Exxon Lobbyist Says Company Backs Carbon Tax Because It Thinks It Will Never Happen

Exxon Lobbyist Says Company Backs Carbon Tax Because It Thinks It Will Never Happen

Over the past decade, Exxon Mobil Corp. ― once the chief funder of think tanks that sowed lies about how burning fossil fuels affects the planet’s temperature ― abandoned its denial of climate change and embraced economists’ favored solution: putting a tax on carbon emissions.

But on Wednesday, a veteran lobbyist at the nation’s largest oil producer was secretly recorded on video seemingly confirming what many environmentalists had long suspected ― that Exxon Mobil believes a carbon tax is politically impossible, and thus has supported it as a ploy to prevent lawmakers from enacting more popular climate policies. 

“Nobody is going to propose a tax on all Americans. And the cynical side of me says yeah, we kind of know that,” Keith McCoy, Exxon Mobil’s senior director of federal relations, told undercover Greenpeace activists posing as corporate headhunters. “But it gives us a talking point.”