This commentary is by Beth Zigmund, M.D., an associate professor of radiology at the University of Vermont Medical Center and a volunteer for the Vermont chapter of the Citizens Climate Lobby and the Vermont Climate and Health Alliance.
UK Greenpeace recently released damning video footage of ExxonMobil lobbyists touting their sway over politicians to deflate or defeat meaningful actions reducing fossil fuel consumption. The lobbyists revealed ExxonMobil supports a carbon tax because the company believes it will never happen, pretending to be serious about addressing climate change. Not surprising; nonetheless, infuriating.
As we Vermonters emerge from the long Covid tunnel, we should look to the western and midwestern U.S. with trepidation. Climate change, fundamentally a grave threat to planetary and human health, is unfolding in heat-scorched Washington and Oregon, wildfire-ridden California, and flood-swamped Michigan. Unlike Covid-19, this is a growing public health crisis with no end in sight. Will we continue to allow big oil to sell the future of our planet, the health and well-being of our children and grandchildren, for its own profit?
Policymakers must call ExxonMobil’s bluff and enact a national carbon price now.
Thousands of economists — including dozens of Nobel laureates — agree carbon pricing is the fastest, most transparent and efficient method for reducing carbon emissions. Dozens of prominent medical societies are on board. The Lancet Commission names climate change “the greatest public health threat of this century, but also the greatest public health opportunity of this century” and states carbon pricing is “the single most powerful instrument to inoculate human health against the risks of climate change.”
The American Medical Association, along with over 100 American health organizations, recommends we “put a price on carbon that reflects its true social costs and phase out investments in and subsidies for fossil fuels for energy extraction and generation.”
How do we price carbon while protecting environmental justice communities and low- to middle-income families during the transition to renewable energy? Two bills currently in the Senate and one in the House of Representatives contain carbon fee proposals that meet the test. Each levies a steadily rising fee on fossil fuels. This price signal steers our economy away from fossil fuels and drives energy innovation. At least 70% of the revenue is returned to low- and middle-income households as a cash-back so they break even or come out ahead in the energy transition.
In the Senate legislation, the remainder goes toward state and local grants for clean energy initiatives, assistance to coal mining communities and other “energy veterans,” as well as environmental justice communities, including Native Americans. One of the Senate bills taxes harmful fossil fuel air pollutants and returns some of the revenues to the communities suffering the greatest health impacts. The other provides assistance for agricultural decarbonization.
These bills take an all-of-the-above approach to addressing climate change. They do not affect the EPA’s ability to regulate fossil fuels, nor do they restrict states’ abilities to enact other forms of carbon pricing, such as cap-and-trade. A carbon fee and cash-back would dovetail with a clean energy standard, which requires a certain percentage of electricity be low- or zero-carbon.
To address climate change, should we trust scores of climate scientists, public health experts, and prominent economists? Or should we fall for the ruse of big oil lobbyists and the politicians who do their bidding?
Now is the time to enact a carbon fee and show big oil we’re not messing around. Urge Sens. Sanders and Leahy and Congressman Welch to support bold carbon fee legislation to put America on the path to a healthy, prosperous future.
