RFF Carbon Pricing Dialogues | A Frank Assessment of US Opportunities for Climate Action
Event Description
The federal government’s role in climate-related policy has changed dramatically, presenting many challenges to various climate policies at the federal level, including carbon pricing. In this virtual-only dialogue, we’ll take stock of where things stand by looking at Congress, the courts, and the government’s basic capacities with respect to environmental data collection.
Executive Summary:
The panelists brought perspectives on how Congress, government scientists, and the civil service are functioning after a year and a half of significant changes during the second Trump Administration. A common theme was that opportunities still exist, but require adaptability and reframing to seize. There was a shared sense that there’s no going back to the way things were.
Regarding Congress, our panelist shared how their organization is having success in training their grassroots to engage with members of all political persuasions on climate change. This has required a shift in approach, so they don’t begin conversations with climate and allow different members to find different reasons for supporting the same policy.
Our second panelist shared their organizational support for significant state capacity reforms before the start of the second Trump Administration, but that the new administration has made their suggestions more salient. They recommend four pillars of reforms including 1) Personnel (getting the right people in the right jobs), 2) Proceduralism (rules that work, and don’t inhibit action), 3) Digital Infrastructure (moving from a project-based to a continual delivery framework), and 4) Feedback Loops (getting agencies to share challenges and get Congressional feedback). These reforms amount to systemic change that no one law could fix, require bipartisan support, and would move from trying to outmanage bad systems to addressing the system itself.
A former government scientist shared a recently published greenhouse gas inventory analysis for the US to facilitate comparability and continuity with past publications. While acknowledging significant difficulties moving forward in terms of data availability, they emphasized there’s still a lot of important data available within government agencies. Much was collected for non-climate reasons in the first place, and some others will still be collected but for other reasons. The panelist sees future capacity and the pipeline of researchers as dependent on how long the current attitude toward federal government research persists.
