{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://web.archive.org/web/20141120043638/http://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/introducing-the-american-opportunity-carbon-fee-act", "Introducing the American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act", "2014-11-19", "2014", "2014-11", "Democrat", "House", "RI", "Sheldon Whitehouse", "W000802", "web.archive.org", null, null, "legacy", "As Prepared for Delivery\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tWednesday, November 19, 2014\n            \n\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tMr./Madam President, I rise today for the eightieth time to ask this body to wake up to the growing threat of global climate change.\u00a0 I rise today also to introduce the American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act.\nCarbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels is changing the atmosphere and the oceans.\u00a0 We see it everywhere.\u00a0 We see it in storm-damaged homes and flooded cities.\u00a0 We see it in drought-stricken farms and raging wildfires.\u00a0 We see it in fish disappearing from warming, acidifying waters.\u00a0 We see it in shifting habitats and migrating contagions.\u00a0\nAll these things we see carry costs\u2014real economic costs\u2014to homeowners, business owners, and taxpayers.\u00a0 That cost is known as the \u201csocial cost of carbon.\u201d \u00a0It\u2019s the damages people and communities suffer from carbon pollution and climate change. \u00a0\u00a0\nNone of those costs from carbon pollution are factored into the price of the coal, oil, or natural gas that releases this carbon.\u00a0 The fossil fuel companies have offloaded those costs onto society.\u00a0\nThat\u2019s just not fair. \u00a0If you rake your lawn, you don\u2019t get to dump the leaves over the fence for your neighbor to clean up.\u00a0 If you\u2019re located on a river, you don\u2019t get to dump your garbage for the downstream landowners to clean up.\u00a0 Yet carbon polluters transfer the costs of climate change to everyone else. \u00a0\nThe U.S. government estimates the social cost of carbon pollution to be around forty dollars per ton of carbon dioxide, an amount that rises over time as carbon pollution creates more and more harm. \u00a0So a climbing forty dollars per ton is the cost; the current effective price on carbon pollution is zero.\u00a0\nBy making their carbon pollution free, we subsidize fossil fuel companies to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars annually.\u00a0 By making their carbon pollution free, we rig the game, giving polluters an unfair advantage over newer and cleaner technologies. \u00a0It\u2019s a form of cheating, and corporate polluters love it because it gives them advantage.\u00a0 But it\u2019s wrong.\nAs University of Chicago Economics Professor Michael Greenstone recently explained, this concept is widely accepted:\n\"The media always reports that there\u2019s near consensus amongst scientists about the fact that human activity impacts climate change.\u00a0 What does not receive as much attention is that there\u2019s even greater consensus amongst economists, starting from Milton Friedman and moving into the most left-wing economists that you could find, that the obvious correct public policy solution to this is to put a price on carbon.\u00a0 It\u2019s not controversial.\"\nToday I am introducing a bill to put a price on carbon emissions. \u00a0It\u2019s simple.\u00a0 It will require the polluters to pay a fee for their pollution.\u00a0 All of the revenue generated will return to the American people.\nI thank Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii for cosponsoring this measure.\u00a0 He\u2019s been a great colleague on environmental issues and against climate change.\u00a0\nThe bill we introduce today establishes an economy-wide fee on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, tracking the social cost of carbon:\u00a0 starting at forty-two dollars a ton and going up by 2 percent per year plus inflation.\nWe know how much carbon dioxide each unit of coal, oil, and natural gas produces, so we assess the fee on fossil fuel producers, processors, and importers.\u00a0 That makes it simple to administer.\u00a0 The whole bill is only twenty-nine pages long.\nFor other varieties of greenhouse gases and non-fossil-fuel sources of CO2, we assess our fee only on the largest emitters\u2014those emitting more than 25,000 tons a year.\u00a0 This is the same universe of companies we already require to monitor and report on their emissions.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\nWe recognize that a significant greenhouse gas concern is the methane that escapes throughout production and distribution.\u00a0 To address this, we require annual reports on methane leakage and direct the Treasury Secretary to adjust the fees on fossil fuels to account for it. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\nThis fee will promote innovation to help further reduce carbon emissions.\u00a0 Fossil fuel companies that capture and sequester carbon dioxide, or innovate ways to encapsulate it in materials or products, get credits to offset the carbon fee.\u00a0\nWe also take care to ensure that American manufacturers are not put at a competitive disadvantage globally.\u00a0 Imports from nations that don\u2019t price emissions will face a tariff that the Treasury Secretary is authorized to impose at the border.\u00a0 Likewise, the Secretary is authorized to rebate American producers on their exports.\u00a0\u00a0\nSince regulation is usually a response to market failure, a well-designed carbon fee would also open a conversation about whether carbon regulations are still needed.\u00a0 A carbon fee would be much more efficient and predictable than complex regulations.\nThat\u2019s it.\u00a0 It\u2019s that simple.\u00a0 Make the polluters pay the full costs of their products.\u00a0 Level the playing field for other forms of energy like wind and solar to fairly compete.\u00a0 Keep the fee mechanism simple.\u00a0 Maintain a border adjustment that keeps American goods competitive.