The stakes of the reconciliation package couldn’t be higher. To reach our climate goals and avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we must cut our emissions in half by 2030. As Congress considers the best way to do that, it risks missing a critical key to success. For years, successful efforts to reduce U.S. emissions have involved a particular brand of federalism: Cities, states, businesses and community groups set the pace and raised ambition, while the federal government supported and nationalized the best ideas. It was state leadership that enabled the Obama administration to persuade Detroit to embrace clean car emission standards in 2009. Community activism and state regulators ensured that the U.S. coal fleet would retire faster than the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan would have required and business and state leadership led the U.S. to phase out climate-disrupting refrigerants . The Biden administration is, without …
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