Section 1 Short title
This Act may be cited as the “Foreign Pollution Fee Act of 2023”.
Foreign Pollution Fee Act of 2023
A BILL
To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to impose a fee on certain products imported into the United States based on the pollution intensity associated with the production of such products, and for other purposes.
Sec. 2 Sense of Congress; purpose
Sense of Congress— It is the sense of Congress that—
it is in the interests of the United States to strive for environmental protection in order to protect human health;
the nature of environmental challenges are transnational in nature, but international cooperative efforts, including those led by the United States, have not resulted in many trading partners adopting measures to address those challenges;
the transnational issues related to environmental protection and pollution impact the environment and public health in the United States and in turn present national security risks because of the environmental and public health risks;
the United States—
has adopted many environmental protections, including the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq.), the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (33 U.S.C. 1251 et seq.), the Toxic Substances Control Act (15 U.S.C. 2601 et seq.), and more than 15 other major environmental protection laws that—
add costs to the production of goods in order to secure the benefits of environmental protection and conservation efforts; and
serve to meaningfully decrease greenhouse gasses such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and other fluorinated greenhouse gases;
is the world’s largest consumer market and its economy is highly integrated into the world; and
bears responsibility to ensure that the United States market does not incentivize forum shopping for the production of goods to jurisdictions with low environmental standards to obtain a competitive cost advantage while undermining efforts to address transnational environmental and resource challenges as well as global public health;
it is necessary to apply measures to ensure the environmental conservation efforts of the United States are not frustrated through such forum shopping; and
the development needs of low-income and lower-middle-income countries must be reasonably taken into consideration while strengthening environmental protection.
Purpose— It is the purpose of this Act to raise global environmental performance to ensure a healthy environment and secure global public health benefits.
Sec. 3 Rules of construction
Domestic production— Nothing in this Act, or any amendments made by this Act, shall be construed to authorize the creation of any carbon tax, fee, pricing, or other mechanism that imposes additional costs to any covered product (as defined in section 4695(a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as added by this Act) which is produced domestically and sold, used, further refined, or distributed within United States or exported to another country for sale or use.
Application to other laws— Nothing in this Act, or any amendments made by this Act, shall be construed to authorize new environmental standards of performance or impact calculations of compliance to standards under the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq.) or any other Act which examines the environmental impact of domestic production or proposed production.
Data collection— Except as expressly authorized under this Act, nothing in this Act, or any amendments made by this Act, shall be construed to authorize additional authority for any agency to collect additional pollution data from a domestic producer.