American Climate, Coastal, and Community Resilience Act Protect America. Pay Americans Back.
Wildfires. Rising seas. A failing energy system. These threats are real and they're expensive. This bill fights all three — and returns 75% of the revenue directly to American families as a dividend check. No mandates. No new agencies. Nothing added to the debt.
Three Real Threats. One Comprehensive Answer.
Congress identified three major crises threatening American communities, economies, and families. Every dollar in this bill addresses at least one of them — and the numbers behind each threat are taken directly from the bill's congressional findings.
Four Programs. One Trust Fund. Every Dollar Tracked.
The bill has four program divisions, each with its own spending cap and dedicated funding stream. All money flows through a single transparent trust fund — the American Resilience Trust Fund — so every dollar can be followed from collection to spending.
Your Family Gets Most of the Money Back.
The carbon fee is not a tax that disappears into the government. 75% of every dollar collected goes right back to American families as equal quarterly checks — not based on income, not based on how much you spent, just equal per person.
Child shares capped at 2 per household. Children under 19 receive half the adult share. Estimates based on $100B–$180B annual carbon fee revenue at full phase-in (2033+). Actual amounts depend on carbon fee rate and number of eligible participants.
A Simple Fee at the Source. No New IRS Forms.
The carbon fee is collected at the very beginning of the supply chain — at the coal mine, the oil refinery, or the natural gas processing plant. Ordinary people never file anything or pay anything directly.
The fee starts at $30 per metric ton of CO₂ on January 1, 2028. It goes up $10 per year plus inflation — topping out at a hard cap of $150 per ton. No agency can raise it above that without Congress passing a new law.
A border carbon adjustment starts in 2030: goods from countries without comparable carbon pricing pay a fee when they enter the U.S. — so American businesses don't get undercut by foreign competitors who pollute for free. U.S. exporters can get a rebate on the carbon already paid.
What about agriculture? Farm fuel gets a 50% rebate on the carbon fee — because farmers are already doing more than their share for the environment and shouldn't bear the full burden.
The Facts on Nuclear. Not Politics — Physics.
Congress found — based on peer-reviewed biophysical analysis — that nuclear fission is the most material-efficient and lowest-carbon energy source available today. The bill puts the numbers on paper. Here they are.
| Energy Source | Carbon Intensity (gCO₂/kWh) | Deaths per TWh | Concrete per TWh (tonnes) | Steel per TWh (tonnes) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ⚛️ Nuclear (this bill's priority) | 3 | 0.03 | 1,060 | 130 |
| 💨 Onshore Wind | 4 | 0.04 | 4,470 | 1,450 |
| ☀️ Solar | 6 | 0.02 | — | — |
| 🔥 Natural Gas | 490 | 0.07 | — | — |
| ⛏️ Coal | 820 | 24.6 | — | — |
Source: Bill findings, Sec. 401(5). Nuclear deaths include Chernobyl and Fukushima. Coal deaths include air pollution.
+10% Coal Community bonus — extra credit for nuclear plants built in communities that lost coal jobs, bringing the total to 35%.
+5% brownfield bonus — for plants built on previously industrial land, bringing the total to 40%.
Maximum per taxpayer: $500,000,000. Credit available through 2039.
The credit runs for 10 full years from the day the facility starts producing power — rewarding sustained operation, not just construction.
Available for facilities that begin operation before December 31, 2044. Designed for both large plants and Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).
At least 60% of all Clean Energy Account funds must go to nuclear to prevent "energy cannibalism" from low-density sources.
Fighting Fire Before It Starts.
The bill attacks the wildfire crisis from every angle: better-equipped firefighters, stronger homes, healthier forests, and tribal cultural burning recognized as the ancient tool it is. Everything here is voluntary — no homeowner is forced to retrofit, no state is forced to participate.
Protecting the Places Americans Call Home.
40% of all Americans live in coastal counties. That's 130+ million people whose homes, jobs, and communities depend on healthy coastlines. When the coast erodes, when kelp forests disappear, when fisheries collapse — real families lose real income.
