There’s a lot of noise from Washington DC these days. A LOT. Nothing has actually happened yet, and there’s a big difference between pronouncements and results. But let’s be honest. None of it offers encouragement for those of us who understand that climate change IS, in fact, an existential threat to large swathes of the world population and our planet itself.
It’s heartbreaking to see Americans losing their homes and their livelihoods amidst the increasing frequency and intensity of [formerly] ‘hundred-year events’ and other disasters due to climate change. The California wildfires are just the latest example.
The calculated denial of a reality we all can clearly see makes it easy to get angry, disheartened, or overwhelmed. Even all three.
But at this critical moment when momentum is actually turning the tide, we cannot simply cede the field to ideology over science, or to the past instead of our future. And we cannot cling to a message at the expense of the purpose.
Those of us advocating for clean fuel standards have a golden opportunity. We have a chance to broaden our tent, and tell our story to new audiences. No matter how much it matters—and boy, does it matter!—we don’t need the ‘c-words’ (carbon and climate) to tell a great story, or to get people to listen.
We advocate for a policy that embraces all-of-the-above, deploying American energy abundance in new and innovative ways to lead the world.
We support a policy that has generated billions in private sector investments to catalyze economic development and revitalize rural agricultural communities.
We have proven that economics 101 applies to transportation as much as any other market: diversifying the sources and types of fuel creates market competition that can ultimately stabilize the cost of driving.
We advance national security and energy independence, by freeing our transportation system and the U.S. economy from the influence of far away dictators that repeatedly hold us over a barrel, limiting our strategic options and forcing us to keep our troops in harm’s way.
We reduce air pollution that causes cancer, heart disease, and asthma and other respiratory ailments, lowering the substantial healthcare costs and saving American lives.
And we propose to deliver ALL of these benefits with minimal disruption and cost!
None of this is bluster or hypothetical. It’s proven in the real world. The benefits are unequivocal. Economic and policy success stories abound, all over the country.
Let’s tell those stories. Shout them from the rooftops. Challenge the established narratives with fresh perspective that takes the lessons of more than a century to sell a more diverse, reinvigorated, abundant AND cleaner transportation future.
In this undeniably pivotal juncture, the U.S. has the chance to dominate THAT future.
Clean fuel standards are the most successful, and most cost-effective policy tool we have for transportation. They deliver possibly unmatched broad benefits AND rapidly and efficiently reduce carbon emissions, at lowest cost and without undue disruption of the transportation system or consumers.
The climate benefits of clean fuel standards are central and undeniable in the program, and we needn't deny it. But we also don't need everyone to share our priorities, or ourselves to even mention the c-words, in order to make the case.
If we are to expand the map of clean fuel standard policies, our messages—and our advocacy—need to meet the moment.
The 24-hour news cycle gives us all a horrifying front row seat to the not-so-natural disasters happening more and more often. Despite crippling costs to repair the symptoms of climate change, it's hard to sell the cure.
Governors and legislatures want to do something, but are concerned about consumer costs. Americans want the country to flourish and proper, but are struggling with increasing costs across the board. The next geopolitical saber rattling or other uncontrollable gas price spike will be just the latest blow.
In government or out, most people don’t know that none of it has to be this way. We should seize the opportunity to tell them, while they're paying attention and wanting to either lead or be led. We can tell the story on their terms, but in our own powerful and compelling, across-the-board way.