The Specter of the 1993 Energy Tax

The New York Times is reporting that after the house passed the energy and climate bill on Friday, some Republicans are referring to the legislation as the ghost of Clinton’s failed ’93 energy tax. However, according to blogger Andrew C. Revkin this is not the case. Please continue to read below.

In an effort to blunt the momentum of the energy and climate bill that the House narrowly passed on Friday, Republicans are raising the specter of the failed effort by President Bill Clinton to craft an energy tax in 1993, according to an article filed by Carl Hulse of our Washington bureau. Mr. Clinton alluded to this setback in an interview in 2008.

There are enormous differences between the two situations and initiatives. The 1993 tax was pursued mainly as a source of revenue to cut the deficit, not a means of reducing American dependence on foreign oil and cutting risks of dangerous climate change. But there is one similarity. Democrats, particularly from coal states, helped set the stage for the failure of the 1993 tax, according to various experts, and according to Mr. Clinton. He touched on this in the interview. Democrats from states that produce or depend on fossil fuels have been slow to buy into the climate bill.