There are ways to lower carbon emissions in the United States without killing the economy. Some could even be good for it.
In an age in which high-speed broadband internet is the norm in much of the U.S. and a pandemic has killed nearly 600,000 people in the country, remote work has become an important piece of the U.S. economy. To mitigate the spread of the virus, businesses have more people working from home, voluntarily or otherwise, setting up what could be a pro-business and pro-worker blueprint to help mitigate the effects of climate change, mostly in the private sector.
Transportation accounted for 29% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions as of 2019, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Daily commutes to work, necessary or not, are a part of that.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that workers can do 37% of jobs in the country entirely remotely. That’s not including jobs in which a hybrid model is possible: some remote work and some in-person work.
For workers, this can be a good thing. It’s less commuting time, fewer miles on a vehicle, and lower work-related expenses, whether for clothing, fuel, food, parking, or whatever else comes up. And on the employer side, fewer physical buildings and maintenance of those buildings is a money-saver. Plus, some companies subsidize their workers’ parking costs in urban areas. When feasible, companies should let workers keep some or all of that subsidy to incentivize them to work at home.
California, for example, has a parking cash-out program that makes it so that workers have the option of taking a cash allowance instead of a parking space benefit offered by their employer. The intent is that people will choose greener commutes to work, such as carpooling, walking, biking, or public transit. Maybe other states could look at some version of that for remote work to reduce emissions.
Some states have been trying to incentivize remote work for years. Vermont, for example, will give remote workers a financial incentive to move to the state. The rationale: These people, who might not otherwise move to the state, will add to the tax base. Meanwhile, in 2019, Massachusetts Republican Gov. Charlie Baker proposed a $2,000-per-employee tax credit to companies that let their employees work remotely, with the total statewide tax break capped at $50 million per year (in a state with a budget of around $43 billion per year at the time).
The counterarguments to these, though, are that Vermont could attract more workers without giving some special treatment if it didn’t have high taxes, and the Baker plan could be a handout to wealthy corporations. Perhaps states could offer a tax credit to lower-income residents who choose to work remotely rather than giving millions to people with advanced degrees who don’t need the money.
At a minimum, the federal government could avoid overregulating broadband internet so that it’s more accessible in rural areas, allowing more people in those areas to work from home. After all, rural workers can have longer commutes into more developed areas.
Hopefully, for the good of the planet, businesses and workers capitalize on remote work opportunities when it makes sense for them even after the pandemic ends. If they do, it would be yet another example of how it doesn’t take some job-killing left-wing policies to make the world a greener place.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a freelance writer who has been published in USA Today, the Boston Globe, Newsday, ESPN, the Detroit Free Press, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Federalist, and a number of other outlets.
