Chances are, as a Houstonian, you work with energy or petrochemicals in some way. If you’ve been here a few years, you lived through Harvey and have the scars to prove it. As both the world’s energy capital and a city exposed to the risks of climate change, Houston is challenged to reduce emissions while maintaining a thriving energy industry.

We appreciate Rep. Lizzie Fletcher’s call for real action over empty talk by leveraging Houston’s role as the energy leader. The good news is that there’s a bill in Congress she and others can co-sponsor that would do just that: the market-based Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (HR 763) — the most consequential, comprehensive policy to solve climate change that has ever been introduced to Congress.

HR 763 is expected to reduce U.S. emissions at least 40 percent over 12 years and 90 percent by 2050. It improves health by reducing pollution and improves average Americans’ financial security by putting money directly into their pockets. But it is also revenue-neutral, because it will not increase the size of the government.

The act would create 2.1 million jobs in 10 years and has both Republican and Democrat co-sponsors. In fact, a similar "Carbon Dividend" policy from the Climate Leadership Council has garnered support from most oil super majors and conservative leaders such as James A. Baker III and Trent Lott. Rex Tillerson has also been a vocal advocate for revenue-neutral carbon taxes for more than a decade. Thousands of economists across the political spectrum recently affirmed their support for the proposal in the Wall Street Journal, and a similar program is being enacted in Canada.

Sound too good to be true? Let’s look under the hood.

HR 763 is a four-legged stool. The first leg is a carbon fee, a steadily rising price on greenhouse gas emissions. This does two things. First, it corrects a market failure by revealing the true costs of emissions to consumers. Second, it creates a transparent and predictable price signal to bring those emissions down faster and further than our Paris Agreement commitments.

The second is a carbon dividend. All revenue from the carbon fee, minus administrative costs, is returned to American households via evenly distributed and equal monthly dividend checks. To cover their fees, corporations will pass the expense on to consumers. But since low- and middle-income families tend to have small carbon footprints, an equal division means they’ll break even or come out ahead. Also, sending checks to folks is popular, which is the best safeguard to ensure the program remains 100 percent revenue-neutral.

Third is the carbon border adjustment, which applies a fee or rebate on goods traded with countries that don’t have a similar price on carbon. This not only protects U.S. manufacturing and jobs, it encourages our trading partners to put their own price on carbon emissions to avoid paying one at our borders that goes to our citizens.

And the fourth is a limited regulatory adjustment offering businesses certainty by placing a pause on new EPA regulations on greenhouse gases. That pause would remain in place so long as emissions-reduction targets are being achieved.

So what does this all mean for the Texan energy economy? Massive opportunity. Opportunity for natural gas to replace coal. For carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) to make natural gas an emission-free fuel (Petro Nova, one of the world’s largest CCS facilities, recently opened southwest of Houston). For continued growth of wind in our open spaces and solar on our rooftops. And for our chemists to create lighter-weight materials and better batteries to improve transportation.

We are in the unusual situation where both business and we the people are demanding that Congress help us solve climate change, and our local delegation is in some key roles to deliver. Rep. Kevin Brady is the ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over HR 763. Rep. Fletcher sits on both Infrastructure and, along with Rep. Pete Olson, Science. Rep. Dan Crenshaw has vowed to make infrastructure and flooding his priorities.

In the Senate, John Cornyn sits on the finance committee, which has jurisdiction for the EICDA, and is a top Republican with lots of influence.

But Congress doesn’t create political will, it responds to it. So we ask you to please call your representatives and write them a letter . Tell them it is time to accelerate our transition to a cleaner, more secure energy future. We can solve climate change and grow the Houston economy at the same time. HR 763 will be good for our city, our state and our future generations.

Update, 4:38 p.m., Monday, May 1, 2019: This piece has been updated to clarify that support from oil companies and James A. Baker III is for a similar proposal from the Climate Leadership Council's, not H.R. 763.

Bray is an ExxonMobil retiree and group lead for The Woodlands Chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL); Bryn is a former ExxonMobil employee, the CCL Texas State Coordinator and a member of the Houston Young Republicans.