An incoming Biden Administration and Democratic Congress will face the challenge of meeting the expectations of millions of voters who will want to see real progress on addressing climate change.

As former representatives from a coal state and an oil state, we understand climate change is real. We also understand that addressing the cause of climate change has enormous consequences on communities that grew from a carbon-based economy. Increasingly the conservation community is recognizing the dual needs of communities heavily impacted by climate change and communities disproportionately impacted from moving into a decarbonized economy.

The time is now to aggressively pursue a climate plan that addresses the root cause of climate change while also setting up new economic feedback loops that acknowledge restitution owed to carbon-dependent and climate-impacted economies. Congress recognized that communities needed to be made whole from the impacts of offshore oil and gas leasing when the Land and Water Conservation Fund was created. Now that LWCF is permanently authorized and funded, we should look at how to pool new streams of energy and natural resource revenues.

Projects developed on federal lands and water are not currently required to share revenue with local governments, and there is limited allocation of revenues for federal climate purposes. Additionally, funding for miners health and abandoned mine cleanup are on the brink of collapse. Added to this revenue and resource juggernaut are longstanding debates regarding the equitable share of revenue to Gulf states closest to the bulk of offshore oil and gas leasing.

Congress should learn from the old debates around revenue sharing and look at where the growth curves are for energy revenue while assessing the needs of communities and resources impacted by climate change. Coastal communities need help adapting to climate change in the same way coal communities need help moving to a different economic reality.

Commercial and recreational fishing interests along with ocean conservation advocates would all benefit from jointly developed science to help us protect the future of fishing and the aquatic ecosystems that sustain both humans and sea life. Finally, we have to make the necessary investments to clean up the air and water for communities of color that have suffered the worse.

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LTE - Rahall and Boustany - December | Journal-news - Martinsburg Journal