[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 85 (Monday, May 17, 2021)]
[House]
[Page H2407]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       A CARBON TAX IS A BAD IDEA

  (Mr. LaMALFA asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. LaMALFA. Madam Speaker, I rise tonight to speak about the 
proposal for yet another idea for a carbon tax.
  This will just drive inflation, which is already a significant 
problem for Americans, for fuel, for running their small businesses, 
for taking their kids to school, for just doing the things they do, 
maybe even going on a vacation.
  Costs will go up if we have to tax energy more and more and more for 
doing business, for buying groceries, for every aspect of our lives, 
yet another tax heaped upon the people.
  There are already proposals around here to raise taxes on fuel or 
maybe every mile you travel in your automobile. We have seen this in 
California already. I have watched what a carbon tax has done. It 
becomes a slush fund for government to spend to use on whatever it is 
they want to do, such as boondoggles like the high-speed rail in 
California, which is already triple over its original budget concept.
  So why do we want to heap more and more on the backs of families, of 
small businesses, of a country whose economy is trying to recover by 
hitting them once again with one more bad idea of a carbon tax when, by 
the way, carbon dioxide is 0.04 percent of our atmosphere?
  A lot of hype is being made out of this. No, the science is not 
settled by a long stretch, certainly by what human needs are compared 
to what human cause is.

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