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If both federal governments are unwilling to take decisive steps, what else can be done? Are there alternatives to a formal, comprehensive, border-wide regime that would address the complexity and multitude of issues related to the various transboundary aquifers on the border?

In a recently published article, I advocate for an alternative approach, one that sidesteps the respective federal authorities and places the burden of pursuing cross-border cooperation on the communities that so depend on these critical fresh water resources. Essentially, I propose that subnational entities at the local and regional level pursue cooperation over transboundary aquifers in the form of informal, locally-specific, cross-border arrangements.

As of September 2021, a sample of 1,305 programs was identified for their objectives to incentivize ecosystem service provisioning and practices on farms and working lands in the U.S. Northeast. Overall, these programs target four primary working landscapes: (1) farming, food, and agriculture (n = 590); (2) working forests and woodlands (n = 123); (3) fisheries, aquaculture, and shellfish (n = 84); and (4) nonindustrial supporting landscapes and systems Footnote1 (n = 493) (Figure 3). A small series of programs were available to multiple types of working landscapes (n = 15). Overall, the availability of indirect incentive programs (n = 781) exceeded the availability of direct incentive programs (n = 524) across landscapes and eligible actors. Incentive programs and mechanisms across the U.S. Northeast are available across geographic scales and are funded through the private, public, and public–private partnership sectors (Figure 4). The greatest number of programs available to eligible producers across the United States (“Federal/National”) come from the federal government (“Public”), particularly for food, farming, and agriculture from the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (n = 35) and Farm Service Agency (n = 19). At the regional scale, incentive programs and mechanisms from the private and nongovernmental sectors were most abundant (n = 67) (e.g., Open Space Institute, Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group) followed by public–private partnerships (“PPP”) (n = 55). From this sample, most programs are for producers and provided by state agencies or departments (n = 608); however, this attention may be due to the systematic attention to state websites and department directories during data collection. Nonetheless, the availability of incentive programs and mechanisms available for producers of individual states was notably high for producers of food, farming, and agriculture (n = 234) (e.g., NY DEP’s Land Acquisition Program) and working forests and woodlands (n = 62) (e.g., American Forest’s VT Woods, Wildlife and Warblers Program). Additionally, several outliers of the sample deserve attention. Public–private partnerships across the region (as a whole or involving multiple states) were noteworthy, particularly for producers of food, farming, and agriculture (n = 11) and fisheries, aquaculture, and shellfish operations (n = 11) (e.g., the Mussels for Clean Water Initiative coordinated by the U.S. EPA and the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary). Also, programs for supporting landscapes and systems have the widest availability to producers of individual states (n = 282). For producers of food, farming, and agricultural landscapes, the most prevalent indirect incentives were technical assistance (n = 145), certificates of compliance (n = 89), and technical education (n = 74), followed by direct incentives like financial loans or cost-share/agreements (n = 28) (Figure 5A). The available technical assistance and education programs often focus on the professional development of a farmer across the span of a career. For example, New Farmer Training programs (n = 9) are operated by state-level Northeast Organic Farmer Associations (NOFAs) as well as by the Cooperative Extension programs in each state. Some NOFAs, such as in Rhode Island, offer an Advanced Grower Series, which offers technical education courses to long-term farmers. NOFAs in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts also provide cost of production fact sheets, which contain “crop profitability comparisons, whole farm financial metrics, and tips for success when undertaking cost of production analysis.” Other programs are intended to help the farmer’s business as a whole, namely through implementation grants (n = 17) like Made in DC Market Access that facilitates DC-based businesses to access market opportunities. Programs to certify organic practices, led by the USDA or the private sector, constitute the largest portion of certification programs (n = 29) and can be offset by related programs like the USDA Organic Cost Share which reimburse certified organic farmers and food processors for the total cost of certification. Other notable programs cover the material expenses for infrastructure or management practices, such as those to protect soils (n = 51, e.g., the Maryland Cover Crop Program) and to lesser extents, to manage water quantity for irrigation (n = 2, e.g., New York High-efficiency Agricultural Irrigation Water Management Systems) and to build the capacity of new and existing urban farms through infrastructure investments (n = 15, e.g., Urban Agriculture Infrastructure Grant in Washington D.C.). The ecosystem services most incentivized to Northeast farmers (Figure 5B) are the production of food and feed (n = 383), followed by mechanisms that regulate detrimental organisms (n = 45). For producers, food production programs encourage specialty crops (e.g., USDA’s Specialty Crop Block Grant Program and Specialty Crop Multi-State Program) and local food systems (e.g., Maryland Certified Local Farm Enterprise Program). Other food production programs are also available to supporting institutions, such as schools, to fund either school gardens or farm-to-school programs. Programs that regulate detrimental organisms include foodborne pest and disease management as well as the management of invasive and nonnative species (e.g., Northeast Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Center grants). Another, like the USDA AMS Equipment Review (Dairy & Meat & Poultry), is a voluntary, fee-based program that provides an AMS certification to businesses in the food processing industry as a means of regulating contamination and disease issues. Fisheries, aquaculture, and shellfish operations constitute the smallest portion of this sample but still have several notable technical assistance programs (n = 11) (Figure 6A). At the federal level, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration offers the Seafood Hazardous Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) program, which provides guidance and certification for the aquaculture industry to ensure food safety on the part of producers. State-level resources include programs such as the Rhode Island Shellfish Harvester Education program, an effort of the Rhode Island Department of Health with support from the National Shellfish Sanitation program. This program provides training and certification to shellfish harvesters in the state with the goal of improving the delivery of safe products to consumers in Rhode Island. The greatest number of programs, primarily from coastal states, incentivize the management of aquatic food and feed (n = 35) and support aquatic habitat conditions (n = 25) (Figure 6B). Of these programs, land leases appear to be an important component of planting, cultivating, and harvesting shellfish crops. The Connecticut Department of Agriculture, for example, offers the Shellfish Ground Leasing Procedure and Lease Opportunities program. This program permits shellfish farmers to obtain underwater lands in Long Island Sound for planting, cultivating, and harvesting shellfish crops. The Long Island Sound area includes some 70,000 acres that is currently farmed – about 12,000 acres of this area is leased by the local shellfish commission. They offer additional leases to shellfish operations based on a competitive bid process. The Rhode Island Division of Fish and Wildlife also leases acreage to shellfish producers in the Inland Bay area. These leases are available for lands within defined Shellfish Aquaculture Development Areas (SADA), which offer expedited state- and federal-permitting processes, as well as for lands outside of those areas. For producers of working forests and woodlands, technical assistance (n = 22) and certificates of compliance (n = 15) are most abundant (Figure 7A). The USDA Forest Service Forest Stewardship Program is a prominent technical assistance and cost-share program that works in partnership with state forestry agencies, Cooperative Extension, and conservation districts to connect private landowners with the information and tools they need to manage their forests and woodlands. Certificates of compliance are available for harvesting wood for production; for example, the Forest Stewardship Council has a number of compliance-based programs, including the Group Certification, Family Forest Program, Forest Management Standards, and the Controlled Wood Standard, which certify sustainable forest stewardship and harvest practices in the Northeast. Other programs also target family forests, or smaller-scale forestry operations, specifically (n = 10). For example, the American Tree Farm System (ATFS) also provides third-party certification of small family-owned forestland through an internationally recognized process that is endorsed by the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC). To be certified, family forest owners must meet the ATFS Standards of Sustainability, which ensure that landowners are protecting and improving clean water, wildlife habitat, and more. A smaller subset of programs focus on trees as a form of green infrastructure (GI) and exclusively support urban forestry (n = 11) or tree planting across landscape types (n = 9). For example, the Chesapeake Bay Trust and Maryland Department of Natural Resources offer the Green Streets, Green Jobs, Green Towns (G3) program that supports design projects, financing strategies, and/or implementation of GI-based street projects. The largest ecosystem services incentivized to Northeast working forests and woodlands are habitat creation and maintenance (n = 70) and the production of forest and wood materials (n = 16) (Figure 7B). Large-scale reforestation efforts alongside resident-led, community tree planting are available to ensure widespread species diversity (e.g., Delaware’s Seed Tree Law program was passed due to the long-term decrease in pine and yellow-poplar forests and requires that landowners reforest all harvested sites of 10 acres or more that contain at least 25% pine and/or yellow-poplar forests to ensure long-term forest health. At a smaller scale, programs like the Lawn to Woodland program (Maryland) or Project CommuniTree (West Virginia) convert unused lawn to forest cover by providing technical assistance, trees, and planting supplies. In terms of incentivizing material goods from working forests and woodlands, programs improve the delivery of wood products for energy through direct benefits, as in the U.S. Forest Service’s Community Wood Grant program, which provides money to install thermally led community wood energy systems or to build innovative wood product manufacturing facilities. Other programs provide in-kind benefits to owners of working forests, such as the Delaware Wood Directory, which is a list of primary (sawmills, loggers, etc.) and secondary (furniture makers, pallet manufacturers, etc.) wood processors that is distributed to improve the production of wood and lumber products. Of the landscape types, programs for nonindustrial working landscapes are most often available as implementation grants (n = 76) and land acquisition/easement programs (n = 24) (Figure 8A). Other available grants include those for wildlife habitat (e.g., New Hampshire’s Dam Removal and River Restoration program), outdoor recreation (e.g., parks and trails), or community resilience (the Trust for Public Land’s Climate-Smart Cities program). The land acquisition and protection options for nonindustrial landscape owners are advertised to function to directly limit development pressures. Many states have some if not several land acquisition programs that expand existing state and wildlife management areas through land acquisitions. These programs can be narrowly focused on particular areas and habitats or can be more broadly focused, taking into consideration different parts of a landscape. Programs like the USDA NRCS Wetland Reserve Easement program uses either 30-year or permanent easements to restrict development in critical wetland areas. Another example is the USFWS Migratory Bird Conservation Commission (MBCC), whose funds allow for the purchase, lease, or