Here’s the email from Mary Moltmann:

Dear Members of the McHenry County Board –

I am following up on public comments that members of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby made at the February 19, 2019 meeting of the McHenry County Board. We provided information on HR 763, the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act recently introduced in the House with bipartisan support.

There are three responses to climate change: mitigation, adaptation, and suffering. This bill would take action on the mitigation of carbon, and the more we can do of that, the less adaptation we will need, and the less suffering will occur.

Here is a Citizens’ Climate Lobby summary of the EICD Act:

The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act would work by

1.     Putting a fee of $15 per metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent, and increasing the fee by $10 each year. The fee would be assessed “upstream” at the refinery, mine, well, or port.

2.     Money collected from the carbon fee would go into the Carbon Dividend Trust Fund, and every month all of the money would be allocated in equal shares to Americans – residents with a Social Security number or a Tax Identification Number, and each child under 19 receives a half share. The dividend would be included in gross income, but would not be included in means testing for federal or federal-assisted programs. To protect lower income people from the higher costs, an Advanced Payment would be given at the start of the program, and would be recouped from future fees into the Trust Fund. Program administrative costs are paid from the fees collected, not to exceed 8% the first five years and 2% after that. It is revenue neutral – the government does not keep any of the money.

3.     The Border Carbon Adjustment administered by the Treasury Secretary will protect U.S. manufactures and jobs because:

IMPORTED goods from countries that do not price carbon will pay a border carbon adjustment and this money will go into the Carbon Dividend Trust Fund and be given back in the monthly equal allocations.

EXPORTED goods to countries that do not price carbon will receive a refund of carbon fees.

4.     Regulatory Adjustment prevents the EPA from regulating Carbon Dioxide and equivalent emissions for 10 yrs. By the tenth year of the program, the National Academy of Sciences will review and report on the efficiency and effectiveness of the Act in achieving emission reduction targets in the various sectors of the economy. If emission targets are not being met after 10 years, Congress will direct the EPA to issue regulations to bring emissions to levels at or below targets.

5.     And a truly wonderful feature? It has a Sunset Clause that decommissions the program when emissions reach 10% of 2015 levels and when the Carbon Dividend drops below $20 per month for 3 consecutive years.

6.     Would reduce U.S. fossil fuel pollution by 40% in 12 years below 2016 levels and ultimately reduce those emissions 90% by 2050.” This exceeds our commitment to the Paris goals and exceeds the Clean Power Plan.

The Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) wisely did not hire a think tank to analyze their Fee and Dividend Policy, potentially leaving them open to claims of bias in one direction or the other. Rather, they hired Regional Economic Models Inc. (REMI) to do a nation-wide macroeconomic study on the impact of Fee and Dividend Policy (which is essentially what is proposed in HR 763). REMI was founded in 1980 with the philosophy that government decision-makers should test the economic effects of their policies before they’re implemented.

Some of the REMI findings (https://citizensclimatelobby.org/remi-report/) include:

 1.    CO2 emissions decline 33% after 10 yrs. and 52% after 20 yrs. relative to baseline year of 2015 – so it would start us on the path to decreasing CO2.

2.    National employment increases by 2.1 million jobs after 10 yrs., and 2.8 million after 20 yrs. – so putting a price on carbon is not a jobs killer.

3.    13,000 lives are saved annually after 10 yrs., with a cumulative 227,000 American lives saved over 20 yrs. 

4.    $70-$85 billion increase in GDP from 2020 on due to Fee and Dividend Plan relative to no carbon fee – due to more jobs and consumer spending – so putting a price on carbon would not drag down the economy.

Citizens’ Climate Lobby hired the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis to study the financial impact of CCL’s Carbon Fee and Dividend Policy on U.S. households (http://citizensclimatelobby.org/household-impact/). Looking at national averages, they found that the three lowest-income quintiles showed a benefit: their carbon dividends would be greater than the amounts they were paying after a price was put on carbon. In a similar finding, the Baker and Schultz Republican Conservative Carbon Tax Plan (www.clcouncil.org) praised a carbon fee because it would help relieve economic anxiety. They cited a Department of Treasury estimate that the bottom 70% of Americans would come out ahead under a carbon fee and dividend program. So that refutes the argument that the U.S. should not price carbon because it would hurt lower income people.

As an index of how common a carbon price is becoming, of the 15 largest economies in the world, only two – the United States and Russia – do not have any nationwide carbon pricing in place or in the works. (www.carbontax.org: “Where Carbon is Taxed.”).

Furthermore, corporations are setting internal carbon prices to reduce their emissions as they transition to a low-carbon economy, and to assess their risk exposure to regulations that affect the cost of emitting carbon. In a December, 2017 Report, “Putting a Price on Carbon,”( https://www.actu-environnement.com/media/pdf/news-29828-prix-carbone-entreprises-cdp.pdf) the Consumer Data Platform listed 136 North American companies which are pricing carbon, among them Cargill, Kellogg, Exxon Mobil, Microsoft, Eastman Chemical, Owens-Illinois, and Exelon. Scroll to p. 46 for North American companies if you are interested.

I find it very encouraging that the next generation of Republican voters has launched 19 college and university chapters of Students for Carbon Dividends (www.s4cd.org) based on the Baker-Shultz Conservative Carbon Tax Plan. Even better, 6 Democratic student chapters have formed.

Another indicator that this is an appropriate way to tackle climate change: a recent article in the WSJ indicated that respected economists are endorsing a carbon tax. I do not subscribe to WSJ, so I am pasting in this quote from the www.bloomberg.com article “From Greenspan to Yellen, Economic Brain Trust Backs Carbon Tax” by Jennifer A. Dlouhy, January 16, 2019:

An all-star lineup of economists, from Alan Greenspan to Paul Volcker, is endorsing a plan to combat climate change by slapping a tax on greenhouse gas emissions and then distributing the revenue to American households. All living former Federal Reserve chairs, several Nobel Prize winners and previous leaders of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers have signed on to a statement asserting that a robust, gradually rising carbon tax is “the most cost-effective lever to reduce carbon emissions at the scale and speed that is necessary. A carbon tax will send a powerful price signal that harnesses the invisible hand of the marketplace to steer economic actors towards a low-carbon future,” the 45 economists say in the opinion piece, published by theWall Street Journal late Wednesday.

More information can be found at this website: https://energyinnovationact.org/. To endorse, please click on the red box labeled Support at the top left of the opening page.

If you have questions, please contact me.

Thank you,

Mary Moltmann, McHenry County Chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby