5-20-09, 9:45 am

The House Energy Committee this week began its mark-up of the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which would encourage investment in the renewable energy sector and penalize the biggest polluters in a landmark effort to reverse the effects of global warming.

As currently structured the bill would require a 17 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming over the next ten years, with a goal of reducing such emissions by 85 percent over the next four decades according to analysis by Daniel J. Weiss and Daniel Wagener at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

The bill accomplishes this in two ways. First it would require, with some exceptions, utility companies to get by 2020 at least 15 percent of the energy they sell from renewable sources, such as wind, solar or other non-fossil fuel-based energy production, the Environmental News Service reported.

Second, the bill creates a system of 'pollution permits' that will be sold to large emitters of greenhouse gases. Using a process not unlike the current auction system for acid rain pollution permits administered by the Environmental Protect Agency, large polluters would be required to buy one permit for every ton of carbon dioxide they release into the atmosphere. Thirty percent of such permits would be reserved for coal-fired electricity production plants, which produce about one-half of electricity consumed in the US.

Supporters of the bill believe that the pollution permit system will create incentives for energy-intensive industries to shift to using and building up the renewable energy sector in order to replace the consumption of fossil fuels. They point to the permit system that regulates the emission of acid rain causing pollution as a working example of how to reduce emissions and raise revenues to fund clean-up and safer, healthier alternatives.

To ease additional costs and competitive disadvantage faced by globally competitive energy-intensive companies, the bill creates a system of grants and credits that will phase out over time in order to prevent job losses.

In addition, the resources raised through the selling of these permits will provide low and moderate-income families with additional credits and tax breaks to offset higher energy costs while they transition to increased usage of electricity from renewable resources.

The aim of the bill is to provide incentives to transition to renewable energy sources while keeping the costs of this transition at a minimum.

The bill has earned praise from labor-environmental coalitions as well as some business interests. CEOs at Duke Energy and DuPont, both of whom have joined the US Climate Action Partnership, have endorsed it. Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers, who took his company out of the National Association of Manufacturers because of that industry group's opposition to the bill, told the House Energy Committee earlier this month, 'A federal climate program has the potential to create real economic growth through innovation.'

Thousands of small business members of the US Chamber of Commerce recently petition that group to end its lobbying campaign against the bill as well.

David Foster, executive director of the labor-environment coalition Blue-Green Alliance, praised the House bill for its focus on protecting jobs and investing in the creation of new 'green jobs.' 'In the face of economic crisis, we have an important opportunity to put millions of men and women to work building the clean energy economy,' he stated.

'Passing comprehensive climate legislation is a critical step forward. The Blue Green Alliance looks forward to working with Congress to make certain that the provisions in this legislation ensure the creation of millions of good, family-sustaining green jobs in the United States and the protection of public health and the environment for future generations,' Foster asserted.

Dan Lashof, director of the Climate Center for the Natural Resources Defense Council, a member group of the Blue-Green Alliance, praised the House bill. The bill 'lays the critical foundation for Congress to enact legislation this year that will spur clean energy investments and cut carbon pollution that causes global warming,' he said in a recent press statement.

Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope praised the principles in the bill but warned that Washington lobbyists tied to the oil and coal industries would try to water it down. 'It is clear that Big Oil, Big Coal and other polluters are still holding out for a Congressional bailout. They will continue to try to riddle this legislation with loopholes, water it down, and load it up with hundreds of billions of dollars in giveaways,' he explained.