This is a decisive decade for climate action. To meet the U.S. commitment to cut carbon pollution in half by 2030 and net zero by 2050, congressional action is critical. According to Rhodium Group, the infrastructure and budget reconciliation packages together have the potential to be the largest action ever taken on climate change in U.S. history. If Congress fails to act, it will be difficult or impossible to meet our goals, or rally other countries to contribute their fair share.
Hawaii faces significant impacts from both climate change — including more intense and frequent storms, rising sea levels and coastal erosion — and our nation’s oil dependence. Hawaii has the highest electricity rates in the U.S. and our bills are closely tied to oil prices. For those living on minimum wage, electricity costs represent a substantial proportion of each paycheck. Continued reliance on fossil fuels is costly for our islands, and each of us.
Hawaii has also shown how climate action creates economic opportunity.
At Elemental Excelerator, we’ve spent 10-plus years supporting 100-plus climate-tech startups from our headquarters in Honolulu. We’ve seen climate action drive investment and job creation in Hawaii, including in rooftop solar installation, energy efficiency, and renewable fuel production, where jobs pay an average of $3 to $7 per hour higher than the state’s median wage. Data shows that the faster we move off oil, the more money saved and jobs created.
Despite strong voter support, the fossil fuel industry and others are pressuring Congress to water down legislation. In recent weeks, members of Congress have whittled down the budget package, with cut after cut undermining our chance at a climate safe future.
Some critics have expressed concern about the legislation’s price tag. Yet inaction isn’t free — climate disasters have cost the U.S. more than $1.6 trillion since 1980 and hundreds of millions of dollars in Hawaii alone.
Others claim support for climate provisions in the budget package, but seek to strip those related to care work — child care assistance, the child tax credit, and paid family leave. Care work is climate work — especially in a state like Hawaii where twice as many people work in clean energy versus conventional, and when women in the U.S. are four times more likely than men to drop out of the labor force due to lack of child care.
Still others, including Hawaii’s U.S. Rep. Ed Case, have sought to decouple the budget reconciliation package and bipartisan infrastructure bill, arguing the need to “take the win” — despite the fact that doing so would sideline critical provisions such as expanded funding for innovation, and clean energy tax credits that drive wind, solar and electric vehicle adoption and vastly reduce emissions.
Recently, coal-state U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D, W.Va.) effectively killed the bill’s clean electricity payment program, which represented some of its most significant pollution cuts.
Stripped to the bare minimum required to meet our climate targets, the bill has shifted responsibility to state and local governments without commensurate increase in funding. Further cuts would risk the U.S. missing our targets completely and ceding global competitiveness on what the White House has called “the 21st-century moonshot, though on a much grander scale.”
Case’s reelection website states that “[o]ur current (2021-2023) and next (2023-2025) [years] are among the most critical in our history.”
We agree. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to tackle the climate crisis, create millions of high-quality, well-paying jobs throughout the country, and build a more equitable, prosperous future. We urge Case, and others, to support swift passage of the budget package, consistent with his long-standing commitment to our natural environment and Hawaii’s future.
Aimee Barnes is director of Elemental Excelerator’s policy lab; Dawn Lippert is CEO of the Hawaii-based nonprofit that invests in initiatives to counter climate change.
