Donald Trump does not understand manufacturing

The United States is in a manufacturing recession. President Trump made a campaign pledge to deliver support for American manufacturing workers and create new jobs, but he has done the opposite. A strategy for continuing American global leadership in manufacturing is right in front of him – if he cared to read it.

President Trump and his administration have been working over the past three years to undo essential federal programs that actually support manufacturers. We shouldn’t be tearing down critical programs that work – we should be working to ensure more manufacturers are aware of these programs and can take full advantage of them. We should also improve upon current initiatives so we can make progress toward addressing the real challenges facing manufacturers today.

Manufacturers in America, particularly small manufacturers, are stretched. These businesses must balance day-to-day operations and production deadlines along with overcoming the additional hurdles of rapidly changing technology, global competition and cybersecurity threats.

The prolonged tariffs and the trade war with China have delivered the weakest U.S. manufacturing activity in more than a decade. Last month, thousands of jobs were lost, and the confidence of American executives sank to its lowest level since 2009. President Trump is forgetting to first, do no harm.

Supporting our manufacturers is a bipartisan priority. Having spent a decade working in manufacturing, I know the importance of the sector firsthand, and working to sustain and grow U.S. manufacturing has been a top priority for me.

When I ask manufacturers in Delaware and across the country what they are struggling with, they bring up finding new hires with the right training, access to capital and export assistance. This is where Congress should focus our energy, and I’d like to highlight the programs already in place that can help manufacturers right now.

Perhaps the single most important federal program supporting small manufacturing businesses is the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) program. MEP has been helping create jobs and delivering training in every state for the last 30 years despite President Trump’s repeated attempts to defund the program.

Large manufacturing firms have the process engineers and technical staff they need to meet innovation or optimization needs, but MEP helps lend staff with that expertise to small manufacturers who do not have those personnel on payroll. In my home state of Delaware, MEP helped Crystal Steel Fabricators in Delmar reduce scrap steel by 10 percent, buy more efficient equipment, and add a night shift and overtime for employees. PTM Manufacturing in New Castle credits the Delaware MEP program with enabling their production output to increase by 350 percent by implementing advanced manufacturing concepts. The return on investment is clear. For every $1 of federal investment, the MEP program creates over $27 in new sales growth for manufacturers. I’ve heard from many Delawareans that this program makes an important difference in their businesses, and all manufacturers should be aware of it.

A new program that is addressing workforce training is the Manufacturing Engineering Education Program. This initiative provides apprenticeship, high school, and college-level training to the next generation of manufacturing leaders. The program is in its second year and is still ramping up, but it should only be the beginning of a nationwide effort to develop a strong manufacturing curriculum in every state.

These programs have proven to be helpful, but there’s also more we can be doing at the federal level to help grow our manufacturing sector.

To start, we should improve access to capital. Early-stage manufacturers, compared to other sectors, often struggle to grow because they need larger facilities and more expensive equipment. I worked to get cash-strapped startups access to the R&D tax credit in 2015, and I’ve been working with my Republican colleague Sen. Tim Scott from South Carolina to improve access to capital for small manufacturing businesses. Congress should pass our bipartisan, bicameral legislation that provides low interest loans to manufacturers that are growing and creating jobs.

Congress should also be investing more in the next generation of advanced manufacturing technologies. In 2014, the Obama administration began standing up a national network of regional manufacturing hubs called the Manufacturing USA program. The Manufacturing USA initiative has built 14 public-private partnerships that include life-saving biopharmaceutical drugs in Delaware, advanced lightweight materials in Michigan, and high-performance composites in Tennessee.

The Manufacturing USA program is so successful that China is copying our model. China is investing enormously and is on a path to establish 40 manufacturing innovation centers of their own by 2025. There’s no reason the U.S. should get lapped by China. The president should sign my bipartisan bill, the Global Leadership in Advanced Manufacturing Act, to maintain pace with China and expand the number of Manufacturing USA institutes over the next decade to meet the original vision of 45 regional hubs spread across the country.

Supporting U.S. manufacturing is commonsense. Let’s make the right decisions for American manufacturers and show that they still have allies in Congress working for them.

This bipartisan gun bill would help protect Delaware families from gun violence

New Senate caucus will seek bipartisan solutions to address the climate challenge

As we travel across Delaware and Indiana, we consistently hear concerns that our climate is changing and our constituents are looking for Congress to step up and take action.

In its current state, our national conversation on this issue is too polarized, toxic, and unproductive. In this environment, American leadership is sidelined, instead replaced by partisan bickering. To us, this is unacceptable.