easement of valuable habitat for migratory birds. Other programs like Delaware’s Open Space Program, on the other hand, coordinate the acquisitions of various parts of the landscape by expanding state parks and preserves, fish and wildlife areas, state forests, and cultural resource sites. The ecosystem services reported most frequently for nonindustrial working landscapes are programs that address water quality/quantity (n = 82) and natural hazards and extreme events (n = 43) (Figure 8B). The water quantity and quality programs aim to mitigate nonpoint-source pollution through mechanisms like mitigation banks and PES schemes. Nutrient trading, for example, is a promising strategy for introducing cost-effectiveness and market-driven efficiency into the realization of reducing nutrient runoff from a number of industries, including agriculture. The Maryland Departments of Agriculture (MDA) and Department of the Environment (MDE) have been working collaboratively to establish one such voluntary, market-based program to promote the use of trading as a viable option for achieving the state’s nutrient reduction goals. Maryland Nutrient Trading Program is a program that envisions trading not only between sectors (cross-sector trading) within Maryland but also ultimately between Maryland and the other Bay states (interstate trading). Other programs address water quality issues through efforts to control point-source pollution and reduce impervious surface covers. This is of particular importance in urban areas, where runoff and stormwater can cause significant economic and ecological damage. Washington D.C. RiverSmart programs – in particular the Clean Rivers and Impervious Area Charge (CRIAC) incentive – are examples of other efforts to reduce impervious areas in urban centers. The RiverSmart program offers discounts to residents on their water bill and discounts of up to 55% off the District Department of Energy and Environment’s (DOEE’s) Stormwater Fee when they reduce stormwater runoff by installing GI. For the purposes of this program, GI includes things like green roofs, bioretention, permeable pavement, and rainwater harvesting systems. The use of GI helps to protect the Anacostia and Potomac rivers and Rock Creek, which are the main waterways in the city. In addition, the Northeast has a number of loan and grant programs to regulate present, recurring, and future hazards. For example, the Delaware Hazardous Substance Site Cleanup Loan Program (HSSCLP), which provides loans to nonprofit organizations and businesses that are potentially responsible for site rehabilitation or brownfield developers with an executed agreement for investigating and remediating a hazardous substance release at a site. Other programs that address hazards preparedness/maintenance from the national and state levels. The FEMA Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) grant program, for example, supports projects in states, local communities, tribes, and territories to reduce risks from disasters and natural hazards. The BRIC program does this through capability- and capacity-building in communities and by encouraging innovation and partnerships that enable large projects, maintain flexibility, and provide consistency. What is unique about the BRIC program is that it categorically shifts federal focus away from reactive disaster spending and toward research-supported, proactive investment in community resilience. In Maryland, the community resilience grant has similar aims. It supports and funds local communities and nonprofits in their efforts to prepare for coastal flooding, storms, and other climate change-related consequences, while enhancing community resilience and sustainability through natural, nature-based, and GI projects. Discussion This assessment collated programs that incentivize the provisioning of ecosystem services available to producers and managers of the U.S. Northeast. From these results, several crucial gaps in current programming were identified which may hinder the uptake, sustainability, and/or effectiveness of these programs to address underlying resource concerns. These trends and areas of concern converge around several themes which are particularly relevant for the U.S. Northeast in the coming decades, namely: 1) working landbase and infrastructure, 2) livelihood provisioning, 3) scale, and 4) resilience. Working landbase and infrastructure In recent history, the U.S. Northeast has struggled with a declining productive landbase (e.g., agriculture and other working lands) and increasing population migrations toward the coastline (U.S. Global Change Research Program 2020). On top of this, the Northeast is the most heavily forested and most densely populated region in the country (U.S. Global Change Research Program 2017) and already faces climate change impacts, including rising sea levels and inconsistent precipitation. Together, these factors create complex challenges to the regional planning of a productive landbase and its affiliated infrastructure. From the assessment, significant gaps in programmatic availability were identified regarding the working landbase, while programmatic availability for infrastructure was more well represented. In regard to the working landbase, there were substantially more programs available to target food systems landscapes than there were for working forests/woodlands. While food system programming is essential for a region with decreasing self-reliance (Griffin et al. Reference Griffin, Conrad, Peters, Ridberg and Tyler2015), the number of available programs is disproportionate to the regional land cover footprint in the Northeast, with significantly more tree canopy cover than agricultural production fields. Since there are critical linkages between forests and agriculture (Krause et al. Reference Krause, Lotze-Campen, Popp, Dietrich and Bonsch2013), between forested landscapes and food systems (Ickowitz et al. Reference Ickowitz, McMullin, Rosenstock, Dawson, Rowland, Powell, Mausch, Djoudi, Sunderland, Nurhasan and Novak2022), the physical adjacencies of these land cover types could become insightful study areas of future research. This assessment also reveals an interesting trend for the availability of infrastructure programs in the region (n = 40). In the U.S. Northeast, ageing infrastructure – including roads, bridges, railroad lines, water and wastewater pipelines, culverts, and electrical power networks – are critical issues (U.S. Global Change Research Program 2017). The region has the oldest industry and building inventory in the United States, much of which was built along coastal and riverine areas that are highly vulnerable to flooding and spillover effects of extreme weather events. Interest and investment in GI is also widely available across the Northeast; for example, attention toward sustainability has, in part, increased desire to generalize tree planting programs as a biotechnological tool (Seamans Reference Seamans2013) or as a nature-based solution (Escobedo et al. Reference Escobedo, Giannico, Jim, Sanesi and Lafortezza2019). A small but emergent portion of our results demonstrates the region’s willingness and interest in community tree planting (n = 9), some aspects of environmental stewardship (n = 61), and land protection (n = 16) as complementary strategies to traditional gray infrastructure. From this assessment, it is also clear there are relatively few programs available to incentivize the preservation and redevelopment of traditional local infrastructure (also called gray infrastructure), including implementation grants for vulnerable roadways in flood zones (n = 3) and loans or tax credits for historically significant buildings and cultural corridors (n = 4). With several exceptions, these programs are mostly directed toward nonindustrial, working landscapes. Together, the availability of both gray and GI programs is essential for a region with such pronounced infrastructural challenges. However, regardless of available infrastructure options, community need, or administrative priorities, local-level actors still bear some of the most extensive responsibilities for implementing context-based, community-level solutions to the provisioning of ecosystem services, and cooperation between organizations, governments, and residents. In this regard, programs that incentivize both gray and GI solutions will be increasingly important resources for county and municipal-level organizations as they are forced to adapt to climate change, shifting land uses, and population trends across the region. Livelihood provisioning To better understand how the programs reviewed in this assessment might impact ecosystem service provisioning in the Northeast, it is also important to understand how these programs intersect with the livelihoods of people that own and operate working lands. Indeed, one aspect of the declining regional self-reliance and landbase in the Northeast is the decline in working lands livelihoods (USDA-NASS 2017). For years, the sector has struggled with a declining number of farms, producers, and landowners, as well as with issues of farm succession and farmland preservation; and while this represents an extension of a larger trend across the United States, it is particularly acute in the Northeast due to several unique pressures, including urbanization (Oberstein Reference Oberstein2016). While an abundance of incentive programs, such as those that provide business-related technical assistance (n = 55), loans (n = 19), or implementation grants (n = 23), are important for counteracting these trends, the results indicate that the extent and efficacy of these programs are not sufficient. Rather, the results of this assessment indicate a considerable need to expand programs that directly impact working lands livelihoods in significant material and immaterial ways. In such a context, there is a pressing need to increase the appeal of working lands careers to a wide range of young people. With the additional challenges of a changing climate and an increasingly precarious economic reality (see Kalleberg Reference Kalleberg2018), however, such efforts become even more difficult. Addressing the livelihoods of working lands and related problems in the Northeast will require policy and programmatic solutions that allow producers from any generation or at any level of experience to tread an uncertain career. Put another way, the challenge is not just how to make working lands livelihoods more appealing, it is how to make working lands careers a good livelihood option for young people entering the labor market at a time of unprecedented economic precarity and climatic disruption. The question then becomes how to achieve this through programming and policy. One way to answer this question is by understanding landowner decision making. The reality of landowner risk aversion is principally related to some of the trade-offs that often arise through ecosystem service provisioning programs. Across production scales, but especially for family-operated and/or small-scale producers and working lands managers, the provisioning of ecological services cannot come at the expense of economic profitability. In this sense, working lands producers are inherently risk-averse, meaning they operate according to what James Scott (Reference Scott1977) calls the “safety-first principle,” whereby the livelihood subsistence must first be guaranteed – whether directly, through on-farm production/consumption or indirectly, through income-generating activities – before risk-taking activities, such as changing practices or implementing new technologies, can be justified. It could be beneficial to know more about the motivations and mechanisms that drive the ways in which risk is determined when margins are thin and market conditions often volatile. During the development of new or existing ecosystem service provisioning programs, it will continue to be important to know how risk aversion of regional producers presents itself. We would expect that a risk-averse producer to not be motivated by indirect incentives, even though, based on the results of this assessment, these incentives are most common in the Northeast (n = 781, 59.8%). Instead, programs that provide direct economic compensation to producers may offset the risks of practice adoption, especially for smaller-scale producers. Programmatic design and implementation should consider these dynamics and incorporate efforts in order to offset risk as directly as possible. Creative policy solutions like basic income or cash transfer schemes (Izquierdo-Tort Reference Izquierdo-Tort2020), risk sharing strategies (McDonald and McCormack Reference McDonald and McCormack2022), or programs that provide health care (Becot et al. Reference Becot, Inwood, Bendixsen and Henning-Smith2020) and childcare (Inwood and Stengel Reference Inwood and Stengel2020) can serve to support working lands livelihoods amidst a confluence of intersecting challenges.

