With Congress about to head out of town for its summer recess, a Washington-based think tank is ramping up a campaign to foil any attempts to institute a tax on carbon emissions, The Hill, a Washington political trade publication, reported this week.

‘We’re hoping to put the final nail in the coffin of the carbon tax,’ said Benjamin Cole, the communications director for the Institute for Energy Research (IER) and its advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance (AEA). ‘The proposal should be dead on arrival by the time lawmakers come back from August recess.’

IER’s campaign includes a survey of American attitudes about such a tax and a $120,000 to $150,000 radio ad buy targeting a handful of House members who, according to Cole, ‘are soft on the carbon tax issue.’

The Hill story, however, merely described IER as a ‘conservative’ group. That doesn’t explain why a think tank named the Institute for Energy Research is so dead set against a carbon tax, given the initiative would certainly help some energy technologies, especially wind, solar and other renewables.

So why is IER so down on cutting carbon?

Because it’s backed by the fossil fuel industry, that’s why.

The Koch Connection

Over the last decade or so, IER […]