President Obama and the U.S. Senate have failed. They promised legislation to transform our energy system, create jobs and reduce pollution and today Senate Majority Leader Reid gave up.

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The Clean Air Act is still under attack, and it's more important than ever to defend it.

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 The American Power Act now under discussion in the U.S. Senate would establish--for the very first time--effective U.S. national limits on global warming pollution. While the reductions are not deep enough to protect our climate future, they would put our country on the right path to driving investments in clean energy jobs and ending our dependence on oil.

The emissions limits would start in 2013, with targets of 17 percent reductions below 2005 levels by 2020, and get tighter every year, reaching 83 percent reductions by 2050. Fresh Energy will be blogging regularly to comment on the provisions needed to ensure that we meet these limits.

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Today's release of climate and energy legislation by Senators John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) and Joe Lieberman (I-Connecticut), the American Power Act, is an important step in the right direction for putting our country on a path to a clean energy economy.

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Wondering how decision makers are doing on creating rules for a low carbon economy? In 2007, the Minnesota legislature passed the Next Generation Energy Act, including setting science-based goals for global warming pollution reductions in Minnesota. We need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the economy by at least 30 percent by 2025, and 80 percent by 2050. The state's Climate Change Advisory Group recommended actions needed to meet those reduction targets; in November, citizens will elect a new legislature and governor that will be responsible for enacting - or not enacting - the policy actions needed to unleash Minnesota's clean energy jobs potential. At the federal level, in 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed an economy-wide limit on carbon pollution. Now in spring 2010, the U.S. Senate may be ready to act on a comprehensive energy and climate bill to address this urgent economic and environmental issue.

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During a press conference today, Representatives Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Vern Ehlers (R-Mich.) and Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.) introduced the House version of the Home Star program, which is already under consideration in the Senate (S.3177, The Home Star Energy Retrofit Act of 2010). The Home Star program, which would provide immediate rebates up to $3,000 to consumers for energy efficiency upgrades to their homes has be gaining broad-based support from legislators and has a coalition of over 1,000 companies and organizations supporting it - including Fresh Energy. The legislation is slated for a committee mark-up tomorrow in the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Take a second to tell your legislators that you want them to pass Home Star.

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Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration finalized new fuel economy standards for motor vehicles, in combination with the first-ever federal greenhouse gas emissions reductions requirements in the United States. The new standards apply to passenger vehicles and light-duty trucks in model years 2012 through 2016, and are designed to cause the average fuel economy of new vehicles to increase to 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016. They require that automakers reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of the new vehicle fleet by about 5 percent each year from 2012 through 2016. The new standards are projected to save 1.8 BILLION barrels of oil and about 960 million metric tons of global warming pollution over the lifetime of the vehicles. This is the equivalent of the pollution reduction benefits of taking 32 million cars off the road.

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Over the past few months the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has held dozens of listening sessions and has been requesting comments about its upcoming $100 million Sustainable Communities Grant Program.

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Last Friday, 22 U.S. Senators sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, urging the Senate to pass bipartisan and comprehensive clean energy legislation this year. The letter highlights the business and national security case for comprehensive climate legislation. "Our lack of a comprehensive clean energy policy hurts job creation and increases regulatory uncertainty throughout the economy," the senators wrote. "Businesses are waiting on clean signals from Congress before investing billions in energy, transportation, manufacturing, buildings and other sectors. America's competitiveness and export strength are also at stake."

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Yesterday, 13 U.S. Senators, including Al Franken from Minnesota, signed a letter to Senate Majority Leader Reid, urging him to ensure that legislation does not weaken the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to protect human health by regulating coal-fired power plants and other global warming polluters.

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