Abstract
This Note supports a framework for climate governance that transforms carbon tax revenues into equal per‑capita cash distributions for all United States residents: a green universal basic income (UBI). It examines how the institutional structure of the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) can guide the design of a federal resource‑based dividend. By combining economic analyses of efficiency and distribution with legal scholarship on political salience and administrative design, the Note uses Alaska's PFD as an empirical case study to connect two often separate literatures. The Note introduces the PFD's key features—universality, independent fund management, and a narrative of collective resource ownership—and evaluates how those features can inform the design of a federal carbon-dividend system. Although the proposed framework may not represent the theoretically most efficient pathway to decarbonization, it prioritizes political viability and institutional resilience in a fragmented governance environment. In doing so, the Note offers a practical approach for transforming carbon pricing from a politically vulnerable tax into a durable public institution.
Citation
Lily Skopp,
Carbon Cash Back: A Green UBI for a Decarbonized Future,
42 Alaska Law Review
355-389
(2026)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/alr/vol42/iss2/5