Proposal 2: Phase Out Fossil Fuels

False solution in current permitting reform proposals: Many of the current legislative proposals to force faster permitting timelines explicitly benefit new fossil fuel projects as well as clean energy projects. Proponents wave this away as a “necessary compromise,” or justify it as part of an “energy abundance” agenda, but these are just new ways of rebranding the same old extractivist capitalism as “part of the solution” to a problem that extractivist capitalism has caused. Without a planned, equity-oriented transition away from fossil fuels, no amount of clean energy permitting will stave off the accelerating climate crisis. The scientific consensus that fossil fuels need to stay in the ground is clear, but the lack of a political consensus around the need for a planned energy transition remains a central obstacle to curbing climate change.

• Keeping fossil fuels in the ground. The federal government has a variety of tools it can deploy to curb fossil fuel development on public lands, including eliminating subsidies, denying permits, and even buying out the fossil fuel industry. It can also accelerate the private sector energy transition through policies advancing decarbonization. Read more:
  • No New Fossil Fuel Projects: The Norm We Need, Fergus Green et al, Science (May 2024)
  • An Economist’s Case for Restrictive Supply Side Policy, Climate and Community Institute (March 2023)
  • Unextractable fossil fuels in a 1.5 °C world, Dan Welsby et al, Nature (September 2021)
  • Grounded: The President’s Power to Fight Climate Change, Protect Public Lands by Keeping Publicly Owned Fossil Fuels in the Ground, Center for Biological Diversity (2015)

• Governmental bodies at every level can clearly distinguish between clean and dirty energy in energy policymaking, and prioritize permitting and financing for clean energy while ending new fossil energy financing. Read more:
  • Public Enemies: Assessing MDB and G20 international finance institutions’ energy finance, Oil Change International (April 2024)
  • A Progressive Take on Permitting Reform: Principles and Policies to Unleash a Faster, More Equitable Green Transition, Roosevelt Institute and Climate and Community Institute (August 2023)
  • Congress Should Follow Biden’s Lead on Fossil Fuel Subsidies, NRDC (April 2023)

• The federal government can publicly manage and publicly finance fossil energy’s replacement with clean energy. Read more:
  • Green Industrial Policy’s Unfinished Business: A Publicly Managed Fossil Fuel Wind-Down, Roosevelt Institute (September 2024)
  • Road to COP29: Shifting and unlocking trillions for a just energy transition, Oil Change International (September 2024)
  • Why the U.S. Export-Import Bank Must End Financing for Fossil Fuels, Friends of the Earth (January 2024)
  • Building Public Renewables in the United States, Climate and Community Institute (March 2023)
  • How FEMA Can Be a Leader in Tackling the Climate Emergency and Driving Energy Justice, Center for Biological Diversity
  • Energy transitions or additions?: Why a transition from fossil fuels requires more than the growth of renewable energy, Richard York and Shannon Elizabeth Bell, Energy Research & Social Science (May 2019)

• Federal and state governments can design energy policy to reduce energy demand and increase efficiency, and deter growing energy-intensive industries like crypto and AI from destabilizing the power grid and bringing new sources of pollution online. Read more:
  • America Needs an Energy Policy for AI. Heatmap (September 2024)
  • AI Boom Is Driving a Surprise Resurgence of US Gas-Fired Power. Bloomberg (September 2024)
  • Data Centers Gobbling Up Existing Nukes Threatens Grid Decarb Goals. NRDC (July 2024)
  • Bitcoin mining uses a lot of energy. The US government is about to find out how much. Grist (February 2024)
  • The US must balance climate justice challenges in the era of artificial intelligence. Brookings (January 2024)
  • Biden administration must rein in electricity-intensive cryptocurrency mining to meet climate goals. Environmental Working Group (May 2022)
  • How Energy Efficiency Will Power Net Zero Climate Goals. IEA (March 2021)