Longmont is now among 200 municipalities in the United States and seven in Colorado backing a federal effort to impose fees on all fossil carbon, a move backers say is one way to help stall climate change.
“Our house is on fire, the earth is on fire,” said Longmont City Councilmember Joan Peck, who joined the rest of the city council, Tuesday, to endorse the Federal Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act, or EICDA.
The EICDA would put a fee on all forms of fossil carbon, levied at the point of extraction or import, according to a city staff report. The fees collected are fully and equally distributed back to the public in the form of a monthly cash dividend, the report states.
The goal of the EICDA is to hasten the transition to a clean energy economy through a market-based incentive for decarbonization, the report states.
More than 200 municipalities, including seven in Colorado, 800 “prominent individuals — 40 from Colorado, including 12 holding state and local elected positions — more than 1,400 businesses and organizations — 50 in Colorado — and 4,000 prominent U.S. economists support the EICDA, the staff report states.
Critics say the EICDA, is a job killer and even its supporters say the proposed legislation is too little and too late to affect the climate crisis.
Bob Bergstrom, the owner of a manufacturing business in Longmont, told the city council, Tuesday night, that EICDA would lead to price hikes along the economic supply chain and eventually hurt consumers.
The framers of the legislation are “tone deaf” to the harm it will do, Bergstom told the council.
Mayor Brian Bagley said he is skeptical the proposed law will have much of an impact on the environment. “My concern is that there is an unreasonable expectation that this will be part of the solution,” he said.
Those doubts did not derail Peck's vote. “No, this one thing will not clear up everything,” Peck said. “But we have to hit this (climate crisis) with everything we have.”