This division funds the National Coastal Resilience Partnership — a voluntary, state-led program run through NOAA. States with Coastal Resilience Plans get a 75% federal match. Others get 60%. At least half of all coastal funds must go to nature-based solutions: living shorelines, restored wetlands, oyster reefs, and beach nourishment.
The bill also funds the recovery of marine ecosystems specific to each coast. Northern California's kelp forests — which lost 95% of their canopy — get targeted funding and 40% of kelp restoration jobs go to fishing-dependent workers who lost income when the fishery closed.
Coastal small businesses get a 15% wage credit (up to $10,000 per employee) and a 30% capital investment credit (up to $50,000 per location). Homeowners and commercial property owners who make clean energy efficiency upgrades get a 30% credit — voluntary, and capped at $10,000 for homes and $250,000 for businesses.
87% of Carbon Credits Are Fake. The Bill Says So Directly.
Carbon offsets let companies pay someone else to "reduce" pollution instead of cutting their own. On paper, a company can claim to be carbon neutral while actually increasing emissions — as long as they buy enough credits.
The problem: those credits are mostly fiction. Peer-reviewed research in 2025 found that 87% of voluntary carbon market offsets failed to deliver real reductions — and only 2% met high-integrity standards. Some cookstove programs overstated their savings by 1,000%.
The ACCCRA bans the use of voluntary offsets to comply with the carbon fee. You either pay the fee, or you don't burn the fuel. There's no paper-shuffling escape hatch.
Companies can still voluntarily claim carbon credits for marketing purposes — but only if those credits meet the bill's stringent standards (Sec. 505): financial additionality, 100-year permanence, performance bonds at 150% of credit value, third-party verification with no financial relationship to the project, and 40% local community benefit-sharing.
Nobody Gets Left Behind.
The energy transition is real, and it will displace real workers through no fault of their own. The bill explicitly protects them with training vouchers, living stipends, wage insurance, and civic leadership training — and stabilizes their communities with transitional tax revenue replacement.
What This Bill Cannot Do — Written Into the Law.
Division G of the bill is dedicated entirely to constitutional protections. These aren't talking points — they're enforceable legal provisions that limit what the government can do under this law.
Every Dollar Capped. Every Program Tracked.
The bill includes hard annual spending caps for every program category. If revenue from the trust fund falls short, everything is cut proportionally — the government cannot borrow, and cannot tap the general fund.
| Program | Annual Spending Cap | Key Details |
|---|---|---|
| Wildfire & Forest (Division A) | $3,000,000,000 | Includes aerial fleet, community grants, home hardening, firefighters, tribal programs |
| Coastal Resilience (Division B) | $2,500,000,000 | NOAA partnership, marine habitat, MPAs, coastal tax credits |
| Clean Energy (Division C) | $3,500,000,000 | 60% to nuclear; remainder to grid, storage, renewables |
| Climate Adaptation | $2,000,000,000 | Worker transition, community stabilization, adaptation planning |
| State Resilience Loan Facility | $20,000,000,000 total | Revolving — repayments fund new loans; 20% grant authority for disadvantaged communities |
| Fire Suppression Reserve | $1,000,000,000 minimum | Replenished before any other allocation if balance falls below minimum |
| Administration | ≤7% (Years 1–2) / ≤5% | Admin costs capped as a percentage of total revenue; drops after startup |
| Household Dividends (Carbon Fee) | 75% of carbon revenues | Est. $2,000–$3,000/adult; $1,000–$1,500/child; family of 4: $6,000–$9,000/yr |
"Every religious and secular tradition I've studied — Christian stewardship, Islamic Mizan, Sikh Khalsa, Indigenous active management, secular ecology — they all agree: we hold this land in trust for the next generation. This bill tries to honor that."— Gregory Burgess, Candidate for U.S. Congress · CA-2 · No Party Preference
Ready to Read the Full Bill?
The complete American Climate, Coastal, and Community Resilience Act — all seven divisions, all spending caps, all constitutional safeguards — is available in the full platform download. Every figure on this page comes directly from the bill text.