Pair infrastructure, climate change

President Joe Biden signed the bipartisan infrastructure plan with great fanfare. Rebuilding our country’s infrastructure — a long-overdue objective — is necessary and important. This bipartisan legislation also shows Americans can still come together and solve our most pressing challenges.

But Congress must pair this infrastructure bill with comprehensive legislation to address climate change. It is irresponsible not to tackle these problems simultaneously. Without addressing the cause of climate change, any infrastructure we build will falter against more severe heat waves, droughts and storms. With increasing regularity, our infrastructure fails in the face of extreme weather resulting in tragedy after tragedy. This nightmarish drumbeat will only accelerate if Congress and the world do not act swiftly.

There is a bipartisan solution that Americans across the political spectrum support that promotes sustainable growth around the world: carbon pricing. The EU recently advanced this system to combat climate change. So has Canada.

By putting a price on carbon that reflects its cost and placing tariffs on the imports of nations that refuse to also price carbon, this policy would spur American innovation to solve our climate crisis. Pairing carbon pricing with a dividend paid to Americans from the revenues collected would also counteract increased costs.

Everyone from Mitt Romney to Dick Durbin, Bernie Sanders to Exxon has promoted this solution in some way. To ensure the safety and livelihoods of Americans and the integrity of the infrastructure we are building, Congress must act boldly to address climate change now.

Tim Parilla, Old Town