In a Politico Magazine op-ed following the Green New Deal’s 57-0 defeat in the U.S. Senate, Ross Eisenberg, vice president of energy and resources policy at the National Association of Manufacturers, offers substantive solutions that Congress could pursue to act on climate change and help manufacturers continue to lead the way in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Eisenberg also highlighted some of manufacturers’ environmental achievements over the past decade.

Eisenberg offers several meaningful proposals Congress can embrace, including:

• “Dramatically scale up the adoption of energy- and water-efficient products and technologies, which will almost always be the cheapest forms of reducing emissions.
• Prioritize innovation, both in the federal government and the private sector.
• Promote solutions that enable us to use all of the energy sources we have here in the U.S. cleanly and that create pathways for the deployment of new technologies like carbon capture, utilization and storage.
• Create public-private partnerships between government and manufacturers to help them further decarbonize.”

Eisenberg also writes about the proactive and innovative steps manufacturers have already taken to address climate change:

“Virtually every major manufacturer now has in place a meaningful policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, with many extending those policies to their supply chains. Manufacturers have pioneered new strategies and technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and are using them to set aggressive emissions reduction targets—and in many cases, beat them early. Over the past decade in particular, manufacturers have been leaders in driving a sea change in the way businesses address climate change and advance sustainable manufacturing in America.”

The results speak for themselves:

“The manufacturing sector has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 10 percent over the past decade while its value to the economy has gone up by 19 percent. Across the board, we have outpaced our competitors around the world in terms of reducing emissions.”

Unlike the climate change litigation being filed against manufacturers in states such as California and New York, the policies highlighted in Eisenberg’s op-ed are collaborative solutions that actually address our global challenge. Elected officials should embrace approaches like these rather than target manufacturers with baseless lawsuits.

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