Set aside the dubious economic merits of his proposed “Foreign Pollution Fee Act of 2023” and focus on how his bill defines the word “pollution”:

It’s not dirty air or water. Not actual hazardous or radioactive materials.

To Cassidy, pollution means one thing and one thing only: carbon dioxide, a colorless odorless trace gas that is essential for photosynthesis and therefore all life on earth.

Of course, under the Cassidy plan, other countries would retaliate by taxing American CO2 emissions. Guess which state gets clobbered by this retaliation tax? You got it: LOUISIANA, one of the nation’s premier oil and gas states.