U.S. Climate Policy Initiative

Moving a National Climate Policy Forward

Since 2006, the U.S. Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) has brought together stakeholders to develop and test ideas for an effective and cost-effective national climate policy.  CCAP convenes multi-stakeholder dialogue meetings to present critical climate policy issues and facilitate off-the-record discussions among members, experts, and invited government officials.  Through its dialogue process, the CPI aims to:

• Educate members and invited government officials on policy and regulatory options that are being or should be considered to address climate change.
• Build a common understanding among industry, environmental groups, and government officials of the advantages and disadvantages of alternative policy solutions.
• Identify potential areas of consensus.
• Craft and recommend viable national climate strategies and implementation approaches that are effective, cost-effective and politically viable for consideration by Congress and the U.S. EPA.

Goals and Objectives

In support of the U.S. commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the range of -17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and the more recent U.S. nationally determined contribution (NDC) to reduce emissions by -26 to -28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, the CPI will continue to support effective and cost-effective climate policy solutions within key sectors of the economy. In particular, the CPI will:

• Facilitate smart Clean Power Plan (CPP) implementation, including through sound resolution of remaining federal design issues and promotion of effective and cost-effective state plans.
• Evaluate and advance policy solutions designed to prevent emissions increases that would result from early retirement of existing nuclear power plants.
• Evaluate and advance best practices to encourage clean distributed energy resources towards CPP compliance and longer-term energy, resilience and climate change goals, including strategies gleaned from CCAP’s new distributed energy initiative.
• Evaluate and advance agreement towards policy solutions in other sectors of the economy, depending on stakeholder interest, funding and available windows of opportunity.
• Support implementation of US climate policy solutions at the state level. Most recently, CCAP co-facilitated a stakeholder process to help implement the Clean Power Plan in Minnesota. More information on the project can be found here.

The Dialogue Process

Dialogue Meetings: CPI utilizes a series of dialogue meetings to build a common understanding of the climate and energy challenge and the advantages and disadvantages of alternative policy solutions. CCAP’s time-tested dialogue process has been used effectively to develop analysis and policy recommendations, as well as help reach political consensus.

Policy Briefings: CCAP provides educational briefings to policy makers on specific topics covered in the dialogue process. Officials and staff from EPA, DOE, and Congress also participate in the dialogue as observers.