Durbin Introduces America's Clean Future Fund Act To Invest In A Clean Future And Spur Job Creation
WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) introduced the America’s Clean Future Fund Act, a bill that would spur job creation by investing in a clean energy economy. The bill seeks to drive significant carbon emissions reductions to combat the climate crisis; provide transition assistance to environmental justice (EJ) communities, farmers, and fossil fuel-reliant communities; and provide financing for climate resilience and clean energy projects.
“We are already seeing the impacts of the climate crisis in our globe’s extreme weather and the devolution of landscapes we once knew. If we want to curb the dangerous effects of this human-driven crisis and leave a livable planet for the next generation, we must act now,” said Durbin. “The America’s Clean Future Fund Act would make clean energy investments to spur economic growth while ensuring no one is left behind as we move toward a cleaner economy.”
According to the most recent National Climate Assessment, the climate crisis is already impacting every region in the region and worsening, leading to the loss of American lives, infrastructure, and property, as well as slowing the rate of economic growth this century. The assessment calls for rapid cuts to emissions from human activity to reduce harmful impacts of a warming planet. As a result of the climate crisis, a person born in 2020 is now projected to experience twice as many cyclones and droughts, and as much as five times as many heat waves as a person born in 1965. Although policies like the Inflation Reduction Act made significant investments to combat the climate crisis, more work is necessary to prevent global average temperatures from rising to intolerable levels. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) most recent report declares that, “Without urgent, effective, and equitable mitigation and adaptation actions, climate change increasingly threatens ecosystems, biodiversity, and the livelihoods, health, and well-being of current and future generations.” The America’s Clean Future Fund Act will help take that action.
Specifically, the America’s Clean Future Fund Act would do the following:
- Institute an economy-wide carbon price. Two years after enactment, the bill would apply a carbon fee of $65 per metric ton of CO2 equivalent for fossil fuel producers, and two years later for non-fossil fuel high emissions facilities. The fee would increase by $10 per year above the consumer price index. A border adjustment would also be imposed on imported covered fuels and carbon-intensive goods to ensure an equal playing field for American companies.
- Establish the Climate Change Finance Corporation (C2FC). The bill would create a new, independent federal agency tasked with financing climate change mitigation and adaptation projects and encouraging private investment. Projects supported by the C2FC could include energy storage, clean transportation, energy efficiency, climate resilience, research, development, or deployment of clean technologies and nature-based infrastructure. Funding priority would be given to deindustrialized, environmental justice, and climate-vulnerable communities.
- Provide transition assistance to impacted communities. This bill would provide grants to states, Tribes, local governments, non-profits, and community-based organizations. Grants would be used for economic and workforce development in regions transitioning from carbon-intensive industries, climate change resiliency in frontline communities, and environmental cleanup from the fossil fuel industry in areas impacted by legacy pollution.
- Agricultural Decarbonization Transition Payments. The bill would also help eligible producers in agriculture to finance the transition to improved carbon-reduction practices.
- Provide rebates to individuals. To protect consumers, the bill would ensure that 75 percent of carbon fee revenues would be paid directly to low- and middle-income individuals through quarterly rebates.
The bill is supported by the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) and Citizen’s Climate Lobby.
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