Lawmakers in Washington, D.C., have spent the past two months engaged in a war of words over the Green New Deal resolution. Many argue its ambitious goals aren’t feasible within the short timeframe it lays out. Others say there’s simply no alternative. While they’ve been sparring, however, cities and states across the country have been moving forward with their own ambitious plans, showing how elements of the radical proposal could take shape at a local level. “I think at the state and local level, we’ve got the capacity to do it,” Alan Webber, mayor of Santa Fe, New Mexico, told ThinkProgress. Webber’s city has been moving swiftly on climate action over the past few years. Part of that is necessity: New Mexico already suffers from water shortages, something the 2018 National Climate Assessment (NCA) warns will only grow worse in the Southwest as climate change intensifies droughts. With no time to waste, Santa Fe is jumping in head first. “We are on land that belongs to the Pueblo,” Webber said, noting that indigenous communities in the area have paved the way for the “sustainable life” Santa Fe is now pursuing. Last November, Santa Fe adopted a sustainability plan putting the city on the road to carbon neutrality by 2040. That’s 10 years later than the Green New Deal proposes, but it’s still a rapid timeline. And it’s one that includes a host of factors — moving to renewable energy, upgrading buildings and street lighting, water conservation, and local food production, in addition to more run-of-the-mill actions like recycling. “It’s a comprehensive approach to having a sustainability roadmap,” said Webber. What is unfolding in Santa Fe is an accelerated version of the conversation taking place on the national level. Once a topic pushed to the side by Republicans and Democrats alike, climate change has been catapulted to the top of the political agenda in recent months. After two years of deadly wildfires and hurricanes across the country, polling shows that most Americans accept the science behind climate change and that many feel it is already impacting their lives directly. And they are demanding action. Congressional newcomers like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), joined by activist groups like the youth-led Sunrise Movement, have led the charge. In February, Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) introduced the Green New Deal resolution, a blueprint for overhauling the entire U.S. economy and transitioning to emissions-neutral energy sources within a decade. Short on specifics, the resolution is meant to serve as an aspirational blueprint for eventual legislation in Congress that would emphasize rapidly transitioning the United States away from fossil fuels, in line with the latest science, all while investing in job creation, education, and health care. Ambitious climate legislation akin to the Green New Deal faces gridlock in Congress and staunch opposition from the White House, making it essentially a non-starter right now. But that isn’t true of cities and states. As of March, at least 19 states are considering or have already set 100 percent clean or renewable electricity targets, according to EQ Research, a policy group that works on issues like energy efficiency and renewables. Not all of those efforts resemble the full spectrum of changes called for under the Green New Deal, however, as they focus predominately on electricity goals. But several of the plans incorporate language about jobs and social justice, with some directly referencing the Green New Deal as a source of inspiration. That’s significant because, without federal support, ground-up implementation could be how the Green New Deal ultimately becomes a reality. Ambitious energy targets alone are notable in several areas. Hawaii and California have enacted legislation to hit a 100 percent clean or renewable electricity target by 2045, while Washington, D.C., is aiming for 2032. And already this year, 10 more states have followed suit, introducing their own legislation to reach a clean electricity standard by 2050 or earlier. This marks a dramatic change of pace compared to a few years ago, according to Ben Inskeep, a research analyst with EQ Research. “We definitely do see a lot of examples at the state level where we see [decarbonization targets] ratcheting up,” Inskeep told ThinkProgress. According to an alarming U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released last fall, the world only has around a decade left before crossing a dangerous global warming threshold. Reaching 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming above pre-industrial levels would, the report warns, mean devastating climate impacts on a scale the world is not prepared to address. This is why the Green New Deal resolution emphasizes the importance of serious, widespread action by 2030, in keeping with established climate science. Many cities and states, however, are operating within the 2050 deadline, which proponents of the Green New Deal may view as unambitious. But Inskeep says such criticism might be missing the point. The fact that local officials are announcing significant emissions reduction goals by 2050 is remarkable, he said, arguing the chief takeaway is less about the timeframe and more about growing momentum. “Some folks might say 2050 is too far in the future… [or] down the road,” he said. “[But] certainly none of us were having this conversation even three years ago… we’re seeing already that ratcheting up.” There was a time when 2050 seemed like an impractical goal, Inskeep explained. Now, it’s relatively average for most middle-of-the-road ambitions, viewed as achievable in part thanks to the rapidly-dropping costs of wind and solar power, in addition to advancements in technology. If lawmakers now see 2050 as an achievable deadline, that indicates just how much policymakers and officials have adjusted their expectations, and perhaps could ramp up ambitions even more down the road. “A few years ago, it would’ve been very surprising to see any kind of 100 percent proposal introduced… now, we have 10 more states introducing legislation… that’s a tremendous growth,” he said. In Santa Fe, action to implement the city’s sustainability plan is already in full swing. Last month, the city sold the state’s first-ever “green bonds,” which allow investors to finance environmental projects. That sale is translating to a $15 million city wastewater upgrade, which includes the construction of an anaerobic digester. Through the new system, microorganisms will break down biodegradable waste from the city. In the process, they will reduce emissions and generate clean energy. With the help of solar power and the digester, almost 95 percent of the plant’s power will be produced onsite. The energy savings are projected to eliminate some 3,100 metric tons of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of taking nearly 750 cars off of the road. Such projects are a good example of how cities can be innovative as they seek to lower their emissions. But the city’s mayor is thinking bigger. “We tend to think of policies in silos but people don’t live in silos, they live their lives,” Webber said. In addition to committing Santa Fe to carbon neutrality, he’s also interested in job creation through renewable energy, something the Green New Deal emphasizes. He moreover sees other social efforts as being key components of any long-term plan, like protecting the city’s undocumented members, as well as low-income communities and people of color impacted by pollution. “There’s a renewable energy piece, a transportation piece, a land-use planning piece, a social equity piece, a jobs and inclusivity piece,” he said. Santa Fe is part of a larger story unfolding in New Mexico. On March 22, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) signed the Energy Transition Act, which would require the state’s electricity grid to be completely carbon-free by 2045. It also earmarks funds for communities impacted by the transition away from fossil fuels, including coal workers. “This is a state that is not in climate denial,” the governor declared. “We are clear that we have basically a decade to begin to turn things around and New Mexico needs [to] and will do its part.” The legislation comes as New Mexico struggles with hard choices. The state is a poor one, and it is also a leading fossil fuel producer. The Permian Basin, which straddles West Texas and southeastern New Mexico, is the leading oil and gas reserve in the country. And more than half of New Mexico’s electricity comes from coal. Lujan Grisham has said she wants to work with the fossil fuel industry to reduce emissions, but environmental advocates worry that flies in the face of New Mexico’s lofty climate goals. The Santa Fe-based New Energy Economy (NEE), which advocates for addressing climate change and shifting away from fossil fuels, has been critical of the Energy Transition Act. The environmental group has argued that the law provides too much assistance to Public Service Company of New Mexico, or PNM, the utility operator behind the failing San Juan Generating Station coal plant. According to NEE, the law amounts to a polluter “bailout” and was passed without the support of a number of tribal leaders. Others feel differently. Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez backed the law, as did many other stakeholders and a slew of environmental groups. That split in support indicates the challenges that others might also encounter as they look to pass similar legislation. Efforts in New Mexico are nonetheless notable in the components they bring together. Namely, they go beyond advocating for a shift away from fossil fuels, and also work to grow jobs and protect impacted communities. That’s language that has made the Green New Deal resolution so popular for some and so divisive for others. But such small-scale efforts will also be a test of whether a bigger and bolder endeavor might succeed. Some state proposals are in the early development stage. In Rhode Island, a tiny state threatened by sea level rise and overly vulnerable to financial crisis, the state is looking to begin researching its own version of a Green New Deal. Historically, Rhode Island has been among the first states to fall into recessions and the last to leave them — something a stimulus centering green jobs could help avoid. Others are further along. Last month, Illinois introduced the Clean Energy Jobs Act, which would push hard for job expansion as the state shifts away from fossil fuels. It also emphasizes increased solar distribution in vulnerable communities and the importance of creating energy-related jobs in low-income and pollution-impacted areas. And many local leaders are leaning into the language popularized by Ocasio-Cortez and young activists. Los Angeles city council members have used the language of the Green New Deal to push for an end to natural gas generation in the city. And in Holyoke, Massachusetts, the city’s shift from coal to solar power has been similarly marketed by activists and officials. Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) of New York also wasted no time in labeling the climate components of the state’s 2019 executive budget as a Green New Deal. That budget seeks to put New York on the road to “economy-wide carbon neutrality” by 2040, while ensuring a “just transition to clean energy.” New York has already banned fracking, committed to phasing out coal by 2020, and set a 50 percent renewable power target by 2030. And thanks to the potential of offshore wind, state officials are feeling confident about New York’s energy transition. They’re also hopeful that the state can be a model for others, said Alicia Barton, president and chief executive of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). “New York is very focused on developing a plan for economy-wide decarbonization that we can deliver on as we progress toward achieving the state’s nation-leading goals,” Barton told ThinkProgress. She said she hopes the state’s “leadership” will help national efforts by “driving the clean energy transition faster than anyone thought.” City and state-level efforts remain different from federal action in that they are much smaller scale and thus easier to implement. However, virtually every official who spoke to ThinkProgress indicated that assistance from Congress and the White House would help, either with funding or with general guidance. But the polarized nature of Washington is proving challenging in that regard, as is evident by the Green New Deal’s failure to gain bipartisan support. Webber, of Santa Fe, sees an opening there. “I think particularly with the federal government frozen in so many ways, the level of engagement is shifting to the cities and the states,” he said. And in some ways, they may be better equipped to address some problems. Cities and states, Webber says, are “closer to the problem and also closer to the people affected by the issues, like closing down a coal mine.

