In 2009 the House of Representatives did an astounding thing: they passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act. This bill had four major components (1): It set new standards for power generation and accelerated development of cleaner, more efficient technologies. Provides funding for energy efficiency programs and sets higher efficiency standards. Creates a Cap and Trade program over 87% of US greenhouse gas emissions. Spells out measures for easing the economy into a low carbon state. Whether or not this was a great piece of legislation was made irrelevant when the Senate killed it, however, as a progressive move towards lowering US greenhouse gas emissions it has implications for what future legislation might look like. While watching the Clean Energy Works video “The Facts of Cap and Trade” I came to the conclusion that cap and … Read entire article »

From reading the Kopp-Pitzer paper and the Stockholm Environmental Institute’s Policy Brief, one gets a sense of the overwhelming options available to the US in regards reducing CO2 emission, specifically with cap-and-trade “schemes.” And why do I refer to them as “schemes” you ask? The answer is that that’s just what they are: “schemes.” There has been no real and concrete bi-partisan actions towards implementing one or a combination of the myriad ideas presented in the two papers. When is this to occur, one really can’t say—politics and economics prove to be semi-insurmountable hindrances to definitive actions. Yet, one point to focus on from the articles, which could prove effective in the near future is that of regulating car fuel efficiency and our transportation sector. While a majority of the Kopp-Pitzer … Read entire article »