Exclusive: New initiative seeks to tackle "big ideas" on climate
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The Federation of American Scientists is launching an initiative that aims to promote creative thinking for how government can tackle climate change and other challenges.
Why it matters: The effort is intended to "complement" the center-left "Abundance" movement that some Democrats are embracing, said Hannah Safford, FAS' associate director of climate and environment.
- Its approach bears similarities to Ground Shift, another ambitious initiative launched this week seeking to reimagine how the U.S. manages its public lands and waters.
Driving the news: FAS is starting the Center for Regulatory Ingenuity, which the group says will create "high-trust environments to brainstorm and refine the big ideas that will breathe new life into government" while building a "network of networks" to help implement those ideas.
- Climate will be the center's initial focus. It's teaming with climate and legal thinkers and strategists Climate Group North America, ICLEI USA, and the Environmental Law Institute.
- The Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act and other decades-old laws "weren't designed to guide the economy-wide transition to clean technologies that's currently underway," Safford said.
- "Successfully navigating this transition means seriously considering how we can update 20th-century laws for a 21st-century world, as well as better couple regulatory and non-regulatory strategies."
Context: Some critics of the Trump administration's move to overturn the "endangerment finding" underpinning greenhouse gas-reduction regulations say it shows the need for a climate-specific law instead of relying on the Clean Air Act.
Zoom in: The center is also publishing an inaugural series of essays seeking to make the case for regulation.
- One Environmental Law Institute essay discusses "rebuilding environmental governance." Another from the R Street Institute's Devin Hartman and Progressive Policy Institute's Neel Brown addresses costs in a "reset climate agenda."
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