Congress Must Take Bipartisan Action on Climate Change

Congress Must Take Bipartisan Action on Climate Change

While the American business community is investing billions in the research, development and deployment of cutting-edge technologies, the federal government plays a critical complementary role in the foundational policies necessary to accelerate private sector efforts.

Recognizing this, the Chamber works closely with our nation’s lawmakers to facilitate durable, bipartisan approaches to combating climate change. The Chamber led efforts to pass the most significant climate and energy legislation in over a decade, which culminated in successful enactment of the Energy Act of 2020, a comprehensive package including dozens of individual bills that were advanced with Chamber input and support.

This legislation promotes government policies that enable the public-private sector collaboration needed to facilitate the game-changing breakthroughs of tomorrow. Notably, it accelerates the commercialization and deployment of the new technologies related to energy storage, next-generation nuclear, advanced renewables, and carbon capture utilization and storage, and updates policies that increase federal investment in R&D and expand public-private coordination.

In addition, the Chamber played a leading role in facilitating passage of an historic agreement to phase out climate-warming hydroflourocarbons (HFCs) with more environmentally-friendly technologies, in accordance with the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol.

Now, in the 117th Congress, we will look to build upon these successes to ensure that the programs and policies supported in the Energy Act of 2020 are appropriately funded and managed. In addition, as noted in the Chamber’s Approach to Climate Change, we believe that durable climate policy must be made by Congress. We support solutions including a market-based approach to accelerate GHG emissions reductions across the U.S. economy.