It’s Getting Hot In Here

Originally posted at the Breakthrough Institute

Advocates of the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454, or “ACES” for short) argue that the bill is far more than just a climate bill. It’s a comprehensive piece of clean energy, efficiency and climate legislation, and taken as a whole, they argue, it should be considered transformational — even if the cap and trade portion of the bill may have been significantly weakened (see Breakthrough’s detailed analysis of the ACES cap and trade program here).

The ACES bill does indeed include many provisions to set a new course for our nation’s energy policy, including efficiency standards and regulations, authorization for new programs aimed at modernizing the nation’s electricity infrastructure and paving the way for plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles, and a national renewable electricity standard. Many of these will move America in the right direction.

But the question remains: will ACES really be transformational? And will it propel American quickly away from business as usual and towards the prosperous clean energy economy and dramatic emissions reductions we need?

Breakthrough’s team has taken a close look at the bill’s cap and trade provision, and discovered that the combination of offset provisions and a little-known provision called the “strategic reserve pool” could allow U.S. emissions to greatly exceed the supposed emissions “cap” set by the legislation.

Here we examine one of the other major provisions of the ACES bill, the national renewable electricity standard (RES) established by Title I of the bill. Unfortunately, our analysis concludes that the RES has been severely weakened since initially proposed in the discussion draft version of the ACES bill; as it now stands, the RES may barely increase U.S. renewable electricity generation compared to business as usual projections.
Continue reading ‘Climate Bill’s Renewable Electricity Standard Severely Weakened; May Have Little to No Impact’

At the heart of the nearly thousand page long climate change and clean energy bill being debated in the U.S. House of Representatives this week is a “cap and trade” mechanism aimed at limiting greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.

However, a provision in the bill, known as the American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454 or “ACES”), allows polluting firms in the U.S. to finance emissions reductions overseas in lieu of reducing their own global warming pollution and may allow American emissions to continue to rise for up to twenty years, according to new analysis from the Breakthrough Institute.

The provision allows power plants, oil refiners, and other polluters regulated under the bill’s cap and trade program to use up to one billion tons of international emissions reductions, or “offsets,” to be used instead of reducing their own emissions each year. The bill also allows up to one billion tons of additional offsets each year, sourced from sectors of the U.S. economy that do not fall under the pollution cap, such as forestry and agriculture. If a suitable supply of domestic emissions offsets are unavailable, the limit on the use of international offsets may be raised to 1.5 billion tons annually at the discretion of the Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The extensive use of these international and domestic offsets would effectively allow U.S. firms in capped sectors to continue emitting global warming pollution at levels well above the reductions supposedly driven by the emissions cap. New analysis from the Breakthrough Institute reveals that if fully utilized, the offset provisions in the ACES bill would allow continued business as usual growth in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions until 2030.
Continue reading ‘Climate Bill’s “Cap” on Emissions May Let U.S. Emissions Rise for Next Twenty Years’

Compared to President Obama’s promises and the recommendations of a variety of energy experts alike, the ACES climate and clean energy bill’s investments in clean energy are an order of magnitude too small.

[Updated 5/22/09: the ACES bill now includes a $10/ton price floor for auctioned pollution permits. The analysis below has been updated to reflect that change in the legislation]

Today, the House Energy and Commerce Committee began markup of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES). The bill promises to cap and reduce carbon pollution, create clean energy jobs, and spur technology innovation. Unfortunately, as our analysis of the use of carbon pollution allowances in the ACES bill revealed, the bill is on course to invest very little of the hundreds of billions of dollars in value created by the bill’s cap-and-trade program over the coming years towards those objectives.

Most of the allowance value (74 percent) created by the ACES cap and trade program is dedicated to blunting the impact of the carbon price established by the program on industries and consumers (and securing the critical swing votes on the committee representing these entrenched energy and industry interests). In contrast, just 12 percent of the allowance value is dedicated to clean energy investments, broadly defined.

At an average allowance price of $10 to $15 dollars per ton of CO2 between 2012-2025, that would amount to clean energy investments of just $6-9 billion per year, and just $490-745 million for clean energy R&D (see our full analysis of the allowance allocations in ACES for more).

