In December, a bipartisan climate policy bill was quietly introduced in the U.S. Senate. Senators Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington state, and Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, introduced S. 2877, the Carbon Limits and Energy for America's Renewal (CLEAR) Act. The CLEAR bill has attracted increasing attention, including the lead editorial in today's Washington Post and a great commentary piece by Minnesota's own David Morris in the January 29 edition of the Star Tribune.
I was pleased to see the Star Tribune reprint of Robert Frank's commentary on the conservative roots of carbon capping legislation, originally published in the New York Times. For those who missed reading it, Frank is at the Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University. His op-ed summarizes the writing of Ronald H. Coase, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago and the 1990 Nobel laureate in economics, on the topic of correcting market failure by internalizing environmental externalities.
The Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law surveyed top economic experts on climate change and summarized their findings in a new report.
On June 23, the U.S. EPA released the agency's analysis of the American Clean Energy and Security Act, a comprehensive energy and global warming bill expected to be voted on in the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday. The analysis found that the bill's overall cost to the average U.S. household would be between $80 and $111 per year in 2020.
The EPA analysis highlighted that because of the strong energy efficiency provisions in the bill, customers' utility bills would be roughly 7 percent lower in 2020 than if the law were not passed.
Read or download the EPA's analysis.
Posted by: J. Drake Hamilton in Renewable Energy Standard, policy, legislation, global warming, federal issues, economy, economic development, carbon regulation, cap and auction, ACES on
Jun 23, 2009
June 23, 2009
House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Representative:
On behalf of the millions of members and volunteers that our organizations represent, we write to urge you to support final passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES).
We also urge you to do everything possible to strengthen the bill between now and final passage, and along its journey to the President's desk.
ACES will help build America's clean energy economy and launch the United States' first national plan of action to address the growing threat of climate change. ACES offers our country the most important opportunity in generations to jumpstart our economy, create millions of new, well-paying jobs, and set the stage for America to compete and prosper in a 21st century economy.
Posted by: J. Drake Hamilton in Renewable Energy Standard, policy, legislation, green economy, global warming, federal issues, economy, economic development, carbon regulation, ACES on
Jun 23, 2009
Today, President Barack Obama highlighted the historic American Clean Energy and Security Act bill moving in the House of Representatives, saying it will "spark a clean energy transformation that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and confront the carbon pollution that threatens our planet."
As a Minnesotan, I was pleased that the president praised the great efforts of leaders on the Energy and Commerce Committee as well as Representative Collin Peterson, chair of the Agriculture Committee, for his "many and ongoing contributions" in developing this legislation.
At a news conference broadcast today from the White House, the president called passing this clean energy and climate legislation critical: "The nation that leads in the creation of a clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the 21st century global economy."
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued an analysis on June 19 showing how little it would cost American families to begin taking responsible action on global warming. The CBO estimated that the net annual economywide cost of the cap program in 2020 would be about $175 per household. This is $15 per month, or about the cost of a postage stamp per day (p. 15 of the analysis).
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