Last year, a bipartisan bill to examine the carbon intensity of American manufacturing gained attention from lawmakers and environmental advocates across the political spectrum.
The idea was to compare American products with those from high-polluting countries like China and to collect domestic data as Europe prepares to enact a tariff on carbon-intensive imports. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle think the U.S. should implement such a tariff too.
But the bill has yet to resurface in the new Congress, and sponsors from years past say they have no imminent timeline to push the measure again.
The “Providing Reliable, Objective, Verifiable Emissions Intensity and Transparency (PROVE IT) Act,” championed last Congress by Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.), Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) and John Curtis (R-Utah), would commission a Department of Energy study comparing the greenhouse gas emissions of certain American manufacturing sectors with other countries.
