Casten Priorities Included in the Select Committee’s Climate Crisis Report
Washington, D.C. - Today, the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis unveiled a comprehensive congressional climate action framework, highlighting U.S. Representative Sean Casten (IL-06) bills to promote grid storage technologies, make companies' financial exposure to climate change more transparent to investors, create a program to reduce industrial emissions, and strengthen federal public housing efficiency standards as important tools in the effort to solve the climate crisis. This morning, Casten spoke on the House floor in support of the report and spoke at a press conference with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Chair Castor, and colleagues on the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.
Casten, a member of the Select Committee said, "Climate change is the challenge of our generation, and it's a scientific fact that if we don't reduce our emissions, the consequences will be catastrophic. The Select Committee on the Climate Crisis' Staff Report is a serious, detailed roadmap for how we as a country can lower our greenhouse gas emissions, including everything from proposals on how to decarbonize our power and transportation sectors to ideas on how to leverage our agricultural resources to act as carbon sinks and get us to net negative emissions. I'd like to thank Chair Castor and the rest of my colleagues on the committee for their work on this report, and look forward to working with them as we take the next steps to translate the report's recommendations into policy"
The Select Committee's climate action framework outlines ambitious and achievable policies to:
- Grow our economy and put Americans back to work in clean energy jobs
- Protect the health of all families
- Make sure our communities and farmers can withstand the impacts of climate change
- Protect America's land and water for the next generation
The report includes a number of Casten's priorities including driving innovation and deployment of clean energy and deep decarbonization technologies, strengthening climate science through restoring the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), requiring public companies to disclose to their investors climate change related risks, and strengthening efficiency metrics for federal public housing.
Casten's legislation recommended in the report include:
- H.R. 3623 The Climate Risk Disclosure Act: Makes public companies disclose climate related risks and be honest with their investors
- H.R. 2909 Promoting Grid Storage Act: Provides $1.1 billion for research and grants for large scale energy storage
- H,R. 3978 Clean Industrial Technology Act (CITA): Creates a research program to help decarbonize the industrial sector
- H.R. 5194 Climate Change Financial Risk Act: Requires the Fed to stress test large financial institutions to see how they would perform under climate scenarios and requires those institutions to come up with a plan to limit the financial impacts of climate change
- H.R. 5742 Energy PRICE Act: Requires FERC to find that electricity rates must include the cost of greenhouse gas emissions to public health, safety, and welfare.
- H.R. 2502 Alternative Fuel Refueling Property Credit: Makes the alternative fuel refueling property tax credit that helps incentivize EV infrastructure permanent
- Housing Efficiency Standards Act: Standardizes and strengthens energy efficiency requirements in federal public housing, as well as homes purchased with USDA or FHA loans
- Right to Timely Rehearings at FERC: Prevents FERC from indefinitely delaying requests for rehearing on orders under the Federal Power Act
The Select Committee's plan would put the country on a path to net-zero carbon pollution by 2050, if not earlier. It would power economic recovery through clean energy investment and family-sustaining jobs, and address the legacy of environmental injustice harming America's low-income communities and communities of color.
"House Democrats recognize that we have the moral imperative to meet this moment with a bold climate action plan to reduce carbon pollution, create much-needed jobs to rebuild our economy, and tackle the systemic injustice of environmental racism head-on," said Rep. Kathy Castor, Chair of the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.
The full Select Committee report is viewable here.
Background: The House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis was created at the outset of the 116th Congress to deliver policy recommendations to other House committees on how to solve the climate crisis.