Carbon Pricing Strategies Under Consideration in Seven States

Seven or more states are close to enacting or expanding carbon pricing within the next year, Marianne Lavelle reports in InsideClimate News. Together with the states that already price fossil fuels, "they would account for 22 percent of U.S. carbon emissions, 34 percent of the U.S. population, and 41 percent of U.S. GDP."

The states considering a price on carbon—including Oregon, Massachusetts, and New York—already have relatively low-carbon economies, and also face "clear, pressing economic and human risks from climate change," like sea-level rise, drought, and fire. 

The fate of a national plan to tax carbon, introduced in Congress by a bipartisan group of legislators, may depend on whether state-level programs continue to gather momentum, Lavelle writes.