The sudden approval of a carbon trade bill thought to be dormant on Capitol Hill has roiled some conservative circles and left even the bill’s longtime advocates surprised.
But Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who pushed for including the “Providing Reliable, Objective, Verifiable Emissions Intensity and Transparency (PROVE IT) Act” in a spending package signed last week, said the language has been hiding in plain sight, tucked into numerous iterations of legislation to fund the Department of Energy.
In an interview with POLITICO’s E&E News, Cramer detailed the extended process by which the bill — which directs the Trump administration to study the carbon intensity of American manufacturing in comparison to other countries — became a one-paragraph add-on to the report accompanying a three-bill “minibus” signed into law by President Donald Trump last week.
The “PROVE IT Act” was a rare bipartisan effort to examine climate emissions. But it faced backlash from conservatives who said a federal study of carbon emissions could lead to a domestic carbon tax — and it had slim odds of passing in a standalone floor vote.
