget reconciliation bills.

The EU’s extraterritorial ambition extends beyond changing how US firms manufacture products. It also includes changing the content and direction of US economic policy. US carbon border taxes would set the stage for enacting domestic carbon taxes and restore carbon footprints and Net Zero as touchstones of national policy. USTR should spotlight those risks for stakeholders who may not be aware of them.

Sincerely,

Marlo Lewis, Jr., Ph.D.

Senior Fellow in Energy and Environmental Policy
Competitive Enterprise Institute

Footnotes:

1 Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Request for Comments on the Effect of the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism and the Proposals To Expand Coverage on U.S. Trade, Request for Comments, 91 FR 64450, October 8, 2026, https://www.regulations.gov/document/USTR-2026-0661-0001.

2 Andrew Puzder, “Europe’s carbon mechanism is a tariff by another name,” Financial Times, August 12, 2026, https://www.ft.com/content/99bbb4e9-32de-40cb-aa15-537937d70889.

3 Regulation (EU) 2023/956, establishing a carbon border adjustment mechanism, May 10, 2023, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:02023R0956-20251020.

4 Callum Winstock, “Levelling the Playing Field: Border Carbon Adjustments and Emissions Leakage,” The Cambridge Journal of Law, Politics, and Art, June 22, 2021, https://www.cjlpa.org/post/levelling-the-playing-field-border-carbon-adjustments-and-emissions-leakage.

5 “The Staggering £7.6 Trillion Price Tag of Britain’s Net Zero Ambition,” OilPrice.Com, January 18, 2026, https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Staggering-76-Trillion-Price-Tag-of-Britains-Net-Zero-Ambition.html.

6 Francis Menton, The Energy Storage Conundrum, The Global Warming Policy Foundation, Briefing 61, November 2022, https://thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2022/11/Menton-Energy-Storage-Conundrum.pdf.

7 European Commission, Delivering the European Green Deal, https://commission.europa.eu/topics/climate-action/delivering-european-green-deal_en (accessed August 10, 2026): “To ensure a level playing field for European companies, the new Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism will ensure that imported products will also pay a carbon price at the border in the sectors covered” (original emphasis).

8 Gabriella Beaumont-Smith, Are Carbon Border Adjustments a Dream Climate Policy or Protectionist Nightmare? Policy Analysis No. 978, Cato Institute, July 30, 2024, https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/are-carbon-border-adjustments-dream-climate-policy-or-protectionist-nightmare. She refers to the ten general exceptions specified in WTO Article XX.

9 World Trade Organization, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT, 1947), https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/gatt47_e.htm (accessed 10-23-2026).

10 Regulation (EU) 2023/956, Chapter II, Article 9.

11 S. 1863, “Providing Reliable, Objective, Verifiable Emissions Intensity and Transparency [PROVE IT] Act of 2024,” 118th Congress, 2nd Session, https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/118/s1863/text.

12 In the Senate EPW business meeting on the PROVE IT Act, lead GOP co-sponsor Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) claimed the legislation was needed to check the Europeans’ “math” and thereby “show that the United States has a distinct carbon advantage over our competitors.” Committee on Environment and Public Works Business Meeting, January 18, 2024, https://www.congress.gov/118/chrg/CHRG-118shrg57202/CHRG-118shrg57202.pdf.

13 Regulation (EU) 2023/956 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 10 May 2023 establishing a carbon border adjustment mechanism, Articles 7, 9, 21, 22, and 31, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2023/956/2025-10-20/eng.

14 Regulation (EU) 2023/956, Article 20 (Sale of CBAM Certificates), https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2023/956/2025-10-20/eng.

15 Congressional Research Service, Carbon Tax: Deficit Reduction and Other Considerations, April 2, 2013, https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/PDF/R42731/R42731.11.pdf.

16 Code of Federal Regulations, Subpart W, Petroleum and Natural Gas Systems, https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-40/chapter-I/subchapter-C/part-98/subpart-W.

17 Roll Call Vote 117th Congress – 2nd Session, H.R. 5376, As Amended, Vote Number 325, August 7, 2022, https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1172/vote_117_2_00325.htm. On the methane tax, see Remarks of Senator Shelly Moore Capito (R-WVA), Senate Environment Public Works Committee, Business Meeting, S. 1863, the PROVE IT Act of 2023, January 18, 2024, https://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2024/1/committee-business-meeting.

