Sanders-Boxer climate protection bill includes carbon fee for nearly 3,000 top fossil fuel polluters

Sen. Barbara Boxer, Sen. Bernie Sanders and eco-activists appear at a press conference
 Thursday morning to introduce on bills on climate change and energy subsidies. At a press conference Thursday morning, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and California Sen. Barbara Boxer introduced a comprehensive package of climate-change legislation. On hand were two long-time Kossacks'Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, and activist Bill McKibben of 350.org'who were arrested along with nearly 50 others Wednesday after tying themselves to the White House fence in a protest urging President Barack Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeline would carry dirty diluted bitumen from the Alberta tar sands to Texas where it would be refined into oil.

In introducing his legislation, Sen. Sanders said:

Let me be very clear. The issue that we are dealing with today is not political. It has nothing to do with Democrats, Republicans, Independents and all of the political swabbling we see here every day. It has everything to do with physics. The leading scientists in the world who study climate change now tell us that their projections in the past  were wrong. That, in fact, the crisis facing our planet is much more serious than they had previously believed. They now tell us that if we continue along our merry path, where 12 out of the last 15 years were the warmest on record, and take no decisive action in transforming our energy system and cutting greenhouse gas emissions, this planet could be 8 degrees Fahrenheit or more warmer than is currently the case. [...]

The legislation that Senator Boxer and I are introducing today with the support of some of the leading environmental organizations in the country can actually address the crisis and does what has to be done to protect the planet. It can reverse greenhouse gas emissions in a significant way. It can create millions of jobs as we transform our energy
system away from fossil fuel and into energy efficiency and such sustainably energies as wind, solar, geothermal and biomass.

Also speaking at the press conference besides McKibben and Brune were Tara McGuiness, the executive director of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, Tyson Slocum, Public Citizen's energy director and David Bradley, National Community Action Foundation executive director.

Nobody expects the proposals to have an easy time of it. That's because we have a Congress that is still filled with representatives and senators who refuse to accept the extensive scientific evidence that human-caused global warming is happening and others who accept the evidence but are unwilling out of cowardice or the objections of their campaign contributors to take action to slow it down or remediate the severe impacts climate change will cause or already is causing.

The legislation comes in two bills. The Sustainable Energy Act is designed to cut a long list of subsidies and tax breaks for the fossil fuel industry and extend tax credits for production of renewable energy from solar, wind and geothermal sources. The renewable credits now expire in 2014. The Sanders-Boxer proposal would extend them through 2021. That would give investors more confidence and help long-range planning that is now hampered by the fact the credits expire every two or three years.

Continue reading below the fold, to see a condensation of all the measures in the Climate Protection Act.