House committee releases comprehensive plan to solve climate crisis
Rep. Casten calls it ‘a roadmap to turn this ship around’
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi releases a comprehensive plan for “Solving the Climate Crisis” Tuesday on the Capitol steps. (Facebook)
By Ted Cox
A U.S. House committee has released an ambitious, comprehensive report laying out a plan for “Solving the Climate Crisis.”
Released Tuesday by the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, created by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi immediately after she reassumed the office in January 2019, the 538-page report sets up 12 “pillars” of policy intended to achieve the goal of “net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions economy-wide in the United States no later than 2050.”
The pillars include an emphasis on green infrastructure; decarbonization technology; tax policy; investment in workers, “exposed communities,” and agriculture; improved public health; a commitment to protect and restore land, water, oceans and wildlife; and finally a move to “restore” U.S. leadership on the issue internationally.
“We have a plan – and it comes at a critical time,” said U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor of Florida, the committee chairwoman. “Our plan will put people back to work and rebuild in a way that benefits all of us. That means environmental justice and our vulnerable communities are at the center of the solutions we propose. The health of our families and the air we breathe are at the heart of our plan. We chart the course to good-paying jobs in solar and wind energy, in manufacturing American-made electric vehicles, and in strengthening communities, so they are more resilient to flooding, extreme heat, intense hurricanes, and wildfires.”
Freshman Congressman Sean Casten of Downers Grove championed the report as a member of the committee appointed by Pelosi and Castor. A scientist and a clean-energy entrepreneur when elected two years ago, he granted in a news conference on the Capitol steps that “but for climate change, I would not be hear today.”
Speaking on the House floor, he pointed out that scientists first speculated on the “greenhouse effect” — in which increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere brought on by burning fossil fuels cause the global temperature to rise — over a century ago, in 1896. Casten then cited the Montreal Protocol endorsed by the Reagan administration in 1987 in a bid to “close the ozone hole” — a goal ultimately achieved.
“It used market tools to solve environmental problems, and it worked,” Casten said.
He added that the Kyoto Protocol, adopted in 1997 under President Clinton and implemented under President George W. Bush in 2005, “was supposed to supply that logic to carbon dioxide, but then, as many of you know, we just decided to go collectively crazy. Scientific truths got politicized, crackpot theories got weaponized, and meanwhile it just got hotter.”
Calling the report “a roadmap to turn this ship around,” Casten said that its proposals would reduce carbon emissions “almost 90 percent,” while saving the United States $9 trillion by 2050 and also saving 62,000 lives a year by that time.
“This is an opportunity to grow the economy and to protect the environment,” Casten said. “It is an opportunity to tell your children that when the times called on you to act, you rose to that challenge.”
U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood of Naperville applauded the plan’s inclusion of her proposal for a Climate and Health Protection Act, reinstating the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Climate and Health Program.
“We cannot ignore the serious environmental, economic, and public health risks of climate change,” Underwood said in a statement. “In northern Illinois, we have already seen the devastating impacts of climate change, as heavy rainfall has caused record-breaking flooding across the Midwest. We must act now. It is essential that Congress works to restore essential programs like the Climate and Health Program.”
Pelosi called the entire plan “a bold step for climate action now.” She said she had created the committee “reflecting the will of the American people, especially young people demanding action now.”
A two-page summary of the report’s goals lays out how it plans to grow the economy with clean-energy jobs, much like a national version of the Clean Energy Jobs Act pending in the Illinois General Assembly, while also protecting families, farmers, and the ecology.
Former Vice President Al Gore, who has led the debate on climate change since producing the 2006 documentary on the subject, “An Inconvenient Truth,” called the plan “a long-overdue blueprint for federal action on climate,” adding, “I applaud its focus on creating new jobs, building back by accelerating clean-energy solutions, and putting communities of color at the center.”
Pelosi said that, given the imminent crisis of climate change, it should be the goal of all U.S. citizens, and she lamented that it’s such a contentious issue in the politically divided Congress, but she pledged to take action, saying it will be “a fight for as long as it needs to be.”