Solving global warming is not going to happen over night. The lawmakers dealing with climate legislation now are probably not going to be in office in 2050, when we need to have cut our global warming pollution 80%. So a key part of any climate bill is whether it’s built to last – through Congressional terms, Presidents, and generations.
We need public support for a carbon cap for at least the next 40 years as we work our way toward 80% cuts. The best way to do that is to make sure that the Senate climate bill is fair — it has to put people before polluters.
President Obama last February laid out a framework to fight global warming that was simple, fair, and built to last. All polluters would pay for greenhouse gas emissions, the President said. No exceptions. The money gathered from polluters would then be rebated to middle- and lower-income Americans while leaving $15 billion per year for investments in clean energy and green jobs.
This framework — where 100 percent of the carbon credits are auctioned and revenues used for direct consumer relief — protects consumers and ensures that polluters aren’t given a free ride.
Unfortunately, the House-passed clean energy bill was heavy on the corporate giveaways and light on the protections for energy consumers. The House version would give away 85 percent of the carbon credits for free to utilities, oil refiners and manufacturers. While consumers are offered no protection from price volatility or rate hikes in this version, industrial energy users secured protections to guarantee their bottom lines.
That’s why a coalition of heavy-hitting groups including AARP, Public Citizen, the Consumer Federation of America, and the National Consumer Law Center have teamed up with CCAN to call on the Senate to establish a stronger system of consumer protection.
We sent a letter to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the Committee chaired by Senator Barbara Boxer tasked with drafting the Senate bill, earlier this month stating our case:
Our clear preference is to provide a greater percentage of allowances for auction with more of the revenues used for direct consumer relief. To the extent that the Committee builds on the House-passed bill, we ask you to establish a stronger system of consumer protection. Specifically, ensure residential electric and natural gas consumers directly receive the benefit of the electric and natural gas local distribution company [utility] allowances provided to mitigate consumer cost impacts.
Translated from wonk-speak into English this means that ideally a bill would auction 100% of the pollution permits and rebate most of the revenue to American families – you would actually get a check in the mail, just like Alaskans do from the money generated from oil royalties. Every American would get the same dividend, so how you fare depends on what you do. If you conserve, you gain; if you guzzle, you lose.
The House-passed bill took a different approach. It gives free allowances to utilities (referred to as local distribution companies) and tasks them with passing those savings onto their consumers. To the extent that Senator Boxer’s Committee builds off this idea, we are asking it to ensure that money is passed directly to consumers in a straightforward and verifiable fashion.
As the Senate crafts its climate bill, we’ll be working closely with key Senators, including Maryland Senator Benjamin Cardin, to make sure that it protects consumers. In the end, the more this bill protects the American family — and not the polluters — the better chance it will have for retaining popular support over the long haul.