Today, we are launching the Senate Climate Solutions Caucus, a bipartisan group of senators who, like the Americans we serve, believe Congress should play a central role in guiding America’s 21st century energy economy and addressing the challenge of a changing climate. Our caucus seeks to take the politics out of this important issue. Instead, members will commit to an honest dialogue, through which we can develop solutions that solidify American environmental leadership, promote American workers, and make meaningful progress on protecting our environment.

We are not going into this challenge empty handed. American innovators have laid the groundwork by making significant progress, inventing new technologies to increase efficiency and decrease the environmental impacts of manufacturing, agricultural production, and electricity generation. Every day, another American company announces a pledge to achieve carbon neutrality. Congress can build on these efforts, giving American businesses the tools they need to get there.

We recognize the simple reality that climate policy is too serious to ram through Congress on a partisan basis. Republicans and Democrats have to work together, compromise, and find common ground. Our caucus will help facilitate these discussions by bringing an equal number of members from each party to the table, and it will only act when each member agrees. We will meet regularly and convene experts from across the political spectrum to discuss ideas such as developing economic incentives to reduce emissions, promoting the role of agriculture as a climate solution, and ensuring that any energy transition protects American energy consumers while supporting energy security and workforce development.

We may seem an unlikely pair to team up on this effort. We come from different political parties and represent different parts of the country, but we both recognize the importance of American leadership in addressing our changing climate.

For example, Delaware has the lowest average elevation in the country. Studies have indicated that in less than 50 years, nearly 7,000 Delawareans could see their homes destroyed by flooding caused by rising sea levels. Some of Delaware’s largest industries rely on stable, predictable weather to function and remain profitable. The state dedicates 40 percent of its land to agriculture production and counts tourism as its fourth largest private industry sector. Rising temperatures, paired with increasing droughts and severe storms, have created serious issues for these industries and the thousands of people they employ.

Indiana is one of the largest agriculture and manufacturing states in the country where 70 percent of our energy relies on coal. This is why it is critical that Indiana be represented at the table to make sure that progress on environmental policy is balanced by the need to continue building good paying Hoosiers jobs. The state has made great progress at improving environmental outcomes in the past, but there is room for our manufacturing, agriculture, and energy sectors to continue leading the nation in innovation. 

We look forward to working with our colleagues to address this challenge in a way that strengthens our competitiveness, grows our economy, and creates opportunity for American workers. This bipartisan caucus is an important step forward.

The Senate Must Rein In Trump

Let’s work together to fix our health care system, not sabotage it

Over the past few months, I’ve spoken with Delawareans at town hall events up and down our state, and whether I’m in Georgetown, Delaware City or Newark, I hear the same thing time and time again: Put politics aside, work together, and get things done. 

To every Delawarean who feels that way: I hear you, loud and clear, and I couldn’t agree more, because if we do work together, we can actually make changes that will benefit all American families. That’s particularly true when it comes to improving our healthcare system. 

I wasn’t in the Senate when the Affordable Care Act was passed, and I know it’s not perfect, but I firmly believe that instead of scrapping the progress we’ve made to strengthen the quality of health insurance and give more people access to coverage, we should work together to keep improving it.

Scrapping the Affordable Care Act entirely would return us to the days when Delawareans could be denied coverage due to a preexisting condition like cancer, asthma, diabetes or multiple sclerosis. In fact, over 389,000 Delawareans under the age of 65 are currently living with a preexisting condition. It would also mean that millions more Americans could be faced with financial ruin when a loved one gets sick. 

Unfortunately, though, the administration is trying to do just that. The administration is arguing in a lawsuit, Texas v. United States, that the Affordable Care Act should be struck down, despite the fact that they have no viable plan to replace it.

We can’t allow political differences to get in the way of Americans’ health care. If we repeal the Affordable Care Act without a plan to replace it, many American families would be impacted.

Those impacts would only get worse until Democrats and Republicans could agree on an entirely new plan for our healthcare system. Recent history has shown us that is an exceptionally difficult task, and realistically, could take us years to accomplish. 

So, let’s instead work together to fix our healthcare system, not sabotage it. We can build upon the Affordable Care Act to continue to expand coverage and bring down costs, and there are ways we can do that right now. 

First, we need to bring more certainty to the marketplace and provide relief to families whose premiums are increasing every year. 

