General

A carbon tax by any other name, would smell as rank…

As Alberta worries about Obama’s oil sands tariff, Ottawa talks of commensurate U.S.-Canada environmental regimes

Waxman-Markey, the massive climate change bill currently working its way through the U.S. Senate, contains a provision that would allow the president to impose tariffs on imports with carbon footprints bigger than U.S.-made goods. That has Alberta’s provincial government worried, particularly with creeping protectionist policies in the U.S., as well as the “dirty oil” talk from Barack Obama’s camp during last year’s primaries. “The thing that really bothers me,” Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach told the Calgary Herald’s Renata D’Aliesio, “is that they’re giving the president, presently the way it’s written, executive powers of imposing administrative taxes, border adjustment taxes.” Lobbying efforts by Alberta’s representatives in Washington, seeking to soften the bill’s “sharper edges,” have been fierce, says Alberta D.C. envoy Gary Mar. But Federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice counsels optimism–of a sort–because of Canada’s efforts to harmonize our climate change regime with the U.S.’s. “At the end of the day, we’re confident that Canada will have a commensurate environmental regime, and so those border adjustments won’t penalize Canada,” Prentice says. But the question remains–harmonize to what? Chopin’s Funeral March?

Calgary Herald

Looking for more?

Get the Best of Maclean's sent straight to your inbox. Sign up for news, commentary and analysis.
  • By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.