Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, is laying down a marker: He wants to impose emissions requirements on airlines in exchange for additional pandemic relief.
“Particularly after the big bailout that they got, I’d like to see the airlines be more responsible about their carbon emissions,” Whitehouse, a staunch advocate for climate policy, told the Washington Examiner in a recent interview. He’s gearing up for another legislative battle as Congress negotiates a fifth coronavirus package and airlines seek an extension of billions of their relief money as part of that.
Whitehouse, during negotiations over the CARES Act in March, led several Democratic colleagues in arguing that the more than $50 billion in grants and loans airlines received as part of the relief bill should be linked with greenhouse gas emissions requirements. House Democrats, too, floated climate commitments for airlines in their draft relief bill, though the language didn’t make it through negotiations with Republicans.
“The airlines would accept nothing, not even a conversation about it that was serious, so we’ll have to keep trying on that one,” Whitehouse said.
Environmentalists, too, see an opportunity to shift the course of U.S. airlines’ emissions, especially amid sharp declines in air travel. The aircraft sector accounts for 12% of U.S. transportation emissions and 2.4% of global emissions, according to a fact sheet from the Environment and Energy Study Institute.
“We are in this really unique moment where we could actually have real structural change to the airlines to make them more sustainable,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
A few countries in the European Union are seizing that moment, requiring their airlines to reduce short-hop flights where high-speed rail could be a lower-emitting travel option, Hartl added.
For example, the French government included a requirement that Air France cut domestic flights by 40% as part of its more than $7 billion bailout. The Dutch government, too, included requirements for KLM to reduce evening flights and halve emissions per passenger by 2030.
In the United States, Democrats and environmentalists are likely to have another opportunity to fight for climate requirements for the sector. U.S. airlines, along with airline worker labor union leaders, are seeking a six-month extension of the $25 billion Payroll Support Program created by the CARES Act, which is set to expire Oct. 1.
“Without additional federal aid, U.S. airlines will be forced to make very difficult business decisions, which could include announced furloughs and reductions in service,” said Carter Yang, a spokesperson for Airlines for America. The trade group represents major U.S. airlines, including American Airlines, United, Delta, and Southwest.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, as well as President Trump, have already signaled support for an extension.
Whitehouse told the Washington Examiner that, to address climate change, he’d like to see airlines more readily allow every passenger the ability to purchase an individual carbon offset through the airline to cover the emissions of his or her trip.
“Because so many of us buy our travel through work, that if you can’t buy the offset with the ticket, it doesn’t get done,” he said.
Airlines should also have to “buy their own damn offsets,” Whitehouse added. He suggested that would “put a bit of a carbon price out there” because it would create a market for carbon credits.
The Rhode Island Democrat has also previously pushed for binding emissions reductions targets for airlines and greater research funding for cleaner aircraft technologies.
His proposals for offsets, however, are dividing environmentalists.
“Offsets don’t work. They’re really very little more than a classic Catholic indulgence,” Hartl, of the Center for Biological Diversity, said. He added it was “disappointing” to see Whitehouse suggesting airlines and passengers use them.
Hartl argued offsets, which allow companies and other entities to pay for a carbon reduction project to earn a credit toward emissions targets, don’t address the source of the emissions.
Offsets can also perpetuate the disproportionate effects minority and low-income people experience from pollution “because the offset, whatever it is, can happen far, far away from where the harm is” in terms of the burning and refining of fossil fuels, Hartl added.
Not every environmental group is as sour on offsets, though.
Annie Petsonk, international counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund, said at least in the near-term, airlines will likely need to use offsets to deal with their emissions. But she stressed those offsets must be “high-quality,” and they can’t be the only action airlines are taking to cut their emissions.
The International Civil Aviation Organization, of which more than 190 countries are members, has set some standards to ensure rigor and transparency for offsets. Those standards should be the minimum, Petsonk said, adding hers and several other environmental organizations are crafting a guide to carbon credit quality.
Congress could also help make airline programs offering offsets to passengers more effective, Petsonk said. For example, she suggested Congress could require all airlines “to build the offset into the ticket from the get-go” and give people the option to opt-out of purchasing it at the end, rather than tacking on an additional process to people’s tickets as most programs do now.
Above all else, however, Petsonk said airlines need to commit to a trajectory of net-zero emissions by 2050. “That means we need both the commitment to the long-term target and to interim targets,” she said, adding those should be “embodied legislatively.”
Currently, Airlines for America has set a goal to cut carbon emissions in half by 2050, relative to 2005 levels. U.S. airlines have also agreed to participate in an international agreement, overseen by ICAO, that sets a goal of carbon-neutral growth starting in 2021.
“U.S. airlines continue to lead the fight against climate change with a myriad of measures, including developing and deploying sustainable alternative jet fuels, investing in more fuel-efficient aircraft, and operating them in more efficient ways,” Yang said.
