Eco-Aviation Channel

Senate follows House on airline fuel taxes in new climate bill

Eco-Aviation Today, October 12, 2009, p.7

US Senate's proposed cap-and-trade climate change legislation, introduced at the end of September by Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and John Kerry (D.-Mass.), contains more aggressive emissions reduction targets but covers aviation emissions in the same way as the House-passed version of the bill (ATWOnline, June 30), according to Air Transport Assn. VP-Environmental Affairs Nancy Young.

"Sad to say, the Boxer bill did not improve on the House bill," which seeks to limit aviation CO2 emissions "through an upstream tax on fuel," Young told attendees at the Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative meeting in Washington. Under both versions, "every drop of [airline] fuel has to be covered by a greenhouse gas allowance" purchased by the supplier. She said this provision would add $5 billion to the industry's fuel bill in 2012 alone.

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