18 Climate Leadership Council, The Conservative Case for a Carbon Tax, February 2017, https://clcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Conservative-Case-for-Carbon-Dividends.pdf. Carbon border adjustments are one of “four pillars” of the Council’s carbon tax plan.

19 European Commission, Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/carbon-border-adjustment-mechanism_en (accessed August 10, 2026): “CBAM complements the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) and supports the EU’s climate objectives while encouraging cleaner industrial production in non-EU countries.”

20 McCullock v. Maryland, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316 (1819).

21 Energy Information Administration, The 250-year history of U.S. energy consumption, https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=67824 (accessed November 9, 2026).

22 The job of a Pigou tax is not to eliminate activities with externalities but to “sustain optimal levels of externality-generating activities in a competitive system.” William Baumol and Wallace Oates, The Theory of Environmental Policy, 2nd ed. (1988), https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/theory-of-environmental-policy/taxes-versus-subsidies-a-partial-analysis/7A70CD15D17CBA21E679D48397A49EAA.

23 Nicholas Stern, Joseph Stiglitz, Kristina Carlson, and Charlotte Taylor, A Social Cost of Carbon Consistent with a Net-Zero Climate Goal, RooseveltInstitute.Org, January 2022, https://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/RI_Social-Cost-of-Carbon_202201-1.pdf.

24 Kevin Dayaratna, “The Social Cost of Carbon: A Number Too Malleable from which to Govern,” Advancing American Freedom, July 21, 2026, https://advancingamericanfreedom.com/memos/the-social-cost-of-carbon-a-number-too-malleable-from-which-to-govern; Robert S. Pindyck. 2013. Climate Change Policy: What Do the Models Tell Us? Journal of Economic Literature, 51(3), 860–872, https://web.mit.edu/rpindyck/www/Papers/PindyckClimateModelsJELSept2013.pdf.

25 IWG, Technical Support Document: Social Cost of Carbon, Methane, and Nitrous Oxide, Interim Estimates under Executive Order 13990, February 2021, Table ES-1, p. 5, https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/TechnicalSupportDocument_SocialCostofCarbonMethaneNitrousOxide.pdf.

26 EPA, EPA Report on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases: Estimates Incorporating Recent Scientific Advances, November 2023, Table 3.1.1, p. 78, https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2023-12/epa_scghg_2023_report_final.pdf.

27 For an economic analysis of a $300 per ton carbon tax, see Kevin Dayaratna, Katie Tubb, and David Kreutzer, The Unsustainable Costs of President Biden’s Climate Agenda, Heritage Foundation, Backgrounder No. 3713, June 16, 2022, https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2022-06/BG3713_0.pdf. The authors project that over 18 years, a $300 per ton carbon tax would reduce US GDP by $7.7 trillion, average four-person household income by $87,000, and US employment by 1.2 million jobs.

28 Wei Peng et al. 2021. The surprisingly inexpensive cost of state-driven emission control strategies. Nature Climate Change Vol. 11, 738–745, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01128-0.

29 Wei Peng et al. 2021. Supplementary Information, Nature Portfolio, https://media.springernature.com/original/springer-static/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41558-021-01128-0/MediaObjects/41558_2021_1128_MOESM1_ESM.pdf.

30 Bjorn Lomborg, “Biden’s Climate Ambitions Are Too Costly for Voters,” The Wall Street Journal, October 14, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/opinion/climate-change-cost-economy-emissions-tax-per-person-net-zero-joe-biden-11634159179.

31 Lomborg, “Biden’s Climate Ambitions Are Too Costly for Voters.”

32 Dayaratna et al. (2022), The Unsustainable Costs of President Biden’s Climate Agenda.

33 Roger Pielke, Jr., “Trump’s Carbon Tax,” The Honest Broker, September 29, 2026, https://substack.com/inbox/post/217878475.

34 Roger Pielk, Jr., “Trump’s Carbon Tax.”

35 International Maritime Organization, “IMO approves net-zero regulations for global shipping,” April 11, 2025, https://www.imo.org/en/mediacentre/pressbriefings/pages/imo-approves-netzero-regulations.aspx.

