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The Biden Administration has pledged to put the nation on track to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and simultaneously to promote environmental justice. Both goals are achievable and, indeed, are complementary. Their complementary nature is exemplified by the two existing North American regional programs for capping and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Those programs, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) governing the power sector and the California-Quebec program, have reduced GHG emissions while creating job growth and funding alternative energy programs to assist homeowners. Both promote environmental justice.
Michael Gerrard and John Dernbach have identified over a thousand policy instruments that can be used to achieve deep decarbonization across the economy. For every sector they examine, they identify the key tool as putting a price on carbon through auction-cap-and-trade programs. The Biden Administration has yet to reveal its regulatory strategy for achieving deep decarbonization. However, as demonstrated in articles published in response to the Paris Agreement, EPA could use its international air pollution authority under section 115 of the Clean Air Act to initiate a call for state implementation plans that employ GHG cap-and-trade programs similar to the California program. EPA has used cap-and-trade effectively to address interstate transport of pollution and the Supreme Court affirmed EPA’s use of cost as a basis for interstate allocation of responsibility.