Fossil Fuel Risk Bonds - National Campaign With Strategic Partners
CSE’s Fossil Fuel Risk Bond program is having an impact on the ground. As a result of successful research and advocacy in the Pacific Northwest, we now have policy templates that can be used at the state and county level in every US county that has a significant concentration of fossil fuel infrastructure. In addition, the work has been publicized by Brookings Institution, which will greatly enhance our ability to spread the model. In 2025 and 2026, we seek support for a joint campaign with Physicians for Social Responsibility to achieve three overriding outcomes: (1) ensuring that FFRB programs in Oregon and Washington are implemented in the strongest possible fashion; (2) having a model national FFRB program proposed and introduced in the 119th Congress, and; (3) persuading several jurisdictions to consider FFRB programs as a way to finance climate adaptation, as demonstrated in our new report with researchers at the University of Oregon and Reed College.

• Investigates the causes of economic imbalances.
• Investigates causes tending to destroy or impair the free-market system.
• Explores and develops market-based solutions.

US Forest Carbon Pricing Initiative 2025-2026
In 2025 and 2026 CSE seeks support to extend our work on forest carbon pricing and market-based solutions to deforestation and forest degradation by (1) advocating for a no-net-forestland-loss policy in key land use planning processes; (2) continuing to publicize and disseminate our peer reviewed paper and model legislation for a forest carbon tax and reward program; (3) researching and advocating for carbon border adjustments both in the US and internationally that include a price on forest carbon; (4) building strategic alliances with wood alternative industry leaders to help combat logging subsidies and timber industry disinformation, and; (5) defending and extending legal victories holding public agencies accountable for the social cost of forest carbon emissions under state environmental policy acts.

• Investigates the causes of economic imbalances.
• Investigates causes tending to destroy or impair the free-market system.
• Explores and develops market-based solutions.

Fossil Fuel Risk Bonds – Enforcing new legislation and promoting adaptation surcharges
CSE’s Fossil Fuel Risk Bond program is having an impact on the ground. New legislation in Oregon establishes a financial assurance requirement for large fuel terminals to guard taxpayers against the costs and risks of explosions, spills, and accidents. In Washington, new rulemaking provides an opportunity to strengthen FFRB laws we helped get on the books in 2022. In several states, climate superfund legislation is providing a forum for CSE to propose an alternative approach based on the adaptation surcharge mechanism we researched in our Brookings.edu report and the report we published in Oregon with the Forum on Oregon Climate Change Economics (FORCE). This grant cycle, we seek to achieve three key outcomes: (1) Oregon’s new fossil fuel risk bond bill is implemented in the strongest possible fashion; (2) fossil fuel risk bond rules are updated in Washington to cover all taxpayer costs, and (3) several jurisdictions consider FFRB surcharges to finance climate adaptation.

• Investigates the causes of economic imbalances.
• Investigates causes tending to destroy or impair the free-market system.
• Explores and develops market-based solutions.

US Forest Carbon Pricing Initiative
In 2026 and 2027 CSE seeks support to extend our work on forest carbon pricing and market-based solutions to deforestation and forest degradation by (1) advocating for a no-net-forestland-loss policy in Oregon to respond to new opportunities contained in Governor Kotek’s Executive Order 25-26; (2) drafting and promoting model forest carbon tax and reward legislation in multiple states; (3) building on legal victories in Washington State to ensure that all market and non-market benefits and costs are factored into new “alternatives analyses” being prepared for every large timber sale, and (4) with researchers at the University of New Mexico, preparing a peer-reviewed paper documenting the socio-economic costs of unsustainable logging activities across the US.

• Investigates the causes of economic imbalances.
• Investigates causes tending to destroy or impair the free-market system.
• Explores and develops market-based solutions.

Strengthening Climate and Energy News Coverage in the Mountain West
This grant will expand high quality climate and energy news coverage in the Mountain West.

• Investigates the causes of economic imbalances.

Symbiosis: A forest that creates markets; markets that safeguard the forest
The Children's Eternal Rainforest, owned by the Costa Rican nonprofit Monteverde Conservation League, provides diverse and massive benefits to people on local, national, and international scales (see below). To date, however, recognition of those services – particularly in the financial realm – has been inadequate. This project aims to create a new staff position, the exclusive purpose of which will be to (a) reach out to diverse stakeholders and stimulate reflection about why they are stakeholders, (b) explore and implement mechanisms through which stakeholders are incentivized to contribute reciprocal financial support, and (c) produce a publication that summarizes the lessons obtained from this initiative as a useful reference for others.

• Explores and develops market-based solutions.

Wind River Reservation Grazing Permit Retirements 2025/2026
The National Wildlife Federation’s (NWF) Wildlife Conflict Resolution (WCR) program resolves conflicts between wildlife and livestock through the market-based approach of compensating ranchers for retiring high conflict grazing leases on federal land. Thanks to over a decade of funding from the Walker Foundation, we have retired over 100 grazing allotments totaling over 1.7 million acres. In 2017 NWF launched the WCR Southern Rockies, Colorado Plateau and Great Basin program, and we recently piloted a new strategy in Grand Staircase-Escalante National and Bears Ears National Monuments in southern Utah that included "AUM buy-downs," and the full retirement of grazing allotments. In 2024, we began a new WCR venture by assisting NWF’s partner the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative (WRTBI) to negotiate with Wind River Reservation Range Unit grazing permit holders in an effort to open up areas for the Reservation’s Buffalo program. This work will be the focus of this application.

