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Fossil Fuels

An Oil Import Fee?

By experts and staff

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  • Michael Levi
    David M. Rubenstein Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment and Director of the Maurice R. Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies

I’m skeptical about the potential for significant progress on energy policy over the next two years. One dark horse, though, is a fee on imported oil. The politics could work: climate hawks could back it because it would cut greenhouse gas emissions; security hawks could back it because it would cut oil imports; deficit hawks could back it because it would raise revenues without raising taxes. It was particularly intruiging to see Mitch Daniels, whom some are trying to draft for a (long shot) bid for the Republican presidential nomination, float the idea a few weeks ago.

I’m ambivalent on the matter, mainly because I haven’t seen a good analysis of it. Here are the questions I think need to be answered:

These are all answerable. Anyone interested in taking a shot?