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The Supreme Court’s 6-3 shackling of the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions diverges from the American majority demanding climate action. It imperils the livelihoods and lives on the front lines of the climate crisis and makes any claim that our highest court is “pro-life” bogus.
However, there is a path for robust climate action. As hundreds of volunteer climate advocates learned on a recent Washington, D.C., lobby trip, Congress has a window to pass meaningful climate legislation and it must; now. If this legislation prices fossil fuel companies’ pollution and returns that money to citizens, it would benefit our economy, our people and our planet.
Prudent climate policy provides economic and national security advantages in an increasingly competitive and unstable world. Pricing dirtier imports for their embedded carbon pollution would invigorate U.S. industry, shorten inflation-weary supply lines, and weaken petrol-state threats like Vladimir Putin.
But because the Constitution explicitly gives Congress the power to raise and distribute money, pricing carbon would be impervious to judicial review. There is no doubt Congress can rectify our perilous climate position, but will it?
Our voices matter, especially in Maine, the only state with both senators on the Senate Climate Solutions Caucus. Contact our lawmakers today and demand climate action. Humanity can’t wait.
Peter Dugas
Citizens Climate Lobby
Portland