President Obama has repeatedly promised to, “Invest $150 billion over ten years in energy research and development to transition to a clean energy economy” (from WhiteHouse.gov). The President’s 2010 Budget Outline specifically dedicated $15 billion per year in new revenue generated by a cap and trade program to this purpose. Yet the bill before us, depending on the allowance value it establishes, would invest just one-twentieth to one-thirtieth of the $15 billion President Obama has pledged — and specifically requested from Congress. Furthermore, this new energy R&D spending may amount to just a ten percent increase in current federal energy R&D budgets.

Likewise, the total investments in a new clean energy economy, more broadly defined, are an order of magnitude smaller than proposals advanced by the Breakthrough Institute, Apollo Alliance and others have deemed necessary to drive clean energy innovation, create millions of new energy jobs, and jump-start a prosperous, clean energy economy.

Below the fold, you can see how the clean energy investments made by the ACES bill compare with what a range of proposals and current R&D funding levels…
Continue reading ‘Climate Bill’s Clean Energy R&D Investments May Be 30 Times Smaller than President Obama’s Budget’

As sweeping climate and clean energy legislation is readied for debate in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, details are emerging on the deals and compromises struck between the bill’s architects, Congressmen Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA) and the group of reluctant swing members of the committee who hail largely from states reliant on coal and heavy industry.

The “breakthrough deal” struck between Waxman, Markey and the swing E&C Committee Dems will enable a full subcommittee markup of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) beginning Thursday and likely proceeding through next week (markup = votes on a series of amendments on the proposed bill followed vote to pass the bill out of (sub)committee). The deal apparently involves a series of concessions that either incrementally weaken the objectives of the bill or give free greenhouse gas pollution permits to utilities and heavy industry in order to blunt the impact of the proposed cap and trade program on these sectors of the economy.
Continue reading ‘Climate Bill Heading for Markup – Will it Invest in a Clean, Prosperous Energy Economy?’

I am excited to feature this guest post by Bill Walker, campaign director with Earthjustice, focusing on a critical and largely unsung component of the fight to overcome the climate challenge – Jesse Jenkins, founder and chief editor, WattHead – Energy News and Commentary, contributing editor, ItsGettingHotInHere.org

Senators who usually couldn’t be farther apart on environmental issues agreed on Earth Day that the EPA should look at ways to control a dangerous pollutant that kills millions worldwide and accelerates global warming, particularly in the Arctic: soot, also known as the sinister-sounding “black carbon.”

Two of the Senate’s greenest members, John Kerry of Massachusetts and Barbara Boxer of California, and Jim Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who is the Senate’s chief global warming skeptic, introduced a bill requiring the EPA to study black carbon pollution and within a year come up with solutions for reducing emissions.

Earthjustice has just released a short animated film that explains the black carbon problem and urges EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to take action. The video also asks Americans to urge Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s team to take international leadership on black carbon at next week’s Arctic Council meeting in Tromso, Norway. The video can be viewed below and at www.stopsoot.org.

Continue reading ‘Strange Climate Bedfellows Tackle Black Carbon [VIDEO]‘

From St. Louis and Philadelphia, to Columbus and Denver, Focus the Nation’s Clean Energy Town Halls bring youth, community members and elected officials together to find clean energy solutions and plan sustained action.

Forget Seattle and Berkeley. Move over Portland and Boston. When it comes to deciding America’s energy future, it’s place like Akron and Pittsburgh, St Louis and Detroit that deserve the spotlight right now. While many leading cities in the traditionally green bastions along America’s coasts are showing what’s possible, the American ‘Heartland’ is where the nation’s clean energy future must be built. What’s more, the Heartland is where the political fate of climate and clean energy legislation being debated in Congress will be decided.

It’s good timing then that Nationwide Town Halls for Clean Energy Solutions are happening all around our country right now. In community centers, college lecture rooms, and church halls all across the nation this week and last, elected officials from all levels of government are joining young leaders and community members to focus on what it will take to build a clean and prosperous energy economy and tackle climate change. The ongoing Nationwide Town Halls for Clean Energy Solutions are sponsored by the youth-empowerment organization, Focus the Nation, and organized by hundreds of committed community leaders both young and old.

Focus the Nation events have been held in over 165 Congressional Districts, including dozens of town halls across Heartland states like Missouri, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Ohio.

The nationwide town halls kicked off on Monday, April 13th in Philadelphia, where swing Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) joined Drexel University students, community members, and business leaders for a discussion on tackling climate change and seizing the opportunities of the new energy economy.
Continue reading ‘Focusing the Heartland on a Clean Energy Future’

That a boy Earl!

