States Representing the Majority of the U.S. Population Have Now Committed to 100 Percent Clean Energy by 2050

     A lot has changed since I first conceived the idea for this article. The Supreme Court's decision in West Virginia v. EPA lit a fire under the asses of climate activists while the announcement that an agreement on a climate and deficit package could not be reached between Joe Manchin and Chuck Schumer seemed to leave people feeling hopeless. The announcement, apparently, was all a ruse: Senator Mitch McConnell had threatened to block a $280 billion legislative package to restore American science and manufacturing, compete with China, and secure supply chains unless Democrats dropped the deal; the announcement between Manchin and Schumer came less than an hour after this bill passed the Senate. The GOP's next move to try to block this legislation was to block the passage of the Honoring Our PACT Act, a $400 billion bill to help veterans; this move blew up in their faces immediately and the bill passed days later. 

     If all goes well, the Inflation Reduction Act could pass as soon as this week. I would like to address one criticism right away: the pipeline that Chuck Schumer agreed to expedite if Joe Manchin agreed to vote on a reconciliation bill. While I don't like fossil fuels, the pipeline was 94 percent complete. If six percent of a pipeline is what it takes to pass a bill that will cut carbon emissions by 40 percent with $400 billion in new clean energy spending, more than Congress has ever passed or will likely ever pass again, so be it. The Inflation Reduction Act will move America forward and far outdoes the negative impacts of West Virginia v. EPA. If the Supreme Court wanted to send a message to climate activists, they did: we're going to aggressively pursue climate action, and we have a lot more power to address this issue than we do that of abortion.

     The Inflation Reduction Act at the federal level will slash carbon emissions and save tens of thousands of people from death and hundreds of thousands from serious illness in the process. This bill will make sure the die is cast: it will be the first federal legislation to move the United States toward carbon neutrality by 2050 and will make turning back nearly impossible. The action at the state level is also moving in this direction.

     Since 2018, California, Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin-- most by legislation and a few by executive action-- have pledged to secure 100 percent clean energy by 2050 or earlier. These states represent just under 52 percent of the United States population, and that number means a lot: states representing the majority of the U.S. population has now committed to 100 percent clean energy by 2050. Assuming the effects of the Inflation Reduction Act are spread out evenly, this could mean that, whether or not the federal government takes any future action, the United States is on track to cut carbon emissions by roughly 70 percent by 2050.

     Again, the goal is 100 percent by 2050 at the latest. The good news is that we still have a lot of opportunities to make a difference: Vermont, Delaware, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Kentucky, and numerous other states have Democratic legislatures or governors who can commit to this target, while states like Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Montana, North and South Dakota, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Alaska, Arizona, and others have a referendum process that can be used to put clean energy on the ballot. In all but a handful of states, mandating clean energy is possible, while voting at the state and federal level can keep investments in clean energy coming. It's also worth noting that it's not just states: cities and counties can mandate clean energy even in red states.

     The work of eliminating the threat of climate change cannot be left to the next generation: we have to set ourselves on track between 2020 and 2030-- now or never. In the waning years of the Bush administration and first years of the Obama administration, Senator Bernie Sanders introduced legislation that would require the United States to cut carbon emissions by 85 percent by 2050. I think that we have to put ourselves in the following position, a slightly more ambitious one yet one that notes the only final action can come from Congress: before 2030, we must make it so that, no matter what the federal government does, carbon emissions in the United States fall by a minimum of 90 percent by 2050. This, in and of itself, would be enough to save the world for the next generation.