Exxon Lobbyist Says Company Backs Carbon Tax Because It Thinks It Will Never Happen

Over the past decade, Exxon Mobil Corp. ― once the chief funder of think tanks that sowed lies about how burning fossil fuels affects the planet’s temperature ― abandoned its denial of climate change and embraced economists’ favored solution: putting a tax on carbon emissions.

But on Wednesday, a veteran lobbyist at the nation’s largest oil producer was secretly recorded on video seemingly confirming what many environmentalists had long suspected ― that Exxon Mobil believes a carbon tax is politically impossible, and thus has supported it as a ploy to...