Congressman Earl Blumenauer of Oregon went on the offensive on the House floor yesterday, calling out the outright lies House and Senate Republicans have been repeating about the costs to consumers of potential climate legislation.

Senators Mitch McConnell (R-KY and the Senate Minority Leader) and John Thune (R-SD), as well as House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) have repeatedly made the false assertion that climate legislation would cost the average American $3,100 in additional energy costs. That number it turns out, is entirely fabricated, a “canard,” as Rep. Blumenauer calls it, that comes from a blatant and outright incorrect misinterpretation of the MIT study it is supposedly based on.

All this prompted Rep. Blumenauer to give the Republicans a direct dose of richly deserved truth on the House floor yesterday:

Continue reading ‘Rep. Earl Blumenauer Smacks Down Republican Lies on Climate Bill’

Yesterday, Congress began the debate that will determine our nation’s energy future. Congressmen Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA) introduced a mammoth 648-page bill designed to fundamentally change the way we make and use energy in this country. The “American Clean Energy and Security Act” may look complicated, but it’s really all about the cold hard cash. Or should I say, the coal hard cash.

The bill will establish a limited supply of permits allowing the release of greenhouse gas emissions by major polluters as part of an emissions reduction plan known as cap-and-trade. Those emissions permits are collectively worth tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars annually. That’s a lot of cash. And yet the bill is remarkably silent about where all that money will go.

Silent that is, except for on one front: coal.

With billions of dollars up for grabs, the coal industry went straight for a big stack of cash. With the help of allies in Congress, the coal sector has already snagged at least a billion dollars each year in new subsidies to support the development of technologies the industry promises will reduce emissions at coal-burning power plants.

That sweet deal for the coal industry is the only spending the bill specifies so far. And coal companies are likely to snag even more cash as the debate unfolds and deals are cut.

So where is the money for truly clean energy sources? There isn’t any. Yet.

This is only a discussion draft, I’ve repeatedly been reminded, and how to allocate the billions of dollars in value created by the emissions permits is still very much up for discussion (aka vigorous debate).

But the draft we see before us very much reflects the vision of the environmental groups leading the so-called U.S. Climate Action Partnership, including Environmental Defense and NRDC. And with these leading green groups setting the agenda, here’s what’s so telling: with billions of dollars sitting on the table, these well-known green groups leading the climate charge simply left it there — or worse yet, looked the other way while the coal industry grabbed their pile of cash.
Continue reading ‘Climate Bill is All About the Coal Hard Cash’

Originally posted at WattHead – Energy News and Commentary

[Updated: 3/30/09 at 2:20 PM PST, see below]

I’m not sure how, but I missed this excellent editorial in the New York Times on Monday. The Times editorial board seems to have fully grasped the horror and tragedy of mountaintop removal coal mining. Remarking on an upsetting recent court ruling that paves the way for the devastation of more mountains, ecosystems and communities in Appalachia, the ed board writes in “Appalachia’s Agony:”

“The longstanding disgrace of mountaintop mining is now squarely in President Obama’s hands.”

Indeed it is. And it’s high time for President Obama, who said during the campaign that he “did not support” the dastardly practice, to direct his administration to take action and end Appalachia’s agony. Read on for the full editorial…
Continue reading ‘Obama Has the Power to End Appalachia’s Agony’

Originally posted at WattHead – Energy News and Commentary

Here’s some news to brighten your Friday! Proposed new coal plants have been dropping like flies over the past month, and yet another one bites the dust today, this time in Nevada. Citing strong local opposition and increased certainty that global warming pollution from coal plants will be regulated, energy developer, LS Power announced they will be “indefinitely postponing” plans to build the controversial 1,600 MW coal-fired White Pine Energy Center near Ely, NV.

The news is even better than that though: after dumping their coal plant plans, LS Power has made the wise decision to instead turn to clean renewable energy to meet it’s energy needs. The energy developer plans to focus its attention and investments on a new transmission project that will strengthen the intermountain region’s ability to harness the area’s abundant wind, solar and geothermal energy potential.  The Power Shift has begun, for this utility at least!

Here’s the full story…
Continue reading ‘Nevada Utility Dumps Coal Plant, Turns to Clean, Renewable Energy’