Second, we need to address the high cost of prescription drugs. I’ve supported several proposals this year that would allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices, hold manufacturers accountable when they abruptly increase the cost of drugs, cap out-of-pocket spending for Medicare seniors, and increase transparency for rebates negotiated between pharmacy benefit managers and pharmaceutical companies.  

Third, we need to invest in medical research. When the president sought to slash funding to critical organizations like the National Institutes of Health, Republicans and Democrats in Congress worked together to secure increases for NIH-funded research programs. Last year, Congress increased the NIH’s budget by $2 billion and this year, if we put politics aside and work together, I know we can do it again.

Finally, we need to take an all-hands-on-deck, national approach to address our country’s opioid abuse epidemic.

In 2017, nearly 350 people died from overdoses in our state, up 12 percent from the previous year. August 2018 was the deadliest month on record for drug-related overdoses, claiming 39 Delawareans in just 31 days. Republicans and Democrats have made progress – we passed a funding bill last year that included $3.7 billion to help states like Delaware fight the opioid epidemic – but there’s more that needs to be done.

I hope you’ll join me in calling on all members of Congress to put politics aside, work together, and get things done. I know that can sometimes seem impossible, but if there’s anyone up to leading the charge, it’s Delaware. Here, we know that working across the aisle isn’t just a nice thing to do – it’s the only thing to do. It’s the Delaware way.

Democrats Need to Talk About Their Faith

Coons and Tillis: What We Learned At Patent Reform Hearings

The United States has long been a nation of innovators and entrepreneurs. The American people’s ability to create solutions to problems that evaded others for centuries has propelled our unrivaled technological, economic and military leadership. This ability to generate exciting breakthrough innovations is due in large part to our founders’ decision to harness the creative genius of American inventors through strong intellectual property laws.

If you have watched the popular prime-time show “Shark Tank,” you have probably seen that the ability to secure patent protection plays a vital role in securing funding for new ideas. A patent can easily make or break the dreams of an entrepreneur. That same patent-protection calculus plays out in equally high-stakes boardroom meetings, as investors and executives decide how to allocate limited resources.

As one former director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office explained to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s intellectual property subcommittee, which we lead together, “inventions deemed eligible today drive tomorrow’s jobs, national competitiveness, economic prosperity, and even national security.”

But a critical question is: What is patent eligible today? Over time, courts have clouded the line to exclude critical medical advances like life-saving precision medicine and diagnostics. Recent decisions have also made it difficult to predict whether exciting and important technologies like artificial intelligence make the cut.

For that reason, we have engaged in thorough, thoughtful, bipartisan and bicameral legislating. Most recently, the Senate IP subcommittee held three public hearings on the state of patent eligibility, following the release of draft legislative text with Reps. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., Doug Collins, R-Ga., and Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, to serve as the basis for discussion. We heard from 45 witnesses, ranging from inventors to scholars, patient advocates to trade groups, former USPTO officials and the former chief judge of the Federal Circuit to business leaders. We appreciate the feedback we received. Some like what we’re doing, and some don’t, but it was important to us that everyone had the opportunity for their views to be heard.

The hearings reinforced what we’ve been hearing for years — the U.S. patent system with regard to patent eligibility is broken and desperately needs to be repaired. The U.S. Supreme Court has confused and narrowed Section 101 of the Patent Act to the point that investors are reluctant to pursue the innovations that propel our country forward. We heard about studies showing that investors familiar with the current lack of clarity invest less in critical research and development in areas like medical diagnostics and artificial intelligence, at least in the United States.

The current director of the USPTO recently noted that inventors and judges alike struggle on a daily basis to determine “what is in and what is out” and wondered whether even Thomas Edison’s famous phonograph patent would survive the courts’ recent tests for eligible subject matter. 

Likewise, two former USPTO directors testified to this disturbing lack of clarity, and the former chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit characterized patent eligibility as “the number one problem in our patent system today.” He noted that, despite having personally drafted over 800 patent opinions, he struggled to predict the results in any given case. His view is shared by current Federal Circuit judges, one of whom recently wrote that the lack of clarity in the law made it “near impossible to know with any certainty whether the invention is or is not patent eligible.”

If these experts can’t figure it out, how can we possibly expect inventors, executives or investors to make informed decisions? If they can’t be confident that they will recoup the time and money required to bring a new product to market, won’t they stop investing? Indeed, that is exactly what we heard at the hearings. When organizations like the Cleveland Clinic Foundation express concerns about developing new medical diagnostic technology because of the patent system, we should all take note. 