The policy changes envisioned in the Green New Deal resolution are not hypothetical. In fact, many are already happening at the state and local level, where broad local coalitions of labor, environmental, and racial justice groups are winning pro-climate, pro-jobs, pro-equity policies that help lay the groundwork for a national Green New Deal. In addition to more than 100 cities nationwide that have already committed to 100 percent clean, renewable energy, here are just a few examples of state and city initiatives that offer models and momentum for a nationwide Green New Deal. NEW YORK CITY The New York City Council recently passed a job-creating bill that takes aim at the city's largest source of climate pollution: inefficient buildings. The new policy, cited as part of the city's own Green New Deal, will require about 50,000 large buildings to meet ambitious targets for reducing climate pollution. The building retrofits required by the policy are expected to create about 8,000 jobs each year. To protect low-income residents, the policy includes terms to prevent rent increases in rent-regulated buildings. MAINE Maine recently enacted a new "Act To Establish a Green New Deal for Maine." The law will create a task force of labor, youth, climate science, and other representatives to craft a strategy for achieving 80% renewable energy in Maine by 2040, creating good jobs in renewable energy and manufacturing, and ensuring low-income households have access to affordable solar power. The Maine AFL-CIO has praised the policy, saying that workers must "have a seat at the table in crafting bold climate protection policies." LOS ANGELES In April 2019, Los Angeles Mayor Garcetti released an update to the Sustainable City pLAn, calling it "L.A.'s Green New Deal." The plan lays out the most ambitious and achievable climate goals for the city to date. It would invest in L.A.'s local workforce and economy by creating good union jobs for thousands of technicians, electricians, engineers, and other clean energy workers. Critically, the plan tackles the ongoing poor air quality that Los Angeles and other Southern California communities continue to breathe as the worst region for smog pollution in the country. ILLINOIS The Future Energy Jobs Act gives low-income families priority access to solar panels, while providing solar-installation job training, particularly for formerly incarcerated people and communities fighting environmental injustice. The law also sets new energy-efficiency standards that are slated to further reduce air and climate pollution, create over 7,000 new jobs each year to retrofit buildings, and cut $4 billion in energy costs for Illinois families. CALIFORNIA In addition to committing to 100 percent clean energy by 2045, California’s Buy Clean policy helps stimulate clean manufacturing by requiring that tax dollars be spent on goods manufactured under conditions that protect our climate. The law will help ensure that when the state government buys steel for bridges or glass for offices, it sends tax dollars to manufacturers that are slashing their climate pollution and creating good jobs. NEW MEXICO New Mexico has enacted a historic law to transition to 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2045. The bill sets interim milestones for clean energy adoption and invests heavily in NM communities, accounting for retiring an existing coal-fired generating plant while pursuing a just and equitable transition to a clean energy future for NM workers and families. PORTLAND In 2018, after a grassroots campaign led by communities of color, voters in Portland overwhelmingly approved a ballot referendum that will raise $30-70 million per year, via a fee on big retailer profits, for energy efficiency, renewable energy, job training, affordable housing, regenerative agriculture, and green infrastructure projects. A new task force of city stakeholders will be tasked with deciding annually the beneficiaries of the fund, with at least half of the revenue going toward investments in low income communities and communities of color. SEATTLE In August 2019, the Seattle city council unanimously passed a resolution calling for a city-level Green New Deal, which seeks to eliminate Seattle’s climate pollution by 2030, address historical and current injustices, and create thousands of good, green, well-paying, unionized jobs. The effort is being led by local environmental justice organizations and frontline communities of color, and includes a "Healthy Homes, Healthy Businesses" ordinance that would require new buildings in the city to run on clean electricity rather than gas appliances. PITTSBURGH Pittsburgh United's Clean Rivers Campaign has been pushing for job-creating green infrastructure projects that could drastically reduce flooding in some of the city’s vulnerable neighborhoods. They are one of many local coalitions across the country calling for, and often securing, public investments in green spaces to absorb rainwater, replacement of lead pipes, and other infrastructure upgrades to increase climate resilience and ensure clean water. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA The Clean Energy DC Omnibus Act of 2018 requires DC to transition to 100 percent clean, renewable electricity sources by 2032. It also sets stronger, job-creating building performance standards to reduce energy use and make buildings more energy efficient and requires buses and large private vehicle fleets to transition away from dirty fuel and toward electric vehicles.

