Elon Musk says he pitched the Biden administration about imposing a carbon tax as a way to encourage a faster transition to renewable energy, but was told the idea was essentially “ too politically difficult. ”
Musk described the conversation with the Biden administration on a new podcast with Joe Rogan released Thursday. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Rogan had asked Musk if a new technological breakthrough is needed to increase the adoption of battery-powered vehicles. Musk argued that the bigger problem is that “a lot of batteries [are] necessary ”to switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy. The best way to encourage that shift, Musk says, is to “ put a price on carbon. ”
“In all fairness, my best recommendation would be to simply impose a carbon tax,” said Musk. “Because we don’t pay for the CO2 capacity of the oceans and the atmosphere, we have what the economy calls a non-priced externality. The market cannot respond to a non-priced externality. If we just put a price on it, the market will react sensibly. “
Musk suggested that consumers should pay the tax and that discounts could be offered to those with lower incomes. A carbon tax could even help advance the playing field for Tesla’s electric vehicles, although Musk said SpaceX (which is currently trying to acquire natural gas resources in Texas to fuel its rockets) would have to pay.
“I spoke to the Biden government, the new government, and they said, ‘Well, this seems too difficult politically,’ ‘he said. Musk said he remembers thinking,’ That’s at least half the reason why you were chosen, so why don’t you just fight for that? ”
This isn’t the first time the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX has agitated for a carbon tax. Musk reportedly raised the idea during early meetings with the Trump administration, but received “little or no support,” according to a 2017 report from Bloomberg
In fact, Musk has previously called for an “uprising” against the fossil fuel industry while advocating a carbon tax, and accused major oil companies of conspiring against Tesla. But he said on Rogan’s podcast that he “is not in favor of demonizing the oil and gas industry” because it would upset the people who work in it, as well as stopping the business completely, “in fact would die of hunger ”.
‘We will have to burn fossil fuels for a long time. The question is how quickly will we move towards a sustainable energy future? ” he said.
“There are people who have spent their entire career in oil and gas and they started in that career when it didn’t seem like a bad thing to do. So then they say, “Hey man, I’ve just worked my entire career doing useful things, and now you’re telling me I’m the devil.” That will upset them quite a bit, ”he said, echoing comments from late last year. “To be honest, the smartest thing the oil and gas industry could do is say, ‘Let’s do a carbon tax. We will just levy a carbon tax, and it will not make us the devil. ”
One of Biden’s main campaign boards was his support for an aggressive clean energy strategy. He pledged to eliminate carbon pollution in the energy sector by 2035 and achieve a “100 percent clean energy economy” by 2050. He even expressed support for ending fossil fuel subsidies. And since taking office, he has once again admitted the US to the Paris climate agreement. But he has not committed to a carbon tax, despite agitation from other business leaders close to the administration and from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who said the climate crisis cannot be solved without carbon prices.