Congressman Sean Casten’s bill is innovative but lacks comprehensive coverage of the economy. We applaud his efforts.
By Nick Sobczyk, E&E Daily, March 15, 2021
Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) last week reintroduced an unorthodox carbon pricing bill that would aim to eliminate 40% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2040.
The "Tradable Performance Standards Act" would tackle the electricity sector and industrial emissions from thermal energy by effectively combining a price on carbon with a clean energy standard.
The bill would create a system of emissions allowances, declining each year, doled out to greenhouse gas emitters by EPA.
High-carbon generators would pay zero-carbon generators for allowances, pricing emissions and setting up a timeline for declines without a direct fee or a credit system for clean energy.
The idea is to use a market-based system to reduce emissions without directly raising energy prices for consumers, as with a traditional carbon tax, and without setting up a massive federal bureaucracy.
Casten said when he first introduced the legislation last year that it's the product of more than a decade of work (E&E Daily, Oct. 14, 2020).
"I want to get it out there, get it into the mix, so that when we're talking about some kind of a comprehensive energy and climate bill in the 117th Congress, we're hopefully talking about a framework like this as the way to reduce the CO2," Casten told E&E News at the time.
It's one of several carbon pricing or clean energy standard bills floating around Congress, as Democrats prepare for a push on broader climate change and infrastructure legislation in the coming months.
"Curbing climate pollution from the electric and industrial sectors is essential to tackling the climate crisis," Elizabeth Gore, senior vice president for political affairs at the Environmental Defense Fund, said in a statement.
"Rep. Casten's innovative proposal will not only cut climate pollution from these sectors, it will help spur investment in clean energy jobs and reduce harmful air pollution."