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There is a bipartisan carbon fee and dividend bill in the United States Congress right now with 59 sponsors[1], called The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend

There is a bipartisan carbon fee and dividend bill in the United States Congress right now with 59 sponsors[1], called The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (H.R. 763)[2]. This bill puts a fee on fossil fuels that grows over time. The money collected (minus administrative costs) is paid back to every American to spend as they see fit. Citizen's Climate Lobby is a bipartisan organization of regular people trying to get this bill passed. Please check out CCL and write your representative[3] to ask them to sponsor H.R. 763. It's our best shot at lowering green house gasses quickly. [1] https://energyinnovationact.org/ https://energyinnovationact.org/ [2] https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/763 https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/763 [3] https://citizensclimatelobby.org/write-your-representative/#/48/ https://citizensclimatelobby.org/write-your-representative/#...

sanxiyn 7y ago
I am not familiar with US politics, but looking at your link, the bill is sponsored by 58 Democrats and 1 Republicans. Is it a usual practice to describe such bills as bipartisan?
- big_chungus 7y ago
  No, it's not. In fact, bills which actually want to be bipartisan often go out of their way to make around half of the original, top-line sponsors from each party.
- skosch 7y ago
  Good question. Republicans in particular need to worry about primary challenges in their science-illiterate districts, and many may be wary of attaching their name to this directly. But there are a good handful of deep red congresspeople who are happy to discuss policy details around carbon pricing, even if they can't politically afford cosponsorship [0]. I imagine that several of those may be willing to vote for such a bill. This is why it's particularly important to write to conservative lawmakers – most of them understand that this makes economic sense, but citizens have to demonstrate to them that they won't lose votes over this kind of legislation. Also, consider that if Democrats gain control of the Senate in 2020, they can pass this easily, and once such a fee-and-dividend scheme is around for a few years, it will likely become very popular with citizens (because of the dividends [1]) and big business (because of the predictability, compared to regulations/bans/subsidies/political favoritism [2]), so it won't be easy to get rid of it again. Instead, the battleground will shift, as we currently see in Canada, to "how fast do we increase the price per ton?" and "which industries get special treatment?". [0] https://citizensclimatelobby.org/climate-solutions-caucus/ https://citizensclimatelobby.org/climate-solutions-caucus/ [1] https://citizensclimatelobby.org/household-impact-study/ https://citizensclimatelobby.org/household-impact-study/ [2] https://www.clcouncil.org/ https://www.clcouncil.org/
  - spullara 7y ago
    The real question is why all government fines aren't structured this way.
    - jtolmar 7y ago
      You could restructure all externalities taxes to pay a dividend back out of what they raise, but you could instead skip a step and use the money to reduce the amount you need to raise via other taxes. Presumably your general-purpose tax is structured some way that's more efficient than having everyone to pay an equal share, so this is a more efficient option. But if externalities taxes + dividends are politically expedient then so be it. It sure beats never regulating externalities.
  - xyzzyz 7y ago
    > Also, consider that if Democrats gain control of the Senate in 2020, they can pass this easily Yes, they can, which should really get people thinking if they don’t. Republicans don’t care about this stuff and readily admit it, but Democrats seem to only care a lot if they don’t have power to do anything. Once they are in control, this kind of heavy impact bills don’t get passed either, and best we get is something like plastic straw ban.
  - jfnixon 7y ago
    Republicans aren't science-illiterate. Spreading that myth is a great way to have people immediately tune out from listening to your remaining arguments. https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2019/03/28/what-americans-know-about-science/ https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2019/03/28/what-american...
- abootstrapper 7y ago
  The goal of the bill is bipartisan support. What makes the bill bipartisan is it does not attempt to grow government by creating new tax revenues, or regulations. Instead of increasing tax revenue the carbon fee is paid directly to the tax payer. Instead of additional regulations the gradually increasing fee incentivizes industry to reduce their use of fossil fuels.
  - js8 7y ago
    So your claim is that it is bipartisan ideologically, not procedurally, right? But I don't think that Republicans actually follow their own ideology of minimal state. Anyway, I think the bill is a good idea (not an American).
    - abootstrapper 7y ago
      I'm not sure what you mean by "procedurally." Republicans can still vote in favor of this bill even if they do not cosponsor it. But the more Republicans cosponsor it the easier it will be politically for other Republicans to vote in favor of it.
      - Paradigma11 7y ago
