Durbin Introduces Legislation To Invest In A Clean Climate Future And Spur Job Creation

Durbin Introduces Legislation To Invest In A Clean Climate Future And Spur Job Creation

The America's Clean Future Fund Act aims to create jobs and drive significant carbon emissions reductions to combat the climate crisis

WASHINGTON - Today, U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) reintroduced the America's Clean Future Fund Act, a bill that would spur job creation by investing in a clean energy economy. The bill seeks to drive significant carbon emissions reductions to combat the climate crisis; provide economic transition assistance to environmental justice (EJ) communities, farmers, and fossil fuel-reliant communities; and provide financing for climate resilience and clean energy projects.

"The climate crisis is already here. We are seeing more extreme weather, like deep freezes and searing heat waves, and if we hope to curb the dangerous effects of this human-driven crisis, we must act now," Durbin said. "The America's Clean Future Fund Act would invest in clean energy projects to spur economic growth across the country."

According to the most recent National Climate Assessment, the climate crisis is already impacting every region and worsening, leading to the loss of American lives, infrastructure, and property, as well as slowing the rate of economic growth this century. In 2024, the United States experienced 27 natural disaster events that caused more $1 billion in damage, and that figure continues to rise. The assessment calls for rapid cuts to emissions from human activity to reduce harmful impacts of a warming planet.

As a result of the climate crisis, a person born in 2020 is now projected to experience twice as many cyclones and droughts, and as much as five times as many heat waves as a person born in 1965. Although policies like the Inflation Reduction Act made significant investments to combat the climate crisis and supercharge the economy. Republicans stopped that investment in its tracks by repealing the IRA's clean energy provisions with their so-called One Big Beautiful Bill. The Republican bill hands clean energy leadership to China, costs the economy more than 700,000 jobs by 2030, and is projected to raise electricity prices for Americans by more than $100 next year. The America's Clean Future Fund Act would begin correcting Republicans' harmful policies and put America back on course.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) most recent report declares that, "Without urgent, effective, and equitable mitigation and adaptation actions, climate change increasingly threatens ecosystems, biodiversity, and the livelihoods, health, and well-being of current and future generations." The America's Clean Future Fund Act will help take that action.

Specifically, the America's Clean Future Fund Act would:

• Institute an economy-wide carbon price. Two years after enactment, the bill would apply a carbon fee of $75/metric ton of CO₂ equivalent for fossil fuel producers, and two years later for non-fossil high emissions facilities. The fee would increase by $10/year above the consumer price index. A border adjustment would also be imposed on imported covered fuels and carbon-intensive goods to ensure an equal playing field for American companies.
• Establish the Climate Change Finance Corporation (C2FC). The bill would create a new, independent federal agency tasked with financing climate change mitigation and adaptation projects and encouraging private investment. Projects supported by the C2FC could include energy storage, clean transportation, energy efficiency, climate resilience, research, development, and deployment of clean technologies and natural infrastructure, among others. Funding priority would be given to EJ communities, deindustrialized communities, and communities most at risk of climate change impacts.
• Provide transition assistance to impacted communities. This bill would provide grants to states, Tribes, local governments, non-profits, and community-based organizations. Grants would be used foreconomic and workforce development in communities transitioning from carbon-intensive industries, climate change resiliency in frontline communities, and environmental cleanup from the fossil fuel industry in communities impacted by legacy pollution.
• Agricultural Decarbonization Transition Payments. The bill helps eligible producers in agriculture to finance the transition to improved carbon-reduction practices.
• Provide rebates to individuals. To protect consumers, 75 percent of carbon fee revenues would be paid directly to low- and middle-income individuals through quarterly rebates.

The bill has earned the endorsement of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, Citizen's Climate Lobby, and the National Wildlife Federation.

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