Mary Randall’s historic win should rightfully be celebrated as a joyful sign of our country’s progress. However, given the enormity of the challenge, there is no time for a honeymoon. President-elect Randall was elected to office promising action, and she cannot waste even a single day. She and Congress must pass legislation to deal, once and for all, with the coming storm. We urge her to seize the moment.
What would that action look like? At the very least, it should include a zero-carbon electricity standard to finish electrifying the power sector as quickly as possible; the shuttering of all coal plants within three years and a ban on mining to follow; a zero-emissions vehicle mandate for 2035, including trucking, and a cash-for-combustion-engine policy to electrify the transportation sector; standards for heavy industry to begin switching to clean fuels, banning certain refrigerants, eradicating methane leaks, and lowering process emissions; investment in building retrofit and new codes to electrify building stock; targets for increasing aviation efficiency and mandating sustainably produced “drop-in” biofuels, which can work in existing aircraft. Just Transition funds should be targeted at workers in the carbon economy and those people and regions most hurt by polluting practices, which will require major investments in clean electricity deployment, adaptation measures, and afforestation and land management projects. Money must flow to those most affected by the clean energy transition and climate damage. R&D should focus on hard-to-decarbonize sectors with a special emphasis on bringing green hydrogen to scale and carbon sequestration and utilization. Lowering emissions is no longer adequate. We must remediate carbon from the atmosphere or utilize it in cement, polymers, fuels, or create hydrogen via electrolysis to begin tightening the earth’s carbon cycle. Of course, the United States cannot go it alone, which is why the proposal from the organization A Fierce Blue Fire has received so much attention.
The “shock collar” is, at its core, a carbon price with 100 percent of the money rebated to taxpayers in the form of a climate dividend. Starting at $50 a ton, it will have the effect of not only making emissions more expensive but will give every American a quarterly check that will invest them in the process of decarbonization. The “justice” element of this plan should not be overlooked. As research has shown, putting money in people’s pockets will allow a strapped populace financial breathing room while also stimulating the economy. The innovative element of the shock collar is that the price is tied directly to emissions. The price to burn a ton of carbon will rise steadily at 3 percent per year plus inflation unless emissions do not decrease, in which case the price jumps by 7 percent the next year. If emissions decrease but miss the target, the tax will increase 5 percent. This addresses the concern that a tax might not necessarily lower emissions. With this policy we can quickly ramp up emissions reductions to meet the 10–15 percent per year target we must hit in order to avert catastrophe.
Crucially, the policy will levy a border adjustment tariff on goods coming from countries that fail to apply a similarly ambitious carbon price. This will keep heavy industry from fleeing the US and allow us to decarbonize without outsourcing our polluting practices (known as “leakage”). It offers an enormous incentive for recalcitrant countries to pursue deep decarbonization. If we can link carbon price policy with just China and the EU, it will effectively create a World Carbon Price, and the rest of the global economy will have little choice but to embark on its own accelerated timeline.
This, of course, does not in any way abrogate the US and other developed countries from fully financing sustainable development and adaptation measures for the developing countries through the Green Climate Fund. A proposal to levy a global tax on corporations to create a strict and sustainable funding source should be considered. To pay for mitigation and adaptation investments, high-income earners and concentrated wealth must finally pay its fair share. Tax justice is climate justice.
What we have lacked over these past forty years is political will. Nothing in our experience of fighting for the planet has heartened us more than witnessing this generation of young activists take the lead, from Greta Thunberg and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Kate Morris and newly elected congresswoman Tracy Aamanzaihou. All have been ruthless, resilient, and indomitable in their advocacy. The result has been a new coalition of “climate hawks” in Congress, and now Mary Randall, a candidate who has courageously led her negligent party on the issue.
This is no longer a country for old men, and soon we will fully give way to this new generation—progressive, multiracial, multigendered, talented, and passionate. They have been handed the unenviable task of saving humanity as we know it. We urge these young people to keep the pressure on. We urge Congress to seize this historic opportunity. We urge action.
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Sen. Cyrus Fitzpatrick, Chair of the Senate Select Committee on the Climate Crisis
Rep. Joy Barry LaFray, Chair of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
Ashir al-Hasan
January 29, 2029
Abstract: As chief of staff for the Senate Select Committee on the Climate Crisis and leader of the informal White Paper Group assembled by the new administration to draft legislation aimed at the rapid reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, I initially feared my expertise would fall outside the parameters of this tortured task, yet I now realize my years spent modeling the googolplex’s worth of interactions within various Earth System Models for NOAA was small bore. A joke, apologies. I’ll try to keep my comments focused on the model’s analysis of differing iterations of the Pollution Reduction, Infrastructure, and Refund Act (PRIRA), but will have to occasionally comment on the inanity and profiteering that surrounds the legislative process. I will conclude with the summary of my clandestine meeting with Dr. Anthony Pietrus, formerly of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
The new administration has deemed the chances of success for climate legislation as high due to a Republican president and Senate majority vowing to work with a Democratic House of Representatives. In order to provide an understanding of the institutional obstacles, allow me to use my notes from the third assembly of the White Paper Group, as we attempt to create an outline for so-called grand bargain legislation that advances deep decarbonization schemes, to explain the dynamic. These meetings have primarily consisted of legislative staffers, experts, and low-level aides. I was surprised to learn that representatives and senators rarely draft legislation or even attend the meetings during which provisions are debated. In this early backdoor meeting, the argument centered on whether the bill would include a carbon-pricing scheme. Kaye Martine, the Democratic staff director for the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, was concerned with the public relations optics of the final legislation. At under five feet, she is always the smallest person in the room and yet the high pitch of her voice allows her to override the conversation whenever she pleases:
“Your party’s leader—the fucking president—wants a carbon price. That’s her idea.”
“The president has her priorities, and so do Senate Republicans.” This was from Joe Otero. President-elect Randall has deputized Senate leader Ryan Doup with the burden of persuading obstinate conservatives to vote for climate legislation. However, it would be Doup’s top energy and climate advisor, Otero, who would be doing the bargaining. Otero and Martine are garrulous, profane characters, often at odds in a near-flirtatious way. Martine tends to wear more mascara and blush at these meetings, while Otero will roll up his sleeves to expose tattoos that begin at the wrist, a legacy of his aborted punk-rock career. He has the physique of a former bodybuilder gone soft and an oily black ponytail that gives him a certain air of rebellion in the staid circles of the GOP.