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Environment & Energy Democracy & Governance

Based on the polluter pay principle, a carbon tax attaches a usage fee to fossil fuels in proportion to the carbon content of the fuel, providing a financial incentive to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Making use of existing mechanisms of tax collection available at local, state, or national levels, a carbon tax can be assessed as far upstream in the supply chain as possible, for example, at the point of extraction or at the wholesale level. The tax is phased in at a lower rate with a commitment to a predictable increase quickly enough to reduce emissions.

Policy Support:

On its own, the carbon tax is regressive. A carbon tax needs to be tied to public investments such as education, healthcare, energy efficiency, and community renewable energy, in addition to distributing dividend payments to taxpayers and/or including tax shifts for revenue neutrality to protect the most vulnerable.

Build Capacity?

Possibly. But only if the tax not only puts pressure on emissions, and also creates visible new resources for marginalized communities to participate in the green transition.

Risk & Drawbacks?

Proposed new taxes will face robust political opposition. Without community participation in the investment decision-making process, those investments may not meet community needs and/or exacerbate existing inequalities and patterns of exclusion.

Inspiring Examples:

Perhaps most famously, British Columbia’s revenue-neutral carbon tax, while not directly targeting public investments, has encouraged investments in renewables and energy efficiency at the local level, and other options for investments remain available as the tax rate increases.

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Energy Investment Districts

Energy Investment Districts

The Center for Social Inclusion’s model for a place-based, participatory entity to channel investment into green energy projects that directly benefit marginalized low-income communities and communities of color. read more

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Sustainable Energy Utilities

Sustainable Energy Utilities

A central public or nonprofit clearinghouse helping residents and institutions connect to information, resources, and subsidies around energy efficiency and renewable energy generation. read more

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Smart Energy Regions

Smart Energy Regions

Scale up local renewable energy supply and planning across a specified geographic region by clustering local initiatives into regional networks, facilitating regime level change through the coordination of local projects while respecting the autonomy of local energy initiatives. read more

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Revolving Loan Funds

Revolving Loan Funds

Establish a source of credit that families and/or community institutions can access in order to make energy efficiency improvements or switch to renewable power generation, where the money used is paid back into a growing fund. read more

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Low-Income Energy Subsidies

Low-Income Energy Subsidies

Money for low-income households and multi-family affordable housing development that enables lower cost/free renewable energy installation for people who would normally not have access to lower cost energy. read more

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Greening Community Institutions

Greening Community Institutions

Helping churches and other place-based, community-rooted nonprofits to upgrade energy systems and implement renewable power generation. read more

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Energy Efficiency Subsidies

Energy Efficiency Subsidies

Go after clean power low-hanging fruit by incentivizing less energy use through cost-effective upgrades (better light bulbs, less drafts, etc.) read more

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Community Benefit Agreements

Community Benefit Agreements

It’s possible to mandate that any jobs created through state or local programs to promote renewables be good jobs, with living wages, and that these jobs be local or created by minority-owned companies. read more

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On-Bill Financing

On-Bill Financing

Allows low-income residents without access to upfront capital or credit to finance energy improvements through the anticipated savings that will be realized on their lower bills. read more

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Smart Grids

Smart Grids

Applying internet technology and two-way communication to the electricity distribution system in order to monitor demand, increase efficiency, reduce service interruptions, and integrate renewable and distributed sources of power. read more

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Renewable Portfolio Standard

Renewable Portfolio Standard

Mandates that utilities generate or acquire a specified percentage of their electricity production from renewable energy sources within a given timeframe. read more

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Public Green Power Purchasing

Public Green Power Purchasing

Moving the procurement of electric power for public institutions (like school boards and city governments) away from dirty energy with negative impacts on the planet and local communities. read more

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Participatory Planning

Participatory Planning

Developing the structures and processes that ensure the communities affected by dirty energy production get a real say in what the path to clean power looks like. read more

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Virtual Net Metering

Virtual Net Metering

Simplifies the benefits realized from community solar projects by directly helping participants save money on their electric bill based on the retail price of the renewable energy they helped produce, even if that power was generated somewhere else than on their own home’s roof. read more

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Net Metering

Net Metering

Incentivizes green energy production by allowing families and institutions to run their electric meter backwards, selling excess power they generate back to the utility at the retail price they pay, rather than the lower rate paid to wholesale producers. read more

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Microgrids

Microgrids

A “microgrid” is a set of power generation, storage, and transmission facilities that can connect and disconnect from the larger grid, creating a more resilient energy system and one in which local control can be exercised over the entire circuit of energy creation, purchasing, sale, and utilization. read more

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Municipalization

Municipalization

Takes a local energy system out of private corporate control and puts it under public control as a municipally-owned enterprise. read more

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Democratized Grid Management

Democratized Grid Management

An independent grid manager who preserves equal access and coordinates resources from distributed sources of energy. read more

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Community Choice Aggregation

Community Choice Aggregation

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, a CCA is a “state policy that enables local governments to aggregate electricity demand within their jurisdictions in order to procure alternative energy supplies while maintaining the existing electricity provider for transmission and distribution services.” read more

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Cap and Dividend

Cap and Dividend

Rather than financializing the right to pollute (as in “cap and trade”), cap and dividend treats the atmosphere as a commons, and makes polluters pay a fee that is shared as guaranteed basic income or as a means-targeted subsidy to offset potentially higher energy costs. read more

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Solar Purchasing Cooperatives

Solar Purchasing Cooperatives

Consumers band together to negotiate less expensive bulk pricing on solar equipment and installation fees for their homes from suppliers and contractors. read more

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Green Public-Service Banks

Green Public-Service Banks

Green public-service banks offer the potential for local control over public financing. Rather than conventional financing that disembeds capital from particular communities, non-profit public-service banks can provide loans to support community-based renewable energy developments and related enterprises. read more

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Green Worker-Owned Cooperatives

Green Worker-Owned Cooperatives

Capturing the wealth created in the green transition by making sure green jobs created in the process are owned by their workers. read more

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Community Solar

Community Solar

Allows people who don’t own their own roofs, or who don’t have the capital necessary to go green on their own, to pool resources and cooperatively own a green energy power plant with other members of their community. read more