Professional Documents
Culture Documents
com
Subject: Carbon fee & dividend does not consider expense to dismantle infrastructure
Date: April 20, 2017 at 12:27 PM
To: Darren W. Woods Darren.W.Woods@ExxonMobil.com
Cc: William (Bill) M. Colton William.M.Colton@ExxonMobil.com, Suzanne M. McCarron Suzanne.M.McCarron@ExxonMobil.com,
Max Schulz max.schulz@exxonmobil.com
Dear Darren,
.
On December 2, 2015, former VP-Public & Government Affairs Ken P. Cohen blogged:
.
When it comes to policies for putting a price on greenhouse gas emissions, we believe their effectiveness will
be determined by how closely they hew to certain core principles. Among these are uniformity of application;
global participation; reliance on markets to drive the selection of solutions; minimal regulatory complexity and
maximum transparency; and the flexibility to make future adjustments.
.
In our view, a revenue-neutral carbon tax best fulfills those principles.
.
As ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson said in a speech before the Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars in Washington in January 2009:
.
A carbon tax is also the most efficient means of reflecting the cost of carbon in all economic decisions
from investments made by companies to fuel their requirements to the product choices made by
consumers.
.
It seems to me, having researched, studied and applied common sense, that you and
other proponents of a carbon fee and dividend policy have arrived at this conclusion
without taking into consideration who will pay for the decommissioning and clean-up
expenses, not to mention the discounted present value of future foregone profits. Are
you sure you can manage the end-game without taking the dividend as a bail-out?
.
Sincerely yours,
Doug Grandt