Support HR 763 which institutes “carbon-fee-and-dividend”

By Mike Shatzkin

There is currently a bill before the US Congress that could be the most significant climate legislation ever passed. It institutes a concept called “carbon-fee-and-dividend”, which is not really a “new” idea but which is still a pretty obscure one. It shouldn’t be. Anybody worried about climate change should familiarize themselves with the idea, which might be the single most powerful policy tool we can create to decarbonize our energy systems.

What is “carbon-fee-and-dividend”?

It is a protocol to “put a price on carbon” and refund the money raised in equal shares to individuals.

The “fee” is a price paid by the provider of raw material that will be burned and create CO2 (meaning coal, oil, or gas) when that material enters the economy: at the mine, wellhead, or port. That becomes part of the cost of the raw material and raises the price of the finished product (“fuel”) that results from it. The “dividend” is paid to the public: a pro-rata share of one hundred percent of the proceeds from the fees. So the costs are paid by all consumers of fossil fuel energy: governments, businesses, and people. But the dividends are divided equally among people. That creates a very progressive result.

Who has proposed it and how do proposals for it differ from each other?

The longest continuing advocates of the carbon-fee-and-dividend idea (and the people who named it “carbon fee and…