Another point that came through loudly and clearly was the necessity for Congress to intervene. Witnesses explained that the Federal Circuit and the USPTO cannot salvage this situation because they are constrained by recent Supreme Court precedent. 

We also heard about the Supreme Court’s denying over 40 petitions for certiorari on this topic since its disruptive decision in the Alice case five years ago. So dire is the situation that several sitting Federal Circuit judges have called on Congress to act. In one prominent case, for example, the court invalidated claims to a revolutionary prenatal test for Down syndrome and other conditions that allowed doctors to avoid invasive procedures. As one judge lamented, he saw “no reason, in policy or statute, why this breakthrough invention should be deemed patent ineligible.”

We agree. Without the guarantee of patent protection to compensate for the decades and hundreds of millions of dollars necessary to bring a U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved product to market, who will find tomorrow’s cures? As one patent expert testified, those undiscovered treatments are “not available to the patient at any price.”

Not everyone agrees that reform is needed. Some witnesses cautioned that the status quo provides a mechanism to terminate baseless patent infringement lawsuits quickly and efficiently. We hear these concerns, and we invite suggestions to mitigate them. We cannot permit the courts, however, to destabilize our patent system for the sake of deterring nuisance litigation. We can consider legislative provisions directly targeting the behavior of bad actors, and we welcome additional feedback on this point. 

Several witnesses urged us not to permit patenting of scientific research per se, mere abstract ideas and nontechnical methods of doing business. It is not our intent to do so. To be clear, our patent system was never intended to protect artistic creations, methods of investing, or items found in nature. Our

framework attempts to provide a positive definition of eligibility to focus courts on subject matter that is eligible while eliminating the confusing and unreliable judicially created tests that dissect patent claims looking for “abstract ideas” and “inventive concepts.” 

Our proposed abrogation of the court cases establishing those tests does not mean that the results of each case should have turned out differently. While some decisions have wrongly excluded important subject matter from the patent system, others reached the correct result only after navigating an unnecessarily confusing maze of precedent.

In addition, as several witnesses reminded us, patent eligibility is far from the only requirement for obtaining a patent. Existing laws preclude patents on ideas that would have been obvious or are not adequately described and clearly claimed. It is the effort to collapse these distinct inquiries into the threshold evaluation of eligibility under Section 101 — which used to serve only as a “coarse filter” — that has led to many of the problems we heard about over the past two weeks. 

That said, we want to ensure that these provisions pull their weight. To that end, we proposed amendments to other portions of the Patent Act to guard against the types of overly broad, functional patent claims frequently cited by those concerned about abuse. 

At bottom, changes are needed. We must fix a system in which something as seemingly technical and concrete as a networked charging station for electric vehicles was recently struck down as ineligible for patent protection regardless of whether it was novel — an example cited by multiple witnesses. 

Others, including American innovation leaders like Qualcomm Inc. and International Business Machines Corp., testified that the uncertainty surrounding patent eligibility is affecting the development
of technologies like 5G, quantum computing and artificial intelligence — innovations that not only promise to make life better for Americans, but also to protect our national security. We heard about how inventions like these are receiving patents in Europe and China, but not in the United States. Why should we cede our competitive edge at this critical juncture?

Even some witnesses advocating against broad reform conceded that there are problems with the current system, particularly in the life sciences. A leading academic who defended some aspects of the status quo nonetheless characterized this area of the law as “a mess,” and a trade association representing high-tech companies opposing reform nonetheless recognized the challenges facing stakeholders in the life science industry. These admissions reflect the overwhelming concerns expressed to us in recent years about how the courts have discouraged research and development in this area.

Other witnesses, including the American Civil Liberties Union, expressed concerns about the patenting of human genes. As we stated at the hearing, it is not our intent to allow such patents, and several witnesses, including the Association of American Universities and the Intellectual Property Owners Association, disagreed that our proposal would enable that result.

Testimony at the hearings further clarified that — because the entire human genome has been mapped for many years — these concerns are misplaced. That said, we want to be very clear on this point, and we welcome proposals to clarify our proposed legislation. 

We do want to incentivize research and development into the exciting prospects of individualized diagnostics and precision medicine, which is tied to genetics. We are working hard to ensure the protections that will enable our innovators to bring these products to market while safeguarding research into the next generation of medical advances.

For example, we are considering a provision that would exempt research and experimentation from infringement liability. This type of exception is common around the world. It would allow basic research to continue unimpeded by patents, which are designed to control commercialization, not stifle research. We will be reviewing any additional suggestions we receive that would promote research without discouraging product development.