State and local governments can capitalize on the benefits provided by Green New Deal-style legislation. There has been a great deal of attention following the November 2018 elections, and the announcement of the “Green New Deal.” At the federal level, a Green New Deal was introduced in February 2019 (House Resolution 109 and Senate Resolution 59). The resolution has spurred conversation and action from states and local governments to address economic inequality and climate risks. Absent federal action, state and local governments can move forward with solutions. Not only can they more nimbly address the challenges, they are also spending significant amounts of taxpayer money on the consequences of lack of action—increased rates of asthma, vector-borne diseases, heart disease and cancer; impacts of extreme weather events; and diminished air and water quality. Several states and cities have already moved forward with solving these challenges by introducing their own versions of a “Green New Deal,” and many others passed complementary policies that well aligned with the tenets of the Green New Deal. Those packages that specifically use Green New Deal terminology include: California: AB 1276, introduced in February Los Angeles, California: Green New Deal / pLAn 2019 Connecticut: HB 6452, introduced in January Maine: LD 1282, introduced in March; passed and signed in June Minnesota: HF 2836, introduced in April New York, New York: The Climate Mobilization Act, passed and signed in April; see also OneNYC 2050 North Carolina: H737, introduced in April New York: A08429 / S06599, introduced in June; passed and signed in July Rhode Island: H 5665, introduced in February, and RI S 0659, introduced in March Virginia: HJ 724, introduced in January These bills would put a significant portion of the country on the path toward net carbon neutrality and an improved economy. However, the majority are introduced bills and resolutions—they are not yet passed, actionable legislation. Moving forward in the meantime An alternate path forward for state and local governments to take realistic action without a jurisdiction-wide Green New Deal is to remedy their own impacts and lead by example. A Green New Deal policy package that is customizable to emphasize local concerns can lead by example, focusing on government-owned buildings, infrastructure and assets, as well as incentives to guide the private sector in following suit. Such a package should be ambitious, cover transportation and buildings, and have an aggressive time frame. While the exact policy package would vary based on the goals of each jurisdiction, a typical package could include: All existing government buildings meeting high-performance standards All new government buildings achieving net zero Electrification of fleets Clean energy mandates Incentives for green industrial practices Residential weatherization grants and training Increased minimum wage for projects receiving public funds State and local governments are well positioned to capitalize on the many economic and quality of life benefits provided by Green New Deal-style legislation. In the absence of federal action, USGBC believes it is imperative that local leaders take this opportunity to create better communities while addressing economic inequality and climate change.

While the WPA’s top-down design theoretically could have guarded against local discrimination, the program’s centralized decision making often meant its projects were not democratically designed. Entire regions like the South were neglected in favor of western swing states. Women, Black Americans, and workers with disabilities were often excluded from the program. Additionally, the country’s state capacity has deteriorated significantly since the middle of the 20th century. The dominance of anti-statist factions within the Republican Party (Kabaserice, 2012; Fried & Harris, 2021), a bipartisan favor for tax preferences over spending programs (Teles, 2013), and liberal attempts to preserve government capabilities by surreptitiously fitting new programs and initiatives into existing agencies unequipped to implement them (Mettler, 2011) have all contributed to the decline. The portion of public employees out of the total workforce, a crude but effective metric for state capacity, has declined from 14.6% in 2000 to 13.8% in 2022 (Bureau of Labor Force Statistics, 2022; Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; author’s calculations). A modern American job guarantee should combine the democratic nature of Jefes with the centralized administrative support of the WPA. Local NGOs, municipal government agencies, and social entrepreneurs would design most projects and request program funds. City councils would be tasked with approving projects and would receive technical support from local program administrators and financial compensation from the program for increased workloads. If local governments lack the capacity to approve projects, even with additional support, state and local program administrators would be empowered to create local councils staffed by elected community representatives in a manner similar to Jefes’ Municipal Consultative Councils. The job guarantee would operate identically in Puerto Rico and in all U.S. territories. Every county would have at least one program administrator tasked with adding approved projects to a publicly available job bank. The job bank would contain contact information about the project’s objectives and requirements, as well as its approval process. The job bank would be available online, allowing workers to digitally enroll in projects. Physically, the jobs bank would be accessible at local Unemployment Offices and would complement the existing network of American Job Centers established under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014 (U.S. Department of Labor). Unlike unemployment benefits, workers would be allowed to search for other employment without losing access to the guarantee. These workers would not be counted in official unemployment statistics. State-level administrators would coordinate with local officials to identify gaps in the program’s supply of jobs and the needs of local communities. They would help state and local agencies design new projects and scale up existing ones when necessary. As demonstrated by NREGS, regional administrative capacity is critical for mediating behind federal standards and local participation. The guarantee would give state administrators the authority and mandate to combat discrimination and disparities at the local level when necessary. Program officials could direct funds to state or municipal agencies that create projects in communities without existing civic infrastructure and coordinate with local officials and program administrators to identify successful projects to scale or replicate.

While we recognize some advantages to designs that feature a federally administered program like the WPA, we prefer a highly decentralized program. Today, the federal government directly employs only 2.8 million workers (less than 2 percent of US employment). Advocates of a universal job guarantee recognize that the program might employ five times that number of workers. We worry about the political feasibility of expanding federal employment on such a scale. We also see the advantages of decentralizing administration to the community level. Since the goal is to create jobs in every community, and to projects that are beneficial to every community, it makes sense to involve the local communities in these projects, from the proposal stage through to implementation, administration, and evaluation. Hence, while we would have the federal government provide the funding for the program, we would allow state and local governments as well as registered nongovernmental not-for-profits to put forth proposals. (To retain a level playing field within the private sector, we would not allow for-profit firms to participate—as they might try to replace part of their workforce with federally paid or subsidized workers.) Since federal monies would be spent, we envision that project assessment and evaluation would take place at multiple levels: community, state, regional, and federal. We expect that most of the jobs created will provide public services in nonprofit community organizations, public schools, and state and local governments. We recommend that the federal government’s role be largely confined to providing administrative service (through local employment offices), project evaluation, and funding of wages, benefits, and some materials costs. However, if state and local efforts prove to be insufficient, the federal government will need to create supplemental projects to ensure a sufficient number of jobs are made available to all seeking work. These should be targeted to underserved groups. While some advocates of job guarantee programs would follow the New Deal in undertaking large-scale public works projects, we would limit the use of PSE workers on infrastructure projects to small-scale projects or for approved apprenticeship or other trainee positions. We do this to avoid conflicts with the Davis-Bacon Act and prevailing wage laws that require wages higher than $15 per hour. As discussed above we do not favor a tiered wage structure within the PSE Levy Economics Institute of Bard College 5 program. Further, we do not want the program to compete with private sector employment. Virtually all public works projects today involve government contracts that are awarded to private construction firms. We would not use the PSE program to compete with private contractors or subvert prevailing wage laws. However, PSE workers could be used for very small projects (installing playground equipment), simple maintenance of infrastructure (planting vegetation as screening), and environmental retrofitting (adding insulation to housing in lowincome neighborhoods or to community buildings), where such projects do not conflict with applicable prevailing wage laws or the Davis-Bacon Act. The types of projects undertaken will vary across the country, consistent with variations in state and local labor laws and needs. We also envision experimentation with alternative approaches to employment and the provision of community services. For example, a number of proposals for the creation of workers’ co-ops could be solicited. These might be supported by the PSE program for a limited time, with the federal government paying wages until the co-ops become self-supporting. Additionally, proposals can be solicited for apprenticeship programs that would train PSE workers for skilled employment outside the program after a specified term of PSE. While we want to avoid funding of programs that train workers for jobs that do not exist, training should be a part of every PSE job and some room should be made in the program for approved apprenticeship programs. Again, state and local rules will determine what kinds projects will be allowed.

If targeting distressed places with job opportunities is desirable, why focus on state governments? Why shouldn’t the federal government be the main focus for bringing about greater targeting of distressed places? To clarify: this report’s focus on state targeting of distressed places is not meant to disparage possible federal targeting. But state-level targeting has some substantive advantages: state governments are more likely to be adaptable to the varied needs of distressed places. State experimentation also may provide better evidence on “what works.” Politically, because targeting is difficult at all levels of government, pursuing it wherever the political opportunity occurs, at either the federal or state level, seems a pragmatic strategy. The structure of political representation at the state level potentially makes targeting more feasible. Distressed places with low employment rates do not all need the same policy intervention. At the local labor-market level, as outlined above, various public services to enhance business inputs are the most cost-effective way to create jobs. But not all local labor markets need exactly the same services. Some places may need a road or transit infrastructure project; other areas may not. Manufacturing extension services are obviously far more relevant for manufacturing-intensive areas. Local labor markets with different industry mixes, and different preexisting skills of local workers, will need different levels of spending and different design of customized training programs. Rural areas have different needs from urban areas: for example, many distressed rural areas may need more assistance in improving governmental capacity to apply for and conduct effective economic development programs. At the neighborhood level, services can help residents with jobs, but which services are most needed will depend upon what the neighborhood already has and what the key barriers are to accessing the local labor market’s jobs. Some neighborhoods may need better mass transit links, whereas in other neighborhoods, services may be needed to help residents get reliable used cars. Available jobs may require a lot of training for neighborhood residents, or they may simply require better information on job availability. Child-care availability will also vary across neighborhoods (Davis, Lee, and Sojourner 2019). Which level of government, federal or state, is more likely to offer the needed flexibility to local labor markets and neighborhoods to respond to low employment rates with diverse solutions? Probably state governments, as they are closer to the people and more attuned to the particularities of local needs. State action is also desirable for evaluation purposes. Although we know something about what policies best increase job availability, we would like to increase our knowledge. A federal one-size-fits-all policy may not permit sufficient local experimentation to allow for needed evaluation. But if states experiment with diverse policies to help local labor markets create jobs, or to help the residents of distressed neighborhoods access jobs, this diversity potentially can be evaluated to see what works. A little later, I will make specific suggestions on how to improve state-level evaluations. Politically, neither federal nor state governments have a good track record on targeting distressed places. Targeting places at any level of government is politically difficult. At the federal level, distressed local labor markets have only occasionally been seriously targeted, in politically unusual circumstances. The Tennessee Valley Authority was a large-scale and serious local development policy, which at its peak provided annual funding of more than $300 per capita (in 2020 dollars). It was adopted during the New Deal as a demonstration project, but a demonstration project that led to no similarly scaled projects in other regions. The Appalachian Regional Commission, begun in the 1960s, was also a serious development program, with peak annual funding in the early 1970s of around $85 per capita (again, in 2020 dollars). But it, again, was adopted during an unusual political period, the Great Society era, and has not led to similar assistance for other distressed areas.

