Climate policy will look significantly different depending on whether we have a Kamala Harris or Donald Trump presidency – and tax law could play an outsized role in that, says Kimberly Clausing, a law professor at UCLA. Clausing, who previously served as a senior tax official in the U.S. Treasury Department for the Biden administration, points out that “climate activists ignore tax policy at their peril.” Clausing says:

• “Perhaps the Biden administration’s greatest legislative success was the Inflation Reduction Act, which, despite its name, is very much a climate bill. The Inflation Reduction Act included a number of tax credits aimed at clean energy. If a second Trump administration comes to power, it will likely seek to eliminate the clean energy tax credits, and it will likely roll back key regulations affecting the energy sector and the automotive sector.”

• “Some people argue that the job creation in Republican states through these clean energy investments makes them immune to repeal. This ignores the pressure on Republicans to reverse what Democrats have done. We saw this with the Affordable Care Act, which had the potential to help many low-income people in Republican states, and yet Republican state governments were very reluctant to adopt these measures even when they helped their constituents.”

• “When you compare the emissions trajectory of a Republican trio of the House, Senate and White House to that of a Democratic trio, the difference in emissions impacts is enormous when you compare the status quo with the repeal of both the tax credits and the regulatory measures.” (A difference of hundreds to thousands of tons of CO2 by 2040, she explains in this letter. The full version can be found here.)

• “Much of climate policy is governed by the tax code, so climate activists ignore taxes at their peril. In short, Senate rules make it much easier to pass legislation that impacts the budget; you basically need 50 senators instead of 60. We won’t have 60 Democratic senators for a while. So policies have to impact the budget, which means climate policy will often take the form of taxes or spending rather than legislation that creates regulations.”

The media is welcome to quote from Clausing’s comments or request an interview with her or other UCLA climate experts. Clausing studies carbon pricing policy, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the broader intersection of climate change, tax policy, and trade policy. She also studies tax policy issues more broadly, with a focus on international tax issues.

Clausing is the Eric M. Zolt Professor of Tax Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law and served as assistant secretary for tax analysis at the Treasury Department. Media outlets can contact us for a copy of this week’s “UCLA Election 360” email, which includes Clausing’s comments on the Harris and Trump campaigns’ proposed tax, tariff and other economic policies.

For more on extreme heat and wildfires, particularly in western North America, join Friday’s live Q&A at 2 p.m. PT/5 p.m. ET with UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain. Swain will discuss the unusual rainfall in the Northwest and the updated wildfire forecast for the fall.