Broad Coalition of Major Companies, Environmental Groups Unveil Blueprint for Cap and Trade Legislation
Environmental Defence Fund (EDF) and a broad coalition of major companies and non-profit groups today unveiled a ground breaking new blueprint for federal legislation to fight climate change and jump-start economic recovery with a cap on global warming pollution.
"This is an Obama Era blueprint - business and environmentalists working together for a bold, practical solution, and that solution is a cap,” said EDF President Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defence Fund.
“The cap protects the atmosphere. It is the legal guarantee that pollution goes down. The cap also creates customers. And if America has ever needed customers, at home and abroad, now is the time,” Krupp said.
The blueprint, two years in the making, represents a consensus agreement among a diverse group of companies from across the US economy and leading non-profit organisations on the design of comprehensive climate legislation. USCAP is calling on Congress and the incoming administration to pass a cap and trade bill as soon as possible.
The centrepiece of the USCAP blueprint is a mandatory and declining economy-wide cap on global warming pollution from electric utilities, transportation fuels and industrial facilities. It calls for aggressive greenhouse gas emissions reductions with targets and timelines consistent with President Barack Obama’s proposals.
“The cap is the key. It mobilises private capital to build the clean energy technologies that will solve climate change, and it breathes new life into markets for the US manufacturers who build them. That means more jobs for American workers and a safer climate for everyone,” Krupp said.
Key elements of the USCAP blueprint for legislative action include aggressive emission reductions targets and timelines, including an 80 per cent reduction from 2005 levels by 2050, that follow the science mechanisms to manage costs without undermining environmental goals, and provisions to address economic impacts on consumers.
