November 6, 2009 10:55AM # Chamber of Commerce Endorses Carbon Tariffs? By [Sallie James](https://www.cato.org/people/sallie-james) --- SHARE Even though the climate change summit in Copenhagen next month is likely to yield [very little](http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=aTFXPFqcsfbc), domestic shenanigans continue. The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works passed a bill on Thursday [amid controversy](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/05/AR2009110502195_pf.html), and the farmers’ friends in the Senate (notably Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D. Mich) are looking to send goodies their way by filing an amendment that would pay farmers for not cutting down trees, not farming, and will likely see states such as — well, how about that! — Michigan “cashing in” (see [here](http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDc5MmI4MWIwYjk2NDcyZDFmZjgwZDE4NmQwY2Q2N2Q)). Meanwhile, those concerned about the cost of climate change regulations may have lost an ally. Often, [but not always](https://www.cato.org/2009/06/12/save-free-enterprise-starting-now/), one can depend on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to defend free enterprise, or at least [free trade](http://www.chamberpost.com/trade/index.html). On climate change, however, they are a little more ambiguous. If anything, they appear to be getting more sympathetic to climate change legislation. Nothing to do with [membership defections](http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-chamber-climate9-2009oct09,0,1686806.story), they assure us, just good business practice. Maybe it is. I’m not a member of the Chamber so their strategy is not really any of my business. What concerns me is the apparent shift in their position toward so-called carbon tariffs (also called “border adjustment measures,” and often spoken of in terms of “international competitiveness,” “negotiating leverage” and other terms that should raise the alarm). My friend, and former Catoite, Scott Lincicome does an excellent job [here](http://lincicome.blogspot.com/2009/11/did-us-chamber-of-commerce-just-signal.html) of parsing through the Chamber’s recent public[ letter](http://www.uschamber.com/issues/letters/2009/091103climate.htm) in support of the Kerry-Graham “framework” (outlined in [this](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/opinion/11kerrygraham.html?_r=4) *New York Times* op-ed) and their strange silence on the framework’s inclusion of the need for carbon tariffs, so I won’t repeat his analysis here. Suffice to say, their non-comment on the issue of carbon tariffs is worrying. As Scott points out, they appear to endorse the concept, if in a coded manner. Back in June, the Chamber explicitly opposed Waxman-Markey, in part because “It would also impose carbon tariffs on goods imported into the U.S., a move that would almost certainly spur retaliation from global trading partners.” (See [here](http://www.uschamber.com/issues/index/environment/five_positions.htm).) I would feel a lot more comfortable if a similarly explicit statement had been repeated in their letter. ##### Related Tags [Energy and Environment](https://www.cato.org/research/energy-environment), [Trade Policy](https://www.cato.org/trade-policy), [Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies](https://www.cato.org/herbert-stiefel-center-trade-policy-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).