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API, perhaps ironically, has also been a big advocate for carbon pricing, and for some other climate friendly bills (like the PROVE IT act).
There's probably a hidden reason that helps them that we don't know about. Their pretty evil on the evilometer.
Officially the reason is that a gradually increasing carbon price is easier to predict compared to some more sweeping legislation.
Unofficially, well...there was that fossil fuel lobbyist (former Exxon I think) a few years ago who got tricked into going on camera for a fake job interview where he was saying something along the lines of "of course we are going to support a carbon tax because it makes us look good, but there's no political will in America for a carbon tax".
I feel the best move is to take API at their word and praise them in public for supporting climate friendly policies, while in the meantime continue to work on proving that lobbyist wrong and building political will.
I've heard that a carbon price was very close to getting included in the Inflation Reduction Act. But the fact that it didn't means that the idea is likely dead in the water politically for the moment at least. It's still worth building support in the meantime though, because it is still 100% relevant.
In some ways, for the moment the conversation has moved past carbon pricing because stuff like solar is taking off exponentially, and we're realizing that we don't have the grid / transmission capacity to handle it. The permitting process is way too slow, and Republicans have been asking for changes in that process for decades, so there's a really good chance for bipartisan action (fingers crossed that it happens in the current Congress).
Tldr: yes, their strategy is probably a little bit of "publicly say one thing, but actually fund something different". But their public support is absolutely useful to us, and it's a really good talking point, especially with Republicans, if we can say "hey, the fossil fuel industry supports this policy too!"