        What would a partisan bill look like? Is the other party not allowed to vote for one such bill?
  - WoahNoun 7y ago
    The word you are looking for is non-partisan. Bi-partisan means it currently has broad support in both parties. You can't say a bill is bi-partisan if it doesn't actually have that support. Saying you have a goal of bi-partisan support doesn't make the bill bi-partisan. Otherwise, bill proponent could claim the goal of any bill is to be bi-partisan which makes every bill bi-partisan.
    - abootstrapper 7y ago
      Call it what you’d like.
- evan_ 7y ago
  Where we are at in the US is that TODAY dozens of right-wing, White-supremacist supporters of the president have traveled to a town they believe is not supportive enough of his politics and have openly declared that they are going to assault people on the streets, and the President has responded by offering an oblique blessing. There’s no such thing as bipartisan.
  - RandomTisk 7y ago
    Reality, meet thy opposite.
pavs 7y ago
This will never pass. This is not simply me being pessimistic. US current government doesn't believe in climate change, and doing everything in its power to roll back whatever progress was made in the last decade or so. The current senate majority is a puppet of the government and will not pass anything Trump doesnt want. And even in the extreme unlikely scenario of it getting passed. It will get vetoed. Since getting downvoted, maybe people don't know Trump's relationship with climate change: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/climate/trump-envir... https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/02/15-ways-trump-administration-impacted-environment/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/02/15-wa... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_policy_of_the_Donald_Trump_administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_policy_of_the_Do...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- yesenadam 7y ago
  Wow, I just briefly looked over that linked wikipedia page, about a wide range of environmental stuff, not 'just' global warming. Absolutely horrifying and unbelievable! (For personal reasons I've been largely out of the news loop this decade, am not in USA.) How is it that all that has been allowed to happen? People in the USA (a majority, or close to it) wanted all those changes?! Edit: I am getting downvoted for saying that...and really don't know why. If downvoters could explain, I'll be much obliged. Thanks.
  - pavs 7y ago
    Most people have the view that the USA is a democracy. The USA is not and has not been a democracy for a long time. Majority votes do not elect a president, electoral votes do. So you can, in theory, have millions of fewer votes and still get elected. As is the case with the current president and some past presidents. The idea of 3 branches of government, supposed to put checks and balances on the democratic system is also a ruse. The President has the executive power to do almost whatever he wants. Never in the history of USA, any president has ever been criminally prosecuted, despite a long laundry list of atrocities conducted, nationally and internationally - since its existence. Congress will often blindly side with their party's elected President to pass or block any legislation, Even if overwhelmingly majority of the people of the country wants legislation it will either not get passed - or get heavily diluted by lobbying. The revolving door between private industry and government is a huge deal and perfectly legal which results in absurd things like Oil industry executives being in charge of the Environment Protection Agency (EPA). The Judiciary Branch is also heavily politicized and partisan. Which is truer now than at any time in its history and will often side alone party line and there is nothing anyone can do about it. This is, of course, an overly simplified version of reality. But don't call USA Democracy, its anything but. IMO Corporatocracy is the closes type of US political system. This has been the case for a very very long time. Some links: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatocracy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatocracy https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/413142-the-united-states-is-not-a-democracy-and-it-wasnt-meant-to-be-one https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/413142-the-united-state... https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/11/06/united-states-isnt-democracy-and-was-never-intended-be/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/11/06/united-sta... https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/america-is-not-a-democracy/550931/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/america... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mitchell-democracy-commentary/commentary-is-the-u-s-still-a-real-democracy-idUSKCN1N41YN https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mitchell-democracy-commen... https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-04-11/is-u-s-republic-or-democracy-why-some-conservatives-pick-a-side https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-04-11/is-u-s...
anesmike 7y ago
Any time you spend money , you generate green house gases so I fail too see how this bill can mitigate green house gas production.
edcastano 7y ago
Check out www.writegreen.org to help find and write a letter to your elected officials.

