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NY state legislators & climate leaders call for a carbon price

NEW YORK, December 6, 2021 – This week, six New York state legislators and two Climate Action Council members sent a letter to the New York congressional delegation, urging them to support a price on carbon. The letter was facilitated by New York CCL’s State Level Action Team, led by volunteers Peter Savio, Phillip Kahn, Randy Gyorgy, Lynn Meyer, and Bryan Swift. Read the letter below.

To NY’s Congressional Delegation:

As New York State Senators, Assembly Members and Climate Action Council members, we have supported or co-sponsored New York’s nation leading Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), and we continue to work on its timely and effective follow through. As all of us are aware, however, the federal government’s role is pivotal to putting our country firmly on a path towards meeting both the state’s CLCPA goals, as well as our nation’s and President Biden’s climate goals.

We urge you to advocate strongly for the boldest possible decarbonization framework in the federal budget reconciliation package. We applaud the goal that President Biden set for America to address climate change by reducing our emissions 50% by 2030 – however, without a transformative package, including a price on carbon and essential complementary policies, the package will likely fall short of that critical goal.

A truly transformative reconciliation bill must include a meaningful price on greenhouse gas emissions while also protecting the economically vulnerable from higher energy costs. A carbon price should also include border adjustments that levy a carbon price on imports from nations that lack greenhouse gas mitigation policies equivalent to ours.

We recognize that additional measures, complementary to a price on carbon emissions, would help the U.S. and New York achieve their decarbonization goals. Examples include: eliminating fossil fuel subsidies; aggressive investments to retrofit existing buildings and to modernize appliance standards; rapid decarbonization across the transport sector; and, standards and investment to modernize our electric grid and
rapidly electrify substantial portions of our economy. Measures such as these would strengthen economic competitiveness and job growth; they must also be integrated with environmental justice and just transition elements to assure that all Americans are part of a cleaner future together.

We applaud and thank you for your work toward a cleaner, healthier and more economically viable future. As public support for climate action continues to grow, and the National Climate Assessment makes clear, our constituents recognize that
failing to pass bold climate provisions in the reconciliation package risks making heat waves, flooding, droughts, wildfires, storms, and sea level rise worse. We have no time to spare.

Liz Krueger
NY State Senator
28th Senate District

Patricia Fahy
Member of NY Assembly
109th Assembly District

Anna R. Kelles
Member of NY Assembly
125th Assembly District

Robert W. Howarth
NY Climate Action Council Member
Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Cornell University

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