E&E story on CCL expanding its advocacy scope

On Tuesday morning, E&E News posted a positive story about CCL expanding the range of climate policies we'll be focused on going forward:

Citizens' Climate Lobby looks beyond carbon pricing

The group is expanding its scope to two new areas: supporting natural carbon sinks and advancing the clean energy economy.

The story is behind a paywall, but here's the top of the story followed by excerpts and quotes from CCL staff:

BY: ADAM ATON | 06/21/2022 06:06 AM EDT

CLIMATEWIRE | Citizens' Climate Lobby, the nonpartisan group that for years has mustered thousands of volunteers to promote a carbon fee and dividend, no longer will focus solely on a carbon price.

The group is expanding its scope to two new areas: supporting natural carbon sinks, especially via reforestation, and advancing the clean energy economy. The group said it is working to fill in the details — including specific policies and bills — as it consults with volunteers and allies.

The shift doesn't mean Citizens' Climate Lobby is giving up on carbon pricing; leaders there said the issue would remain a pillar of its advocacy. That said, the change coincides with an inflection point for climate politics broadly and carbon pricing specifically. Though the domestic politics of a carbon price have gotten harder, advocates see hope on the international stage.

The story acknowledges that inflation and high gasoline prices make it a bad time, for the moment, to seek a carbon price:

Citizens' Climate Lobby said its shift is not a response to rising prices; it has been in the works for months.

But the advocates did acknowledge that inflation has complicated their pitch for a carbon price. Making fossil fuels more expensive is a difficult sell to lawmakers who are focused on lowering prices.

Instead, Citizens' Climate Lobby is betting that modest, bipartisan policies — such as clean energy and natural carbon sinks — will help grow support for carbon pricing among Republicans.

Looming on the horizon, of course is Europe's carbon border adjustment mechanism, which will apply pressure on Congress to act:

“What I told my volunteers was, look, we know this [carbon tariff] is coming,” said Daniel Richter, Citizens' Climate Lobby’s vice president of government affairs.

“Because you have inflation … talking about [a carbon price] right now, they’re not going to be very receptive to that,” he said of the group’s conversations with lawmakers. But “we know we have a more favorable political environment coming up later.”

When “later” comes, Richter continued, Citizens' Climate Lobby will be in a better position to advocate a carbon price to Republicans if they have a relationship built around reforestation and clean energy jobs.

The story notes the skepticism surrounding climate policies that Republicans support, suggesting that it's little more than greenwashing. To which, Danny responds:

Richter rejects the idea that Republicans might only pay lip service to climate action. Greenwashing is a problem for companies, he said, not politicians.

“With politicians, what they say — that lasts forever,” Richter said. “You stay in politics long enough, something you said 30 years ago gets dredged up and used against you.”

“And so I can't think of a profession where what you say matters more than this,” he continued. “While there can be an element of being disingenuous, I’ve always thought it's been underplayed just how much words matter and how much politicians, once they start saying something, really have a strong incentive to continue saying it.”

Acknowledging the climate provisions included in the infrastructure bill that passed last year, which CCL supported, the story quotes from Madeleine's address at the June conference:

Those successes are part of what spurred Citizens' Climate Lobby to expand its focus, said the group’s executive director, Madeleine Para.

“Late last year, we began exploring what additional efforts we could make. Not by abandoning our relentless pursuit of carbon fee and dividend — because there is truly nothing comparable in its impact on emissions, and we remain committed to that policy — but by adding policies that are also needed to achieve a healthy climate and which will help build the additional political will that is crucial to success on climate change,” Para said at the group’s conference earlier this month.