The alternative to Section 101 reform would, in our view and the view of many witnesses, suppress research. Multiple witnesses explained that decreased confidence in the patent system to protect their inventions and discoveries triggers resort to trade secret protection. It may seem obvious, but trade secrets require secrecy. They do not permit the free flow of information among competing scientists.

The patent system, on the other hand, is built on a fundamental bargain in which we offer inventors limited exclusivity in exchange for public disclosure of their inventions. That way, others can build upon those discoveries, verify their effectiveness and explore alternative solutions. That is how the system used to work and can work again.

Now that the hearings have concluded, we continue to welcome input from all stakeholders as we consider necessary adjustments before we introduce a bill. In addition to clarifying our proposal regarding the eligibility of gene patents, we will investigate ways to sharpen the “field of technology” requirement to ensure that critical advances like artificial intelligence and medical diagnostics qualify, but not economic transactions or social interactions.

We will also consider ideas for reinforcing Section 112 of the Patent Act, which should operate to prevent inventors from claiming all possible solutions to a problem while also serving to protect inventors against those seeking to profit on trivial modifications. 

We know change is needed, and we know that we have additional work to do. We seek your feedback as we craft a legislative solution to support the exciting and often life-saving work of our entrepreneurs and innovators, whether in garages or multimillion-dollar labs. We feel confident that, working together, we can ensure that the United States patent system reclaims its reputation as the gold standard for promoting innovation.

Chris Coons is a Democratic U.S. senator from Delaware and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property.

Thom R. Tillis is a Republican U.S. senator from North Carolina and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property.

A bipartisan effort to support 21st Century American manufacturing

I recently introduced the Global Leadership in Advanced Manufacturing Act with my colleague from Colorado, Republican Sen. Cory Gardner, to expand the national network of Manufacturing USA institutes that are working to keep the U.S. on the cutting edge of advanced manufacturing.

When I take the Amtrak train from Wilmington to Washington, D.C., I pass by a site that both haunts and inspires me. It’s the site of the former Chrysler plant in Newark.

For years, that plant was a pillar of Delaware’s economy. As recently as 2000, it employed 3,000 high-skilled, high-wage Chrysler workers building new Dodge Durangos. In turn, those employees were able to support their families, buy houses and cars, and keep our local economy strong.

Today, though, that plant is gone – a reflection of the global economic changes that have shaken communities across our country.

The loss of that plant hit Delaware hard, but, in a testament to our state’s initiative and resilience, that site is now home to something called a Manufacturing USA Institute, where a different kind of manufacturing has taken hold.

At that same site in Newark, medical researchers in the new National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIIMBL) are hard at work, developing, testing, and innovating ways to make lifesaving and life-improving medicines of the future.

NIIMBL is a public-private partnership funded by $70 million dollars in federal funding and matched by another $129 million from industry and private sector. The institute is only in its second year of operation, and has already attracted 115 members from industry, academia, and non-profits spanning over 20 states across the U.S. The best companies and universities in the biopharmaceutical field are organizing through Delaware to develop vaccines, gene therapies, and cancer drugs that will result in life saving cures that we and our loved ones will benefit from one day. These innovations will not only save lives, but they will also provide jobs for Delawareans who will manufacture those medical innovations.

Unfortunately, though, if Congress does not update this program, Delaware’s Manufacturing USA institute will miss out on vital federal funding it needs.

So, to build on the success we’ve already seen with Manufacturing USA Institutes, I recently introduced the Global Leadership in Advanced Manufacturing Act with my colleague from Colorado, Republican Senator Cory Gardner, to expand the national network of Manufacturing USA institutes that are working to keep the U.S. on the cutting edge of advanced manufacturing. This bill will also enable NIIMBL to keep competing for federal dollars, just as the other 13 institutes around the country are currently able to do.

The idea behind the bill is simple: we know that Manufacturing USA Institutes work. They help ensure that the United States isn’t just keeping up with the changing economy, but that we’re leading it.

In fact, I believe that we have to expand the program to ensure that American manufacturers can succeed in the face of foreign competition, particularly from China. The Chinese seem to agree – they’ve essentially copied our Manufacturing USA Institutes model in their “Made in China 2025” plan, which includes the creation of 40 advanced manufacturing hubs to compete with the U.S. program.