States, Municipalities, and Community Groups States and municipalities assist in the administration of the program. They help in the disbursement of funds and are responsible for the design and implementation at the local level. As discussed above, they conduct community assessment surveys and design the Community Jobs Bank. The involvement of citizens, local community groups, and other stakeholders that represent public interests can ensure that the program enhances participatory democracy in the decision-making process of designing, managing, and funding the projects. One-Stop Job Centers The JG need not reinvent the wheel in terms of administrative infrastructure. Local unemployment offices have already been rebranded as local job centers, also called One-Stop Career Centers or American Job Centers. They are already charged with providing many services to the unemployed, from the actual payments (UI checks) to job-search assistance, referrals, training, GED completion, resume building, English as a second language, instruction in math and reading, and other one-on-one services, such as stress management and financial planning. These unemployment offices can become genuine employment offices by also offering employment opportunities on demand through the JG. Due to chronic job shortages, current attempts to match unemployed workers with employers are largely ineffective. While some outfits may do better than others, in the absence of readily available and abundant job opportunities, going through an unemployment office can often be a stressful and even punitive experience. While they offer some training and education services, at the macro level, training tends to serve the function of shifting people along the unemployment line. These outfits can become fully functional One-Stop Job Centers and provide the needed JG employment opportunities, while continuing to assist the enrollees with training, education, and transitioning to private sector employment opportunities. Under the JG program they essentially become the hubs for the local jobs bank that link interested individuals with JG positions. Public Institutions, NGOs, and Social Enterprises These are the project-executing organizations. As discussed above, during the design phase of the program, a series of organizations can be identified that will supply opportunities on demand. Others can be added over time. The job opportunities with these organizations are “inventoried” with the Community Jobs Banks/job centers. Once the unemployed have been registered at the One-Stop Job Centers, they are provided a menu of work options with the project-executing organizations. Identification of project-executing organizations is contingent on the general guidelines provided by the DOL, which are in turn informed by the mission statement of the JG. The types of work/jobs that will be performed, as well as the organizations that will employ the unemployed, will be contingent on what is defined as the “public purpose.” Participatory Democracy One of the aspirations of the JG program is to foster a process whereby jobs and projects are proposed and managed from the bottom up—i.e., via direct input of community members and other stakeholders. Because it is a locally based program that targets the needs of the community and its members, the program lends itself to broad participation of constituents in its design and operation. Indeed, for its long-term success, participatory governance is likely a prerequisite. There are many models and real-world experiences that can inform a design that incorporates citizen engagement, public decision-making, and local institution building. For example, participatory budgeting can ensure that municipalities rely on citizen input about the local projects that require funding and involve them in the budgeting process itself. Experience with participatory budgeting shows that it significantly improves the effectiveness and results of local social programs. It may be considered desirable for the federal government to provide only 85 percent of all the funding, requesting that nonprofits, municipalities, and other social enterprises participate with some resources. These can take the form of physical resources, e.g., some of the materials or facilities where the work will take place can come from the project-executing agencies. This arrangement could create local stakeholders and additional buy-in from states and communities. Because the program aspires for citizen input, because it drastically reduces the threat of unemployment, because it puts pressure on punitive labor practices in the private sector, because it establishes a labor standard for pay and working conditions, and because it focuses exclusively on investing in the public good, it can be an institution with profound democratizing tendencies, and a conduit for transformative change in the workplace, people’s everyday lives, and the economy as a whole.

officials and elites in Detroit have embraced some aspects of degrowth; stabilising the economy has been prioritised over economic growth, and more importantly, there is a realisation that the city’s long-term future depends on improving the quality of life of city residents. Thus, rather than attempting to foster short-term economic growth with the hopes that a trickle-down effect will make life less unbearable for the city’s poorest residents, improving the quality of life in the short-term is now seen as the key to making the city prosperous over the course of the next five decades. I call this degrowth machine politics because it is geared towards managing the city’s further decline and reimagining its future. Unlike its growth-oriented counterpart, degrowth lacks out-of-the-box solutions offered by cosmopolitan consultants, and as a result policy makers are forced to manage continued degrowth in Detroit in innovative ways.

Economists have argued for national carbon pricing to effectively address carbon emissions. With the lack of action by the US government, questions arise about the impacts of state-level implementation of carbon pricing. By modelling the impacts of a carbon tax in Hawai’i, our study informs ongoing discussions of regional carbon pricing, with implications beyond the Hawai’i context. First, our state-level CGE model could be adapted to evaluate proposals in other states with carbon pricing policies before their legislatures. The structure of HCGE has particular relevance for other states with large tourism sectors possessing some market power, e.g. Nevada, Louisiana, and Alaska. The model also has relevance to other island economies that, like Hawai‘i, generate all of their own electricity and, because they are part of larger political federations, have limited ability to impose border adjustment taxes. US-affiliated examples include Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and American Samoa. For sovereign island nations – such as Jamaica, Sri Lanka, Tonga, and Fiji, the HCGE model could be modified to impose relevant trade adjustments

If Hawai‘i were to adopt a carbon tax at the level of the 2021 federal SCC, Hawai‘i’s cumulative emissions would decline by 10% over twenty years, over and above reductions from other policies already in place. In the absence of a national approach to address the global climate crisis, such state programmes could prove to be valuable demonstration projects that would help catalyze further climate action. This is important because our results strongly suggest that the goal of deep decarbonization is unlikely to be realized solely by the imposition of a carbon tax set at the SCC price by a state government. However, if more states adopt a carbon tax, then the likelihood increases that regional cooperation will emerge and facilitate the adoption of a common carbon price.15 Thus, state and regional actions to enact carbon pricing could pave the way to the adoption of a national programme.

Public support for pricing carbon is highly dependent on how the revenue is used. By far the most popular use – by a ratio of 3 to 1 – is returning the proceeds directly to all citizens in the form of dividends.1 The reason for this popular appeal is obvious: over two-thirds of American households would be financial winners under a carbon dividends plan. Recent polling reveals that a majority of Americans favor a carbon dividends plan, including support by a 3 to 1 margin among Republican voters.2 Among 18-35-year-olds – the cohort that will determine the future of any party – support reaches 4 to 1. No other approach to carbon pricing comes close to this level of popular support.

The Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend illustrates the enduring popularity of dividends. Enacted in 1982 by a Republican Governor in a Republican state, it provides over $1,000 per year to each state resident. This program has consistently proven popular across all income groups, turning it into a “third rail” that has withstood all efforts to tamper with it. The dividend is particularly popular among the 72% of Alaskans who make less than $50,000 per year. But even Alaskans making more than $100,000 per year prefer the dividend to income tax cuts.3 The durability and popularity of the Alaska dividend provides an important lesson for carbon fee advocates.

