Clean Energy Bills

This morning, President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. While I am cautiously ecstatic about its passage, my taxes don't pay my legislators to celebrate, but to legislate. So what's next? A couple climate and/or energy bills are on the docket. Let's take a look at them now.

• The American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) - authored by Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Edward Markey (D-CO), passed the House last summer (just barely). The bill includes all the right working parts, IMO, but is lacking in magnitude; too many emissions permits would be given away to polluters and not nearly enough money invested in clean energy development (on the order of 15 to 20 times lower than what's necessary).
• Carbon Limits and Energy for America's Renewal (CLEAR) - authored by Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Susan Collins (R-ME), one of the many Senate bills that's stuck in the mud. We haven't heard too much about CLEAR in a while, but it's worth pointing out its more effective bureaucratic transparency and disowns the use of carbon indulgences offsets.
• The Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (CEJAPA) - authored by John Kerry (D-MA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA), another Senate bill released last fall. Devotes a little too much revenue from the cap-and-trade scheme to deficit neutrality at the expense of clean energy investment.
• The "Kerry-Graham-Lieberman" Bill - authored by John Kerry (D-MA), Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT), this Senate bill has the benefit of being "tri-partisan" and adopts a more politically realistic approach to dirty energy provisions like coal and natural gas, along with support for nuclear. It compartmentalizes its carbon pricing scheme across industry borders. Once the CBO scores it (in the next month or two), we'll get a better idea of the energy efficiency and clean energy provisions in this more politically viable of bills.
• The American Clean Energy Leadership Act (ACELA) - this "energy-only" bill, with no method to price carbon or reduce emissions, places more emphasis on energy efficiency programs and clean energy provisions...whose targets are less ambitious than business-as-usual projections.

None of these bills is an energy progressive's dream, and it has yet to be seen if any is even remotely politically feasible in the Senate. If Republican obstruction doesn't run on maximum, with support from Dems like Blanche Lincoln, then a bill with the following features might be both feasible and useful:

• A modest carbon pricing mechanism that can be improved in the future.
• Ambitious energy efficiency programs and renewable portfolio standards.
• Aggressive funding for clean energy research and development, on the order of at least $30 billion/yr.
• Provisions for nuclear, carbon capture/sequestration, and natural gas development--anyone who tells you we can move forward without these industries is optimistic to the point of delusion.

An "energy-only" bill may be more politically workable, but the carbon pricing system offers the most effective (and possibly transparent) revenue source. Carbon offsets are basically accounting tricks. Most importantly, from a policy standpoint, it doesn't do any good to punish consumers for using fossil fuels if the alternatives aren't economically feasible. The focus should be on making clean energy cheap. That's how America regains its economic and technological edge; that's how we clear the political hurdles in the Senate; and that's how we mitigate the climate problem.