H.R.763 - Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act of 2019

How does it work?
1. Carbon Fee
This policy puts a fee on fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas. It starts low, and grows over time. It will drive down carbon pollution because energy companies, industries, and consumers will move toward cleaner, cheaper options.
2. Carbon Dividend
The money collected from the carbon fee is allocated in equal shares every month to the American people to spend as they see fit. Program costs are paid from the fees collected. The government does not keep any of the money from the carbon fee.
3. Border Carbon Adjustment
To protect U.S. manufacturers and jobs, imported goods will be assessed a border carbon adjustment, and goods exported from the United States will receive a refund under this policy.
4. Regulatory Adjustment
This policy preserves effective current regulations, like auto mileage standards, but pauses the EPA authority to regulate the CO2 and equivalent emissions covered by the fee, for the first 10 years after the policy is enacted. If emission targets are not being met after 10 years, Congress gives clear direction to the EPA to regulate those emissions to meet those targets. The pause does not impact EPA regulations related to water quality, air quality, health or other issues. This policy’s price on pollution will lower carbon emissions far more than existing and pending EPA regulations.

@phranny said
How does it work?

How does what work? The Magic Carbon Offset Scheme?

Stop flying and kill half of everybody in China and 90% of the USA. That might work. Day-dreaming about carbon dividends only uses up more energy.

@Shallow-Blue, are you suggesting we do nothing to reduce CO2? If you do consider climate warming a problem, what do you suggest be done? Please offer a realistic plan or ignore the question.

@Phranny
There are also engineering solutions like sequestering CO2 directly from the atmosphere. That work advances every year to more workable solutions.

@sonhouse this bill is needed to push corporations to do exactly that. Without the financial incentive, very little will be done.

@Phranny
There is work being done on this issue, just not so much by Americans. The REST of the world knows full well the consequences of fossil fuel burning.
Some country leaders are not as stupid as that "stable genius Trump, just ask him"

@sonhouse the recent meeting on climate in Spain was a huge bust. Actually, it seems smaller economies are showing more willingness to deal with CO2 than the larger industrialized nations. Time is running out. One of my biggest concerns is that as the perma frost melts, ancient pathogens may be released causing a pandemic that current antibiotics will not kill. If large numbers of humans, especially those in the most industrialized areas, are dead in just a few years, it could significantly slow the industries most responsible for creating CO2. Maybe knock us back to a pre-industrialized state of affairs.

@Phranny

one concern is the melting permafrost releasing megatons of methane which is something like 100X the GH gas heating as CO2, shorter term, gone in a few years but it can wreck havoc on climate.

@sonhouse this is true. Governments need to act as well as corporations. There must be financial incentives through taxation for corporations to develop and adopt technologies that will reduce CO2 emissions. Climate change is one of three existential threats to life as we know it on this planet. One is thermonuclear war. Another is if a large enough asteroid hits the planet. The third, and most serious and imminent threat, is climate change. The science is clear. If we continue to do nothing more than recycle and use canvas shopping bags, we will be doomed.

I am puzzling over the odd pattern of thumbs up and thumbs down of all these above posts and I have being trying to guess who is doing that and why but I just cannot come up with any hypothesis that makes any sense in my personal mind. Just wondering.