36 Marco Rubio, “How we thwarted the U.N.’s Tax,” The Wall Street Journal, October 19, 2025, https://www.wsj.com/opinion/marco-rubio-how-we-thwarted-the-un-tax-global-carbon-45f78623.

37 Department of State, “Taking Action to Defend America from the UN’s First Global Carbon Tax—the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) ‘Net-Zero Framework’ (NZF),” October 10, 2025, https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2025/10/taking-action-to-defend-america-from-the-uns-first-global-carbon-tax-the-international-maritime-organizations-imo-net-zero-framework-nzf.

38 Rubio, How We Thwarted the U.N.’s Tax.

39 Executive Order 14162 of January 20, 2025, Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/01/30/2025-02010/putting-america-first-in-international-environmental-agreements.

40 Memorandum of January 7, 2026, Withdrawing the United States From International Organizations, Conventions, and Treaties That Are Contrary to the Interests of the United States, 91 FR 2281, 2282, January 16, 2026, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-01-16/pdf/2026-00976.pdf.

41 Public Law 119-16, June 12, 2025, https://www.congress.gov/119/plaws/publ16/PLAW-119publ16.pdf.

42 EPA, Final Rule: Rescission of the Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding and Motor Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Emission Standards Under the Clean Air Act, Final rule, 91 FR 7686, February 12, 2026, https://www.epa.gov/regulations-emissions-vehicles-and-engines/final-rule-rescission-greenhouse-gas-endangerment.

43 Public Law 119-2, 119th Congress, Joint Resolution, March 14, 2025, https://www.congress.gov/119/plaws/publ2/PLAW-119publ2.pdf, rescinding EPA, Waste Emissions Charge for Petroleum and Natural Gas Systems: Procedures for Facilitating Compliance, Including Netting and Exemptions, Final rule; 89 FR 91094, November 18, 2024.

44 Congressional Research Service (CRS), IRA Tax Credit Repeal in FY2025 Reconciliation Law: Part 1, December 12, 2025, https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/IN/PDF/IN12624/IN12624.4.pdf. 45 CRS, IRA Tax Credit Repeal in FY2025 Reconciliation Law: Part 2, https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/IN/PDF/IN12625/IN12625.3.pdf.

46 Secretary of Interior Order No. 3445, Unleashing American Offshore Energy, November 14, 2025, https://www.doi.gov/document-library/secretary-order/so-3445-unleashing-american-offshore-energy.

47 Securities and Exchange Commission, Press Release, “SEC Votes to End Defense of Climate Disclosure Rule,” March 27, 2025, https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025-58.

48 SEC, Rescission of Climate-Related Disclosure Rules, Proposed rule, 91 FR 33296, June 3, 2026, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-06-03/pdf/2026-11091.pdf.

49 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, The Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles Rule III for Model Years 2022 to 2031 Passenger Cars and Light Trucks; Final Rule, 91 FR 61988, September 30, 2026, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-09-30/pdf/2026-19964.pdf.

50 EPA, Partial Repeal of the Carbon Pollution Standards for Fossil Fuel-Fired Electric Generating Units; Final rule, 91 FR 58954, September 17, 2026, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-09-17/pdf/2026-19071.pdf.

51 EPA, Rescission of the Greenhouse Gas Findings for Fossil Fuel-Fired Power Plants and Repeal of Regulations for Power Plant Greenhouse Gas Emissions Under Clean Air Act Section 111, Supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking, 91 FR 59002, September 17, 2026, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-09-17/pdf/2026-19072.pdf.

52 Executive Order 14154, Unleashing American Energy, January 20, 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/unleashing-american-energy/.

53 Memorandum for Regulatory Policy Officers, Guidance Implementing Section 6 of Executive Order 14154, Entitled “Unleashing American Energy,” May 5, 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/M-25-27-Guidance-Implementing-Section-6-of-Executive-Order-14154-Entitled-Unleashing-American-Energy.pdf.

54 Office of Science and Technology Policy, United States Global Change Research Program; Availability for Public Comment on the Proposed Amendment to the Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5), 91 FR 54893, August 25, 2026, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-08-25/pdf/2026-17289.pdf.