House Democrats plan 100% Clean Economy bill Thursday to unite party

“Current and future effects of climate change, including adverse health effects and other harms, are being and will likely continue to be felt first and most severely in” vulnerable communities, the bill says, according to a copy obtained by the Washington Examiner. “Governmental action to correct environmental injustice is morally imperative and necessary for public health.”

“It’s bold. It’s ambitious. It’s exactly what the scientists say we need to do and when we need to to do it,” Virginia Rep. Donald McEachin, the lead sponsor of the bill, told the Washington Examiner.

To McEachin, “100% clean” means “we will no longer be reliant on fossil fuels. We will no longer be pumping CO2 into the air,” he said. He added that America leads the world in technology innovation and should use that to drive zero-carbon energy.

The bill directs federal agencies to draw up plans to slash greenhouse gas emissions to meet the 100% clean economy goal, calling for plans within six months of enactment.

The Environmental Protection Agency would then be tasked with reviewing the plans to ensure they keep the U.S. on track, including submitting an annual emissions report to Congress, according to the draft. It also sets up an EPA advisory committee to make recommendations for interim greenhouse gas targets.

The language is consistent with an outline Rep. Paul Tonko of New York, who has been working on the bill and who leads the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s environment and climate change subcommittee, previewed to reporters last week. Tonko said the pending legislation would set a framework for more comprehensive legislation he and others are working on related to the “full universe of economywide” emissions cuts.

While some lawmakers, particularly Republicans, might balk at the idea of federal agencies using existing authority to regulate emissions, the legislation isn’t prescriptive about what policies should be put in place, to avoid exposing divisions among lawmakers.

That’s because the bill is meant to be a unifying force, setting the framework for more comprehensive climate legislation and policy recommendations going into 2020.

“We see this as an important step to try to build consensus around this target and this goal, so we’re all pulling on the same rope and moving in the same direction,” Elizabeth Gore, senior vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund, told the Washington Examiner.

The bill will be introduced with more than 100 Democratic co-sponsors. That includes key committee leaders such as House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone of New Jersey, a last-minute sign-on, according to Gore.

Tonko joined McEachin as a lead co-sponsor on the bill, along with Deb Haaland of New Mexico, Debbie Dingell of Michigan, Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, and Chellie Pingree of Maine, according to a one-pager on the bill obtained by the Washington Examiner.

More than a dozen environmental and public health groups are also backing the bill, Gore said.

Not every committee leader has formally backed the bill, however, even if they might be working on climate policy.

Florida Rep. Kathy Castor, who leads the climate committee, told the Washington Examiner she was “tempted” to sign on but decided against it. She noted she instead wants to focus her work on the select panel’s climate action plan “that will be cross-cutting and provide some of those answers.”

But McEachin said Castor has been using the 100% clean bill as a talking point as the committee frames its own climate plan. McEachin also sits on the select climate panel, which aims to put out climate policy recommendations next year.

The McEachin bill sets a marker for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 at the latest. That requirement would apply to all sectors of the economy and would mean that “we’re not going to emit any more carbon than we remove from the atmosphere,” Gore said.

But she also noted that 100% clean “doesn’t mean 100% renewable” but means net-zero emissions, opening the door to the inclusion of technologies such as nuclear energy and carbon removal as methods of lowering emissions.

“That’s what the science says about where we need to be,” Gore said.

But it isn’t clear whether that will be enough to satisfy all liberal activists. The activist group Extinction Rebellion, for example, is staging a hunger strike in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office this week, arguing she and House Democrats have stalled advancing a resolution declaring climate change an emergency and have been too slow to move meaningful climate legislation.

McEachin said he hopes everyone can get behind his bill and added he would certainly want the U.S. to achieve deep emissions cuts as quickly as possible. But he added the House Energy and Commerce Committee lawmakers have heard from expert witnesses that 2030 “is just a bit too ambitious.”

“2050 is more realistic,” he said, adding that “even that is a challenging target.”

The new legislation also includes economic-focused language meant to appeal to Republicans, though it’s unclear if any would sign onto the bill.

“Sound climate policies to achieve a 100 percent clean economy will spur the development and manufacturing of new technologies, the construction and repair of infrastructure, the restoration of natural systems for resilience and carbon sequestration, and the creation of new high-quality jobs,” the bill text says. “These investments can help ensure the competitiveness of the United States in the global economy.”

Gore stressed the Environmental Defense Fund believes there must be bipartisanship to ensure durable national policy to address climate change.

“I don’t think this is going to be the last step of the legislative journey on climate change,” Gore said of the bill. She added she is encouraged to see growing support on both sides of the aisle “for some of the critical components of a 100% clean economy.”

Josh Siegel contributed to this report.