FCNL letter to Senate urging climate bill start with CLEAR Act

Jun 15, 2010

Senate should consider Comprehensive Energy and Climate Legislation with
Simple Carbon Cap that Protects Consumers

June 15, 2010

Dear Senator,

The Gulf of Mexico oil catastrophe, the United States' dependence on foreign and dirty energy sources and the costs of man-made global warming, all urgently demand a long-term, comprehensive solution from Congress, not short-term fixes.

We believe an economy-wide approach to limiting carbon that sends the majority of collected revenue back to consumers is the best system for creating a fair and sustainable path toward the clean economy of the future. Without setting a price on carbon we are not creating the market incentives to transition to clean energy; without returning the revenue to consumers we are not creating an equitable system that can gain the support of the public.

As you begin to study the options before the Senate, we encourage you to consider the elements contained in the Cantwell-Collins CLEAR Act (S. 2877) as a starting point for carbon cap language in a comprehensive energy and climate bill.

In particular, the elements in S. 2877 we support are:
• Setting a stable price on carbon
• Returning 75 percent of the carbon revenue to consumers, which keeps the majority of the public financially unharmed
• 100 percent auction that avoids picking industry winners and losers
• Restricting secondary markets and speculation
• Limiting regulated entities to a few thousand "upstream" producers
• Eliminating carbon offsets from the carbon cap system, and instead funding competitive agriculture and forestry emission reduction projects through carbon revenues


Thank you for your consideration.

Respectfully yours,

Devin Helfrich, Legislative Advocate
Friends Committee on National Legislation