sanxiyn 7y ago

I am not familiar with US politics, but looking at your link, the bill is sponsored by 58 Democrats and 1 Republicans. Is it a usual practice to describe such bills as bipartisan?

big_chungus 7y ago
No, it's not. In fact, bills which actually want to be bipartisan often go out of their way to make around half of the original, top-line sponsors from each party.
skosch 7y ago
Good question. Republicans in particular need to worry about primary challenges in their science-illiterate districts, and many may be wary of attaching their name to this directly. But there are a good handful of deep red congresspeople who are happy to discuss policy details around carbon pricing, even if they can't politically afford cosponsorship [0]. I imagine that several of those may be willing to vote for such a bill. This is why it's particularly important to write to conservative lawmakers – most of them understand that this makes economic sense, but citizens have to demonstrate to them that they won't lose votes over this kind of legislation. Also, consider that if Democrats gain control of the Senate in 2020, they can pass this easily, and once such a fee-and-dividend scheme is around for a few years, it will likely become very popular with citizens (because of the dividends [1]) and big business (because of the predictability, compared to regulations/bans/subsidies/political favoritism [2]), so it won't be easy to get rid of it again. Instead, the battleground will shift, as we currently see in Canada, to "how fast do we increase the price per ton?" and "which industries get special treatment?". [0] https://citizensclimatelobby.org/climate-solutions-caucus/ https://citizensclimatelobby.org/climate-solutions-caucus/ [1] https://citizensclimatelobby.org/household-impact-study/ https://citizensclimatelobby.org/household-impact-study/ [2] https://www.clcouncil.org/ https://www.clcouncil.org/
- spullara 7y ago
  The real question is why all government fines aren't structured this way.
  - jtolmar 7y ago
    You could restructure all externalities taxes to pay a dividend back out of what they raise, but you could instead skip a step and use the money to reduce the amount you need to raise via other taxes. Presumably your general-purpose tax is structured some way that's more efficient than having everyone to pay an equal share, so this is a more efficient option. But if externalities taxes + dividends are politically expedient then so be it. It sure beats never regulating externalities.
- xyzzyz 7y ago
  > Also, consider that if Democrats gain control of the Senate in 2020, they can pass this easily Yes, they can, which should really get people thinking if they don’t. Republicans don’t care about this stuff and readily admit it, but Democrats seem to only care a lot if they don’t have power to do anything. Once they are in control, this kind of heavy impact bills don’t get passed either, and best we get is something like plastic straw ban.
- jfnixon 7y ago
  Republicans aren't science-illiterate. Spreading that myth is a great way to have people immediately tune out from listening to your remaining arguments. https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2019/03/28/what-americans-know-about-science/ https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2019/03/28/what-american...
abootstrapper 7y ago
The goal of the bill is bipartisan support. What makes the bill bipartisan is it does not attempt to grow government by creating new tax revenues, or regulations. Instead of increasing tax revenue the carbon fee is paid directly to the tax payer. Instead of additional regulations the gradually increasing fee incentivizes industry to reduce their use of fossil fuels.
- js8 7y ago
  So your claim is that it is bipartisan ideologically, not procedurally, right? But I don't think that Republicans actually follow their own ideology of minimal state. Anyway, I think the bill is a good idea (not an American).
  - abootstrapper 7y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean by "procedurally." Republicans can still vote in favor of this bill even if they do not cosponsor it. But the more Republicans cosponsor it the easier it will be politically for other Republicans to vote in favor of it.
    - Paradigma11 7y ago
      What would a partisan bill look like? Is the other party not allowed to vote for one such bill?
- WoahNoun 7y ago
  The word you are looking for is non-partisan. Bi-partisan means it currently has broad support in both parties. You can't say a bill is bi-partisan if it doesn't actually have that support. Saying you have a goal of bi-partisan support doesn't make the bill bi-partisan. Otherwise, bill proponent could claim the goal of any bill is to be bi-partisan which makes every bill bi-partisan.
  - abootstrapper 7y ago
    Call it what you’d like.
evan_ 7y ago
Where we are at in the US is that TODAY dozens of right-wing, White-supremacist supporters of the president have traveled to a town they believe is not supportive enough of his politics and have openly declared that they are going to assault people on the streets, and the President has responded by offering an oblique blessing. There’s no such thing as bipartisan.
- RandomTisk 7y ago
  Reality, meet thy opposite.

