Dear Congress Members Thompson and  Huffman, Senators Feinstein and Padilla:

As business and community leaders in your districts and the State of California, we applaud your work on climate. The election results offer hope for long overdue progress at the Federal level. A great variety of options awaits Congress and the Biden Administration.

Among those measures, we have endorsed carbon pricing -- in particular, carbon fee and dividend (CF&D). It’s by no means the final word on climate. But properly designed, with a price that starts low and increases steeply, and with fee revenues returned to households, CF&D is among the most effective and economically progressive options. It works without regulations vulnerable to court or executive branch delays. Its price tag is tiny, leaving Federal budget money for other necessary climate-related initiatives, including job transition and environmental justice.

Support for carbon pricing continues to grow. One version, the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act of 2019 (H.R.763), gained 84 co-sponsors, including Congressional Black Caucus Chair Karen Bass. Paul Hawken says effective carbon pricing will accelerate every climate solution described in Drawdown.  President Biden’s new Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry is a carbon pricing supporter, as is Janet Yellen, Biden's new Treasury Secretary.

The Business Roundtable, a major trade association of CEOs of companies with collectively over $7 trillion in revenues announced its endorsement of a “market-based mechanism” as part of the plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions with pricing carbon as an essential step in that plan. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission now calls for “sweeping climate change risk regulation”, finding that “financial markets will only be able to channel resources efficiently to activities that reduce greenhouse gas emissions if an economy-wide price on carbon is in place.”

The climate crisis is too big to be solved by one political party working alone. Support among conservatives is growing, especially among younger voters. We think CF&D can be the nucleus for a bipartisan climate majority in the 117th Congress, and the glue that holds it together for the necessary long haul.

Thank you for your enduring service to our community, our country, and our future.


REFERENCE LINKS (hypertext formatting in the letter's text above is not available)
* HR763 Site w/ Cosponsors: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/763
* Paul Hawken video: https://youtu.be/vQDEmneiMqc?t=1898
* Kerry OpEd: https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/526654-how-to-better-tackle-climate-change
* Yellen story: https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-climate-tax/u-s-could-adopt-carbon-tax-under-a-biden-presidency-ex-fed-chair-yellen-idUSL1N2GY2EI
* Business Roundtable home: https://www.businessroundtable.org/
* Roundtable endorsement story: https://www.businessinsider.com/us-ceo-group-says-it-supports-carbon-pricing-to-fight-climate-change-2020-9
* CFTC story: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/cftc-panel-calls-for-sweeping-climate-change-risk-regulation
* Conservative support: https://www.clcouncil.org/media/Luntz-Carbon-Dividends-Polling-May-20-2019-FINAL.pdf