If we don’t remain committed to supporting American manufacturing, China will out-invest the United States in this area, and we cannot afford to let that happen. If we continue to invest in manufacturing, though, we can ensure that the 21st Century technologies used around the world are American-designed and American-made. That’s why our bipartisan bill doesn’t just double down on Manufacturing USA Institutes, but also strengthens their role in helping to train Americans in advanced manufacturing skills.

The experts project that new technology will lead to 3.5 million new jobs over the next decade, and we want those jobs to be in the United States. To do that, we need to ensure that our workforce has advanced manufacturing skills and industry-recognized certifications.

This is not a Democratic or a Republican challenge, it’s an American one. If we work together, we can build on our country’s proud manufacturing legacy and continue to develop and manufacture the medicines, technologies, and products the world will rely on this century and beyond.

Coons and Rooney: 75 Executives Lobbied Congress for a National Carbon Price. We Listened.

Right before Memorial Day, over 75 businesses came to Capitol Hill to demand that their lawmakers establish a national carbon price. The participating business leaders collectively employ over 1 million U.S. workers and represent a combined market value of around $2.5 trillion—the largest group of businesses assembled on the Hill to advocate for climate legislation in a decade.

In over 80 meetings with members and staff from both the House and Senate, these business leaders spoke forcefully on the risk climate change poses to their operations, their employees, and their customers. They challenged Congress to heed their warning, accept the severity of the crisis, and take action to address the threat of a rapidly warming world. And they made clear: There is support in the business community for setting a national carbon price as a central component of any legislative strategy to address climate change.

Now, it is our responsibility, as members of Congress, regardless of our party affiliation, to respond to the businesses who drive our economy.

We represent different parts of the country and stand on opposite sides of the aisle in Washington, but we agree that there is perhaps no issue as urgent for our nation—and our economy—as tackling climate change.

Fortunately, solutions are not as elusive as politics would suggest. Seven in 10 Americans are concerned about climate change—more than ever before. Climate impacts are being felt by Americans all across the country and our constituents are calling for solutions. And an increasing number of both Democrats and Republicans agree on a key policy to address climate change: putting a price on carbon pollution.

Businesses know all about the risks of climate change. Companies are increasingly experiencing disruptions to their supply chains and damages to their assets from floods, droughts, wildfires, storms, and other climate-driven extreme weather, and investors see it reflected in their portfolios. Businesses’ bottom lines show that climate change isn’t a far-off risk, it’s a cost that’s already racking up damages to our economy to the tune of more than $300 billion a year, an amount which is only expected to grow.

That’s why we have both introduced legislation proposing a price on carbon. A price on carbon will level the economic playing field in the energy sector, unlock market-driven innovation, and lead to the deployment of low, zero, and negative carbon technologies. It will help create millions of new jobs and slash U.S. carbon emissions dramatically, making it a powerful tool for curbing climate pollution. Our bills are not the only ones—there are several proposals to price carbon that have been introduced in Congress.

The transition to a cleaner economy should not be achieved at the expense of those who will be hardest hit: That’s why we propose using the proceeds from the carbon fee to help ease the transition to a clean energy economy, by returning money to the taxpayers as a dividend each month, investing in research and development, and rebuilding our infrastructure.

Our approach also aims to efficiently reduce emissions and spur innovation and investment in new technologies. Placing a price on carbon emissions allows for individuals and companies to make more informed decisions by factoring in the cost of greenhouse gas pollution to society, allowing the market to appropriately respond by reallocating resources to lower-emissions products and behaviors. A transition to clean energy is a job creator: In 2018, the renewable energy and energy efficiency sectors alone employed nearly 3.3 million Americans. And this proposal would create and support more jobs across a wide range of sectors, including in the building trades, manufacturing, science, and engineering.

Our own states are already unlocking the growth potential of clean energy and working to minimize the future costs of rising seas. In Delaware, we are transitioning our electricity sector to 25% renewable generation by 2025. And in Florida, cities are already spending over $4 billion to harden infrastructure, improve drainage, and renourish beaches to combat tidal flooding.

The public is often presented with a false choice between growing the economy and combating climate change but we are heartened to see businesses recognize that this trade off is a myth. America must not lose out on the good paying jobs and new technologies that will come with the transition to clean energy. A strong, stable, national carbon price will help combat climate change, speed the uptake of renewable energy in the U.S., unlock innovation in our economy, and boost our competitiveness overseas.

It’s time for Congress to take bold action to address climate change and create jobs. Putting a price on carbon will help us reach both of these goals.

Chris Coons is a Democratic senator from Delaware. Francis Rooney is a Republican representative from Florida.

The Threat to American Elections You Don’t Know About But Should