Citizens Climate Lobby: Carbon Fee and Dividend Policy

Citizens Climate Lobby: Carbon Fee and Dividend Policy

Julia Moravc­sik, Tes­la own­er and mem­ber of the Den­ver Elec­tric Vehi­cle Club, is also involved in the Cit­i­zens Cli­mate Lob­by, “a non­prof­it, non­par­ti­san, grass­roots advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tion focused on nation­al poli­cies to address cli­mate change solu­tions.” Julia joined CCL in 2019 is on the Auto­mo­tive Com­mit­tee as the Res­i­dent Spe­cial­ist in EVs. She works with dif­fer­ent com­mit­tees and indus­tries to get endorse­ments for cli­mate-action bills and per­forms out­reach as well. 

Cur­rent­ly, Julia has been heav­i­ly involved with CCL’s Car­bon Fee and Div­i­dend Act, a bill that has been in the works for 10 years. This pol­i­cy pro­pos­es a car­bon tax, where the car­bon fee would tax point-source emis­sions at $15 per ton of CO2 equiv­a­lent emis­sions, includ­ing oil, gas, and methane. This fee would increase with time until the Unit­ed States emits only 10% of what it did in 1990, allow­ing indus­tries the time to devel­op green­er tech­nol­o­gy or switch to clean­er, renew­able alter­na­tives. The car­bon tax would increase the price of any prod­uct whose pro­duc­tion relies on car­bon emis­sions, and all the mon­ey received from this fee would go back into every American’s pock­ets. Every month, each per­son would get a check cov­er­ing these costs, mean­ing that low­er-income pop­u­la­tions would actu­al­ly ben­e­fit from this pol­i­cy and there would be a net ben­e­fit for peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment. This sets the pol­i­cy apart from oth­er sim­i­lar car­bon tax­es that opt to donate a por­tion of the tax rev­enue to cli­mate-action caus­es instead. The fee is expect­ed to low­er emis­sions by 80–90% as it con­tin­ues to increase over time. 

The Car­bon Fee and Div­i­dend Act would also encour­age elec­tric vehi­cle adop­tion. Since the price of car­bon would increase, EV own­ers who don’t rely on it for their cars will save more mon­ey over time in com­par­i­son to the own­ers of inter­nal com­bus­tion engine (ICE) cars. This increase in gas prices will also encour­age peo­ple to buy more ener­gy-effi­cient vehi­cles to avoid pay­ing more at the pump and to increase their life­time sav­ings. In addi­tion, for those who are more dri­ven by the cars’ envi­ron­men­tal ben­e­fits, EVs will become even clean­er as man­u­fac­tur­ers and min­ing com­pa­nies (who must mine for the mate­ri­als in the car’s bat­tery) will be incen­tivized to use renew­able ener­gy sources instead of fos­sil fuels to avoid pay­ing this tax. 

Because this is a mar­ket-based solu­tion, it has bipar­ti­san sup­port. Around 68% of Amer­i­cans are in favor of a car­bon tax and 55% of Repub­li­cans show sup­port as well. The Cit­i­zens Cli­mate Lob­by is the largest orga­ni­za­tion with the most sup­port around a car­bon tax and is opti­mistic about get­ting this pol­i­cy passed soon, as a new pres­i­den­tial admin­is­tra­tion has giv­en hope to a more favor­able out­come. Julia is still work­ing on gath­er­ing sup­port from oth­er orga­ni­za­tions in order to bring these endorse­ments to the table when the pol­i­cy goes to legislation. 

To show your sup­port, you can call or email your Con­gres­sion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive or you can email the White House and fill out the form ask­ing them to pass a car­bon tax. If you’re inter­est­ed in par­tic­i­pat­ing with the Cit­i­zens Cli­mate Lob­by, go to their web­site to join. For more infor­ma­tion about the pol­i­cy, read the FAQ. 

As a 501(c)(3) non­prof­it oper­at­ing in Col­orado, we do not lob­by or attempt to influ­ence legislation.