In Washington state, a circulating petition might be the key to both permanently cutting down on the state’s carbon footprint and also reforming what is widely considered one of the nation’s most regressive tax systems. If enough signatures are secured, the petition will allow the United States’ first-ever carbon tax a spot on the ballot. Carbon Washington is a grassroots carbon tax campaign founded by environmental economist and stand-up comedian Yoram Bauman. The idea of a carbon tax is pretty simple: It’s a form of carbon pricing that aims to drive greenhouse gas emissions down by requiring people to pay a tax or a fee on either the carbon they emit or the fossil fuels they purchase, and then either returning the revenue to the public or using it for new government programs (Washington state would do the former). Carbon Washington’s initiative proposes a starting fee of $15 per ton of carbon, which would gradually increase to a cap of $100 per ton over the next 40 years — the highest price-per-ton of any carbon pricing scheme introduced so far. “I think it’s a relatively new idea for a lot of people,” said Bauman. “When you talk about climate change, they think they’re going to have to spend money on solar panels or stuff like that.” But the idea is catching on. Washington requires citizens’ initiatives to raise 246,372 signatures via petition to qualify for the ballot. So far, Carbon Washington has raised 304,000 signatures, according to Bauman, and is hoping to reach 330,00 before it submits the petition at the end of the year to have a buffer of about 25 percent of the needed number of signers. “Once we qualify, it goes to the legislature in January, and the legislature essentially has two choices,” Bauman said. “Pass it and it goes to law, or it goes on the ballot in 2016.” Washington state isn’t the only one. Citizens and legislators in a handful of other states around the country, including Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island and Oregon, are in various stages of introducing similar proposals to their own state legislatures. Many are inspired by British Columbia’s carbon tax, which was introduced in 2008 and is widely considered by economists a prime example of a successful carbon pricing scheme. Currently the only carbon tax in North America, the tax — which is revenue neutral, meaning funds are returned to the public rather than kept as revenue by the state (in this case, in the form of other tax breaks) — charges $30 per ton of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions and has so far reduced fuel consumption by more than 16 percent without harming the Canadian province’s economy. “I think the experience from BC shows that a climate policy like this, a smart well-designed policy, can work,” Bauman said. But Massachusetts may give Washington state a run for its money. For their part, advocates in Massachusetts are also set on becoming the first state in the country to successfully implement a carbon tax, said Zaurie Zimmerman, president of Zaurie Zimmerman Associates Inc., board member for Climate XChange and co-chair of Business Leaders for Climate Action. Rather than pushing a citizen’s initiative, interested residents, businesses and civic organization have formed a coalition called the Massachusetts Campaign for a Clean Energy Future and rallied behind a bill introduced earlier this year by state Sen. Michael Barrett, a Democrat.

But in such a scenario, states could fight back. In The Federalist Papers, no. 45 and no. 46, James Madison argued that states play a crucial role as backstops against federal overreach and called on them to sound the alarm in response to undemocratic action by the federal government. A particularly vivid example concerns a future effort to manipulate a presidential election result. If in a presidential contest in which their candidate loses, Republicans try to stir up sufficient suspicion about the outcome in, say, Georgia or Arizona to certify rival electoral slates and take the presidency, other states such as California or New York could take a variety of extreme measures to. Among other steps, they could suspend cooperation with the federal government, opt out of or subvert federal-state agreements, sever connections between state and federal law enforcement, and symbolically seize federal property. Whether these actions spur greater risk of political violence within and across states—particularly if pursued simultaneously by multiple states—they would virtually guarantee that a resist unified American global strategy would be severely undermined. But the larger point is that such a course of action, however damaging, would allow the states to play a critical role in sustaining the democratic process in the event of a national crisis. When an election is at risk of being overturned by extraconstitutional means, and federal-level political or judicial safeguards fail to defend democracy, the states can serve as a last resort, drawing on the integrity of local officials and institutions as well as the states’ latent capabilities to frustrate routine federal activity in extraordinary circumstances. State resistance can prove to be a democracy-preserving action. RESILIENCE FROM BELOW As policy innovators, shapers of foreign policy, and even defenders of U.S. democracy, states have far more influence than is commonly recognized, and they are poised to build on it in the years to come. To manage this growing role, the U.S. government, state leaders, and the voters themselves must approach the federal system strategically and mitigate the inherent risks of decentralization. First, state governments should further develop their potential to act as “laboratories of democracy” in the U.S. federal system, collaborating with one another when they develop new policies and standards, to shape global developments in ways that advance U.S. interests. States can force action on international climate agreements, reinvigorate immigration strategies, and forge crucial international research partnerships. Doing so will help set the global agenda, but it will also help preserve the viability and strength of the United States in the world order. Second, foreign governments can strengthen their long-term relationships with the United States, regardless of who is in power in Washington, by building ties with individual states and their dependent cities. Areas for collaboration include setting technology standards for AI and carbon footprint calculations, investment in scientific research and technology, and support for ideals such as humanitarian relief or freedom of religion through, say, assistance for refugee resettlement. In all these areas, states can be sources of progress as well as offer continuity in foreign relations. Third, policymakers in Washington should recognize the value of allowing states to experiment on core issues and even engage with them globally. Congress should reestablish the Advisory Committee on Intergovernmental Relations—a federal panel defunded in 1996 that included state, local, and federal policymakers who periodically evaluated the current health of the federal system—to provide a further means for informal negotiation and sharing best practices. When congressional action on an issue isn’t possible, federal agencies should partner with their state equivalents to pursue policy goals. Federal courts, too, would do well to bear in mind—to the extent relevant disputes allow—that states need room to maneuver within the federal system. In another January 6 crisis, states could act to safeguard U.S. democracy. That said, leaders in major states should also plan for the possibility of severe or prolonged federal dysfunction, especially involving future disruptions of the electoral process. As a start, state policymakers can help the public become more educated about the federal system and how it could be manipulated for malign purposes. Although the federal-state balance is an underappreciated source of strength with the potential to drive progress on a host of global issues, it also raises difficult and sometimes painful questions for the United States and the world. In the United States, federalism also reflects a racist history, in which states were able to prevent Blacks from voting, receiving quality education, and fully participating in the economy, as well as restrict where they could live and socialize. As major states become more assertive, their actions will bring new risks as well as new possibilities. Whether this more complex federal system improves policy, bolsters democracy, and enhances America’s role in the world depends on who uses the instruments of federalism and for what purposes. When citizens fail to pay attention, states are vulnerable to strategic abuse by those who would weaponize federalism for party or private interests, against the public and against democracy. At its best, the constant interplay between the states and the federal government can provide a powerful strategic advantage to the United States. States can contribute to continued U.S. leadership on the most vital international policy challenges of our time, as well as ensure the resilience of the U.S. system, helping to preserve and defend democratic institutions and practices. In a more pessimistic scenario, however, the federal bargain could become a source of conflict and tension. And as other countries exploit growing rifts, key states could be left looking to each other and the world rather than to the federal government for leadership.

Policy debates often focus only on major decisions made in Washington, DC. But for many Americans, the decisions made much closer to home have just as large, if not larger, effects on day-to-day life. In important respects, the United States remains true to its original system of federalism: states and localities play a prominent role in setting policies that affect the economy more broadly. State and local government total expenditures amount to $2.9 trillion in the United States. While this is less than the federal government’s $4.3 trillion of expenditures, nearly two-thirds of federal total expenditures are transfers (either to individuals or state and local governments). This means that state and local governments have in some respects a more prominent role in decision-making than the federal government. Indeed, state and local governments make key investment decisions— about infrastructure, education, and many other areas—that help determine the long-run capacity of the entire economy. State and local governments also enact laws and regulations that define how economic activity takes place. These range from labor market rules to tax policy to environmental regulations to zoning rules. In addition, policymakers’ decisions about how to allocate resources—to education, transportation, or other public goods—are crucial to the U.S. economy. Although the federal government, either by law or by general practice, is required to do extensive analysis of the rules and regulations it makes, this is not always true at the state and local levels. The choices made across states—and sometimes local jurisdictions in the same state—often vary widely. For housing and transportation policy in particular, decisions made at the local level can have dramatic effects on how and where people choose to live and work. Mobility across states has declined sharply in the United States, and one reason appears to be that land-use restrictions in economically successful regions make it difficult for many workers to move to these locations. Similarly, transportation resources are not always efficiently allocated, making it more difficult for workers to access high-quality jobs. For the economy to grow and living standards to rise, it is crucial to have successful policy at all levels of government. A set of state and local policy proposals released in January 2019 is the latest in a series of efforts by The Hamilton Project to support broadly shared economic progress through the careful analysis of local, state, and federal policies. This document provides context for those policy proposals in the form of nine economic facts about how state and local policies matter for growth. These facts highlight how rigorous costbenefit analysis, optimal transportation policy, and land-use rules can affect access to opportunity.