\nOn the flip side, the carbon fee will generate significant new federal revenue.\u00a0 The technicians are still working on the official revenue estimate for the bill, but it should be at least $1.5 trillion, and perhaps more than $2 trillion, over the first decade.\u00a0 Whatever the exact number is, all of it should be returned to the American people.\nThe bill establishes an American Opportunity Trust Fund to return the revenue to the American people.\u00a0 This could include tax cuts, student loan debt relief, increased Social Security benefits for seniors, transition assistance to workers in fossil-fuel industries, or even direct dividends to American families.\u00a0 I look forward to deciding with my colleagues on the best way to return the revenue, but I believe that every dollar should go back to the American people in some form.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\nHere\u2019s one example to consider: we could cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 30 percent.\u00a0 That\u2019s estimated to cost about $600 billion.\u00a0\nThen we could give every single American worker an annual $500 payroll tax rebate for about $700 billion.\u00a0\nThere would even be enough money from the fee to pay for the corporate and payroll tax cuts and on top of that to boost the Earned Income Tax Credit by hundreds of dollars a year for millions of lower-income families.\nThe American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act would promote market-based innovations to solve our carbon pollution problem.\u00a0 Its revenue could make our companies more competitive, give every single worker a tax cut, and boost benefits for low-income families.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\nLast month, the former editorial-page editor of the Des Moines Register wrote a column titled: \u201c\u2018Carbon tax\u2019 would help Iowa, planet.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cThe United States could take the lead by acting on its own, watch its economy grow, and let the rest of the world catch up,\u201d he wrote. \u00a0\u201cIn the process, the United States would gain mastery of the sustainable-energy technology that will drive economic growth in the future.\u201d\u00a0\nMr./Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that this column be entered into the Record.\nGeorge W. Bush\u2019s Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson gave the same message earlier this year, saying, \u201cA tax on carbon emissions will unleash a wave of innovation to develop technologies, lower the costs of clean energy and create jobs as we and other nations develop new energy products and infrastructure.\n\u201cRepublicans must not shrink from this issue,\u201d he continued. \u00a0\u201cRisk management is a conservative principle.\u201d\u00a0\nHank Paulson is not alone.\u00a0 Conservative figures like George Shultz, Secretary of State under President Reagan, emphatically support a carbon fee as the best way to address carbon pollution.\nArt Laffer, one of the architects of President Reagan\u2019s economic plan, had this to say about a carbon tax and related payroll tax cut: \u201cI think that would be very good for the economy and as an adjunct, it would reduce also carbon emissions into the environment.\u201d\nIn a 2013 New York Times op-ed, four former Republican EPA Administrators\u2014Bill Ruckelshaus, Christine Todd Whitman, Lee Thomas, and William Reilly\u2014wrote, \u201cA market-based approach, like a carbon tax, would be the best path to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.\u201d \u00a0I ask unanimous consent that their op-ed be entered into the Record.\nI know the big carbon polluters want this issue ignored.\u00a0 They want to squeeze one more quarter, one more year of subsidy from the rest of us.\u00a0 Lunch is good when someone else picks up the check.\nBut I still believe this is a problem we can solve.\u00a0 Mr./Madam President, not long ago, this would have been a bipartisan bill.\u00a0 Not long ago, leading Republican voices agreed with Democrats that the dangers of climate change were real.\u00a0 Leading Republican voices agreed that carbon emissions were the culprit.\u00a0 And leading Republican voices agreed that Congress had the responsibility to act.\u00a0\nOne Republican senator won his party\u2019s nomination for president on a solid climate change platform.\u00a0 A number of our Republican colleagues in the Senate introduced, cosponsored, or voted for climate legislation in the past.\u00a0 Some of the proposals were market-based, revenue-neutral tools, aligned with Republican free-market values.\nThe junior Senator from Arizona, a Republican, was an original cosponsor of a carbon fee bill when he served in the House of Representatives.\u00a0 That proposal, introduced with former Republican Congressman Bob Inglis, would have placed a $15-per-ton fee on carbon pollution in 2010, more than $20 in 2015, and $100 in 2040.\u00a0 At the time, our colleague from Arizona had this to say: \u201cIf there is one economic axiom, it\u2019s that if you want less of something, then you tax it. . . . Clearly it\u2019s in our interest to move away from carbon.\u201d\nWe simply need conscientious Republicans and Democrats to work together, in good faith, on a platform of fact and common sense.\u00a0 We know it can be done, because it\u2019s been done.\u00a0\nAt the end of a speech about the American Revolution, the historian David McCullough was asked why it was that our Founding Fathers had the courage to pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the cause of independence.\u00a0 He answered simply: \u201cIt was a courageous time.\u201d\u00a0\nIn courageous times, Americans have done far more than stand up to polluters to serve this Great Republic.\u00a0 It only takes courage to make this a courageous time, too.\nI yield the floor.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://web.archive.org/web/20141120043638/http://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/introducing-the-american-opportunity-carbon-fee-act"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7686801254749298, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}