• Explores and develops market-based solutions.

Successfully Decarbonizing New England's Electric Grid
This project will use the CACI software to investigate how the New England Region can successfully decarbonize their electric grid using nuclear power. The project will create new roadmaps showing how the region can reduce its dependence on fossil fuels. The education/advocacy group Eco-Nuclear Solutions will use these results to change the debate in New England over its energy future.

• Investigates causes tending to destroy or impair the free-market system.
• Explores and develops market-based solutions.

Support Youth in Legal Actions to Stabilize Climate
Our Atmospheric Trust Campaign is built on the belief that everyone has a fundamental right to a healthy atmosphere and a stable climate. Through legal action and public education, we aim to establish a constitutional standard for climate stability, holding governments accountable to reduce CO2 below 350 ppm by 2100 – a threshold aligned with the scientific threshold for a safe climate within Earth’s planetary boundaries. Rooted in science and justice, our mission is to protect current and future generations from the devastating impacts of climate destabilization.

• Investigates the causes of economic imbalances.
• Explores and develops market-based solutions.

Atmospheric Trust Campaign
Our Atmospheric Trust Campaign pursues constitutional litigation on behalf of youth in state, federal, and international courts to establish enforceable legal standards requiring governments to price the true costs of fossil fuel dependence—correcting the economic imbalances that have allowed carbon-intensive industries to externalize massive health and climate costs onto children and future generations while revenues flow elsewhere. Legislation can be repealed. Regulations can be reversed. Constitutional rights cannot—which is why this is the only approach that can produce durable, market-correcting climate protection that outlasts political cycles and safeguards future generations.

• Investigates the causes of economic imbalances.
• Investigates causes tending to destroy or impair the free-market system.
• Explores and develops market-based solutions.

Engaging Diverse Stakeholders on Issues Concerning Carbon Pricing Policies
In 2025, the Pricing Carbon Initiative (PCI) will continue to build support for bipartisan carbon pricing policy solutions, designed to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, by fostering understanding and cooperation between a wide range of organizations and opinion leaders. That work will include in-person and virtual Pricing Carbon Dialogues, public forums, a special project that focuses in carbon border measures, and disseminating information via PCI's website.

• Investigates the causes of economic imbalances.
• Investigates the effect of the global financial system and/or the monetary system in fostering a sustainable economy.
• Investigates causes tending to destroy or impair the free-market system.
• Explores and develops market-based solutions.

Unlocking Water Markets in the American West
PERC is developing a comprehensive analysis of water market policy across Western states, with a focus on the state-level barriers and opportunities that can enable voluntary water conservation to function at scale. The report will examine the legal, institutional, and market conditions that shape water transactions across the West, including instream flow rights, short-term leasing, challenge and objection processes, transfer infrastructure, and water banking systems. Through a comparative state-by-state analysis, the project will identify where elements of water markets are functional, where barriers remain, and what targeted reforms could unlock broader participation from private landowners, conservation organizations, and water users. The findings will provide policymakers with actionable recommendations to support more scalable and incentive-driven approaches to water management across the Colorado River Basin and other water systems.

• Explores and develops market-based solutions.

Engaging Diverse Stakeholders on Carbon Pricing Policies
Based on the premise that some form of carbon pricing is essential to limiting greenhouse gas emissions to tolerable levels, the project organizes dialogues, public forums, and special projects on carbon pricing policies to build understanding, alliances, and fresh perspectives. The central effort of the project is the Carbon Pricing Dialogues (CPD), a forum for discussions between a broad spectrum of stakeholders on potential pricing mechanisms and strategies. Participants represent environmental, business, labor, social justice, religious, and other issue-oriented advocacy organizations, as well as both conservative and progressive think tanks.

• Investigates the causes of economic imbalances.
• Investigates the effect of the global financial system and/or the monetary system in fostering a sustainable economy.
• Investigates causes tending to destroy or impair the free-market system.
• Explores and develops market-based solutions.

Nuclear Energy Innovation
The key priorities of Breakthrough’s Nuclear Energy Innovation Program include public advocacy for nuclear energy; comprehensive regulatory engagement at the NRC; Congressional engagement, inclusive of both congressional oversight of NRC and ongoing policy support for nuclear commercialization; and research and policy development in support of regulatory reform and public and private efforts to deploy advanced nuclear reactors.

• Explores and develops market-based solutions.

A Carbon Tariff (CBAM) in the U.S. – A path forward after the 2024 election
Project will explore the feasibility of a carbon tariff in the U.S. after the election.

• Explores and develops market-based solutions.

Carbon tariffs, AI, and climate
Project will further advance the Center on Regulation and Markets (CRM) at the Brookings Institution’s work on carbon tariffs in the U.S. and launch new work on AI and energy.

• Explores and develops market-based solutions.