The US Senate Commerce Committee yesterday passed a bill that would allow the secretary of transportation to ban airlines from complying with the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), if he or she deems it in the public interest.
The bipartisan bill is authored by Republican Senator John Thune and Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill. It even won the support of Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer, herself the author of several cap-and-trade bills, following an amendment which said that government officials: "should, as appropriate, use their authority to conduct international negotiations, including using their authority to conduct international negotiations to pursue a worldwide approach to address aircraft emissions".
Such an approach would be through the UN's International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Yet the European Union took the decision to incorporate aviation emissions in its scheme after nearly 15 years of unproductive negotiations in the ICAO failed to develop any policy to control aviation emissions.
Senator John Thune called on the Senate to pass the bill immediately, to apply more pressure on the EU to stand down. "More than $3.1bn will be wrapped up in new taxes between 2012 and 2020 that could otherwise be invested in creating jobs and stimulating economic growth in our country," he said. If passed by the whole Senate, the bill could lead to a trade war.
Read more: US-EU trade war closer following Senate resolution on aviation emissions | Energy and Environmental Management (EAEM) Magazine
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