Expanding State Earned Income Tax Credit The federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is a refundable tax credit for working families created in 1975 by the Ford Administration. Its aim was to shield low-wage workers from the regressive effects of rising payroll taxes and to provide an additional income boost for workers near or below the poverty line.43 While the majority of an individual’s EITC comes from their federal tax return, thirty states, the District of Columbia, and a few municipalities44 have established their own EITCs to supplement the federal credit.45 Similar to the recently expanded federal Child Tax Credit, what distinguishes the federal EITC from many other credits in the tax code is its ”refundability,” meaning the full amount of the credit is given to low-income workers as cash, rather than merely reducing their tax liability. In 2018, the federal EITC lifted roughly 5.6 million people out of poverty, including about 3 million children. A state approach that modifies and bolsters a state EITC to achieve a functional guaranteed income for low-income people is an attractive proposition because it both comes with an existing mechanism to get payments to recipients, and those payments have a stronger basis for exemption from consideration as income in other benefits programs like SNAP and TANF. Unfortunately, the current federal EITC framework does not provide the full credit to households that do not meet the minimum threshold of earnings to qualify, excluding the lowest wage earning and non-wage earning households. Additionally, some groups like unpaid caregivers and domestic workers, as well as immigrants who file taxes with an Individual Tax ID number are not able to access these valuable credits. A state could create an efficient avenue to a functional guaranteed income for a large swath of a state’s population by enacting reforms to the state EITC that: Is fully refundable, ensuring that extremely low- and no-income families are eligible, Expands the state’s federal match rate to provide recipients with greater support, Raises income eligibility thresholds to extend eligibility to some middle-income earners, and Provide access to immigrants and other previously excluded groups.46

The bitter harvest of the nationalist revolution was gathered in this century with the slaughter of the First and Second World Wars and with the fifty-year Cold War that then followed. These events finally made clear to the great-great-grandchildren of the Enlight- enment that celebration of the nation state could lead to Nazism and Stalinism, to war and genocide, and to totalitarianism and the most complete loss of freedom humankind ever experienced. By 1945, the democratic revolution was still in full flow, but the nationalist revolution was not. World leaders scrambled to replace the still collapsing colonial, imperial transnational structures with new federal and confederal transnational structures. The fifty years since then have seen the birth of the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union, the European Convention on Human Rights, the British Commonwealth, the Confederation of Independent States (CIS), the GATT, the NAFTA, and countless other transnational "federal" entities of varying degrees of importance.24 Many of these were openly inspired by the success story of American federalism, which, for example, led many Europeans to want to build a Common Market that could become a "United States of Europe." While many of these new democratic transnational entities are very weak, they nonetheless have developed important powers: they have helped to keep the peace, and in some instances, as with the European Union, they show real potential for some day attaining essentially all the attributes of sovereignty commonly associated with a federal nation-state, like the United States. The growth and success of transnational confederal forms since 1945 is truly aston- ishing and rightly is viewed by many - either with alarm or with hope - as holding out the eventual prospect of a future global fed- eral government or at least the prospect of several continental-sized federal governments. At the same time, U.S.-style constitutional federalism has become the order of the day in an extraordinarily large number of very important countries, some of which once might have been thought of as pure nation-states. Thus, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Republic of Austria, the Russian Federation, Spain, India, and Nigeria all have decentralized power by adopting consti- tutions that are significantly more federalist than the ones they re- placed.25 Many other nations that had been influenced long ago by American federalism have chosen to retain and formalize their fed- eral structures. Thus, the federalist constitutions of Australia, Can- ada, Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico, for example, all are basically alive and well today. As one surveys the world in 1995, American-style federalism of some kind or another is everywhere triumphant, while the forces of nationalism, although still dangerous, seem to be contained or in retreat. The few remaining highly centralized democratic nation- states like Great Britain,26 France, and Italy all face serious secessionist or devolutionary crises.27 Other highly centralized nation- states, like China, also seem ripe for a federalist, as well as a demo- cratic, change. Even many existing federal and confederal entities seem to face serious pressure to devolve power further than they have done so far: thus, Russia, Spain, Canada, and Belgium all have very serious devolutionary or secessionist movements of some kind. Indeed, secessionist pressure has been so great that some federal structures recently have collapsed under its weight, as has hap- pened in Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and the former Soviet Union. All of this still could be threatened, of course, by a resurgence of nationalism in Russia or elsewhere, but the long-term antinational- ist trend seems fairly secure. There is no serious intellectual sup- port for nationalism anywhere in the world today, whereas everywhere people seem interested in exploring new transnational and devolutionary federal forms.28 The democratic revolution that was launched in Philadelphia in 1776 has won, and now it seems that democrats everywhere join Madison in "cherishing the spirit and supporting the character of federalists."29

They’re right, but there’s actually a better way of approaching the issue. Why not take all income-​redistribution programs, put them into a single block grant, and then transfer the money – and responsibility – to state governments? In an ideal world, the block grant would gradually diminish so that states would be responsible for both the collection and disbursement of all monies related to welfare. But that’s a secondary issue. The main benefit of this federalist approach is that you stop the Washington-​driven expansion of the welfare state and you trigger the creation of 50 separate experiments on how best to provide a safety net. Some states might choose a basic income. Others might retain something very similar to the current system. Others might try a workfare-​based approach, while some could dream up new ideas that wouldn’t stand a chance in a one-​size-​fits-​all system run out of Washington, DC. And as states adopted different systems, they could learn from each other about what works and what doesn’t work. And since it’s easier to influence decisions that are closer to home, taxpayers at the state level almost certainly would have more ability to impact what happens with their money. Moreover, there’s actually some evidence that this approach is practical. The 1996 welfare reform legislation isn’t a perfect analogy, but the core feature of that law was the elimination of a national entitlement and the provision of a block grant so that states could decide (with some strings attached) how to deal with poverty. By most measures, the 1996 reform was a success, with Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution explaining that it resulted in lower levels of welfare dependency and reductions in child poverty. This isn’t to say the 1996 law was ideal. The advantage of a comprehensive federalist approach is that policy experts can push states to experiment with different policies. And given the vast differences between various American states, it’s almost guaranteed that there will be lots of diversity. This diversity not only will inform policy makers about what works and what doesn’t work. It also will satisfy the libertarian desire to get Washington out of the business of income distribution, while presumably producing a system that actually does a better job of helping the less fortunate escape government dependency. In other words, all the advantages of the basic income plan without the potential system-​wide downsides.

Every person deserves to live with dignity and have their basic needs met. After decades of rollbacks and disinvestment, our current social safety net is insufficient given the economic situation we face. In the United States there is unconscionable and accelerating wealth inequality, wages have been stagnant for 40 years and, both before and throughout the coronavirus pandemic, many Americans struggle to meet their basic needs. In the richest country on Earth, elimination of deep poverty is attainable and long overdue. Historically, states have played a critical role in testing concepts to improve the lives of low-income residents and created a blueprint for anti-poverty measures that can be implemented nationwide. It is time to boldly reimagine and revitalize an eroded social safety net, and states have an opportunity to lead by example. The devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic prompted mitigation strategies intended to get cash to people who were impacted. Federal policies such as increased unemployment insurance, an expanded and fully refundable Child Tax Credit (CTC), and stimulus checks have led to burgeoning support for permanent cash transfer programs like a guaranteed income. Additionally, state and local governments added to relief efforts by using federal dollars provided by both the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to fund cash transfer programs of their own. At the same time, an increasing number of municipalities and other units of local government across the country are exploring guaranteed income demonstrations in their community, and states should seize this opportunity to build upon this work. Local guaranteed income programs, though limited in scope, produce incredibly valuable data to prove the efficacy of unconditional cash programs, which are critical for states to obtain buy-in from the necessary stakeholders. One limitation of local programs, however, is that they often aren’t scaled to study the potential for community-level change or other broader economic impacts. At the federal level, the expanded CTC being debated as part of President Biden’s American Families Plan represents a form of guaranteed income for 39 million households. Unfortunately, federal conversations around nationwide cash transfer programs – like an expanded CTC – have been underwhelming. As of December 2021, the Build Back Better Act does maintain the fully refundable nature of the expanded-CTC, allowing low- and no-income families excluded pre-pandemic to continue to receive a credit, but only a temporary extension is being considered for the increased amounts families received during the pandemic. While the Build Back Better Act has not yet passed, the stimulus checks and expanded CTC have moved the needle, breaking down barriers to moving cash policies at any level of government. We now have a much better sense of what is possible when it comes to distributing monthly cash payments, and we have data and stories of the impact these policies have in the lives of low- and middle-income earning families. In light of the current limits at the local and federal level, there is an opportunity for state governments to explore ambitious, publicly-funded cash transfer policies that: promote dignity and greatly improve the lives of their low-income residents; add to a growing body of research with assessments of larger scale positive impacts across geographically and racially diverse areas; utilize the revenue raising powers of state government; and could be a model for a permanent federal program. We need a permanent federal guaranteed income, but political gridlock and polarization threaten to frustrate attempts at a federal program in the immediate term. States have an opportunity to push closer to that ideal with large scale, publicly funded, permanent programs of their own that will provide essential data and experience toward the realization of a federal program. This guide seeks to arm state-level advocates and policymakers with information regarding the choice points in program design, the positive impacts shown by existing research, and special considerations for states including options for guaranteed income implementation, interactions with existing public benefits programs, opportunities for public funding, and promoting racial equity.

We should all welcome opportunities to use less resources to satisfy more human needs. However, this cannot be accomplished through economic commands, especially not those that are associated with the ‘degrowth’ theory. The reason is found in three analytical errors that this theory is guilty of:

It says that we cannot have a growing economy without exploitatively consuming more and more natural resources;