pavs 7y ago

This will never pass. This is not simply me being pessimistic. US current government doesn't believe in climate change, and doing everything in its power to roll back whatever progress was made in the last decade or so. The current senate majority is a puppet of the government and will not pass anything Trump doesnt want. And even in the extreme unlikely scenario of it getting passed. It will get vetoed. Since getting downvoted, maybe people don't know Trump's relationship with climate change: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/climate/trump-envir... https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/02/15-ways-trump-administration-impacted-environment/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/02/15-wa... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_policy_of_the_Donald_Trump_administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_policy_of_the_Do...

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
yesenadam 7y ago
Wow, I just briefly looked over that linked wikipedia page, about a wide range of environmental stuff, not 'just' global warming. Absolutely horrifying and unbelievable! (For personal reasons I've been largely out of the news loop this decade, am not in USA.) How is it that all that has been allowed to happen? People in the USA (a majority, or close to it) wanted all those changes?! Edit: I am getting downvoted for saying that...and really don't know why. If downvoters could explain, I'll be much obliged. Thanks.
- pavs 7y ago
  Most people have the view that the USA is a democracy. The USA is not and has not been a democracy for a long time. Majority votes do not elect a president, electoral votes do. So you can, in theory, have millions of fewer votes and still get elected. As is the case with the current president and some past presidents. The idea of 3 branches of government, supposed to put checks and balances on the democratic system is also a ruse. The President has the executive power to do almost whatever he wants. Never in the history of USA, any president has ever been criminally prosecuted, despite a long laundry list of atrocities conducted, nationally and internationally - since its existence. Congress will often blindly side with their party's elected President to pass or block any legislation, Even if overwhelmingly majority of the people of the country wants legislation it will either not get passed - or get heavily diluted by lobbying. The revolving door between private industry and government is a huge deal and perfectly legal which results in absurd things like Oil industry executives being in charge of the Environment Protection Agency (EPA). The Judiciary Branch is also heavily politicized and partisan. Which is truer now than at any time in its history and will often side alone party line and there is nothing anyone can do about it. This is, of course, an overly simplified version of reality. But don't call USA Democracy, its anything but. IMO Corporatocracy is the closes type of US political system. This has been the case for a very very long time. Some links: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatocracy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatocracy https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/413142-the-united-states-is-not-a-democracy-and-it-wasnt-meant-to-be-one https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/413142-the-united-state... https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/11/06/united-states-isnt-democracy-and-was-never-intended-be/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/11/06/united-sta... https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/america-is-not-a-democracy/550931/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/america... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mitchell-democracy-commentary/commentary-is-the-u-s-still-a-real-democracy-idUSKCN1N41YN https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mitchell-democracy-commen... https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-04-11/is-u-s-republic-or-democracy-why-some-conservatives-pick-a-side https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-04-11/is-u-s...

anesmike 7y ago

Any time you spend money , you generate green house gases so I fail too see how this bill can mitigate green house gas production.

edcastano 7y ago

Check out www.writegreen.org to help find and write a letter to your elected officials.