Phase out extractionof carbon-based fuels from public lands by mike-maccracken

We feel that this proposal does a great job of laying out the technical solution and that the idea could have a tremendous impact. However, given that this proposal, although interesting, has been proposed elsewhere, we felt that it would have to have addressed the political challenges more thoroughly in order to advance to the finalist round. In particular, one of our judges mentioned: There are a few major obstacles here. First, this ignores the context of the NEPA reevaluation battle at CEQ and the White House, which is unfortunate since that's been a lively debate that could inform the proposal. Second, such a hefty fee would make, as the authors point out, fossil energy pretty enormously expensive straight away. Their suggestion to use a portion if the fees to help lower income users is well and good, but impossible without congressional action. We very much appreciate the hard work you put in to this proposal. It would have a very large impact, but in the current political climate, we do not think it would be able to pass.