House committee OKs climate bill
The House Energy and Commerce Committee passed an energy and climate bill on Thursday that puts a cap on greenhouse gases in a way designed to give heavy polluters years to transition to low-carbon technologies.
The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, sponsored by Congressmen Henry Waxman and Edward Markey, passed through the committee after four days of marathon "markup" sessions where dozens of amendments were considered.
The bill calls for a cap-and-trade system designed to reduce greenhouse gases and a mandate that would require utilities to get a portion of their electricity from renewable energy sources.
Concessions were made during negotiations, causing some environmental groups, including Greenpeace, to withdraw support for the bill and business groups to warn that the impact on new technology development will muted.
Even after the passage through committee by a 33-25 vote, the bill needs to pass other House committees before it can be voted on later this year.
There is concern that the targets won't effectively cut back on global warming emissions. But on the whole, green technology advocates and business people were pleased to see the U.S. move forward with some form of regulation to put a price on carbon emissions.
Carbon regulations will only affect energy-intensive industries such as utilities and industrial manufacturers. Creating a cap that declines over time will stimulate development of energy efficiency and alternative power generation technologies, proponents said.
"As the President's economic advisers said this week, a cap on global warming pollution is essential to our economic recovery and our long-term financial health. The economic benefits of a cap are too big to pass up, and the costs of inaction on climate are too big to ignore," said Fred Krupp, the president of advocacy group Environmental Defense Fund, in a statement.
Other provisions in the bill include a "cash for clunkers" program where consumers get a credit after purchasing a more fuel-efficient car.
A Clean Energy Bank would be created to help finance development of emerging energy technologies, such as algae-based biofuels and enhanced geothermal.
Coal tech and allowances
The cap on greenhouse gas emissions is set at 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, and 83 percent by 2050, which is a less aggressive timescale than originally proposed. The cap-and-trade program would allow heavy polluters to buy and sell pollution permits, or allowances.
A renewable electricity mandate would require utilities to get 6 percent of their electricity from renewable sources--sun, wind, geothermal, or biomass--by 2012 and 20 percent by 2020.
In general, businesses prefer a cap-and-trade system over a tax on carbon emissions. A cap-and-trade system works around permits through which heavy polluters, such as utilities and big manufacturers, can buy and sell theses allowances to emit carbon.
The bill is structured so that energy-intensive industries have time to transition to more efficient and less polluting operations by giving them free permits, rather than auctioning them.
In the utility industry, about one-third of the allowances would be free to utilities during the initial years. Giving away these permits is designed to prevent utilities and natural gas companies from spiking up energy cost for consumers.
However, Waxman told committee members on Thursday that he will hold more hearings on allowances to further refine the details, according to reports.
Many politicians from Midwest and southern states that rely heavily on coal for power generation sought to push back the timing of the caps so that technology to pump carbon dioxide from coal-burning power plants can be developed. Many utilities plans to use carbon capture and storage to meet the emissions caps but the technology is still not commercially available.
Meanwhile, politicians from southeastern states that don't have the same sun or wind resources resisted the renewable energy mandate. In addition to using alternatives such as biomass, utilities can partially meet the mandate through efficiency measures.
Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET's Green Tech blog. He started at CNET News in 2002, covering IT and Web development. Before that, he was executive editor at IT publication InfoWorld. E-mail Martin. 
Global Cooling!!!!
You are absolutely correct. The teachers', firefighters, police, and other common "working folks" are very glad that they do because their retirement plans depend on these "companies only motivated by profit" to actually make a profit.
Theres plenty of alternative energy technology that is super cheap (means people could party all the time, play video games 24/7, listening to spiritual chant music, have the entire home heated, even watch anime all the time yet low electric bills and no carbon output) but the greedy Rockefellers that run the electric companies have been supressing it. Theres even scientific proof to back up all the alternative technology research I and many experts done but the same people people that claim to cut CO2 with bad government bills have been raiding homes, murdering people, and rading/burning/bombing facilities that come up with clean and super cheap technology because it can be easily made without digging stuff up from peoples lands and would gut the greedy industries and make more room for competition and small businesses.
We don't need cap and trade, all the companies will do is pass the costs onto us or cut jobs and cause our country to plunge into a even more deepening recession. Our country is doomed unless Obama stops acting like Bush. Obama allows torture and allows secret renditions for America citizens just like Bush, Obama still keeps the war going just like Bush, Obama accepted money for people working for lobbying firms just like Bush, Obama lies and deceives just like Bush. Also Obama did not reverse NAFTA and GAT which is also contributing to the economical mess.
Obama is nothing more then a political puppet just like Bush, Clinton (NAFTA and GAT), and even the soviets.
Looks like we have become U.S.S.R. Welcome to USSR the slave country where we serve the few while they shackle us, welcome to the United Soviet States of America.
They couldn't have chosen a more rotten time to pull this eco crap.
Again, BOO!
This isn't about protecting the climate. The green eco-nazis just use that as an excuse. It is about destroying our way of life. Cheap energy = prosperity. Can't be having that. So the green use lies like the unfalsifiable climate change, polar bears drowning even though their population has exploded, and extreme weather even though we have well-documented extreme weather for over 100 years.
Protecting the earth and animals is a good thing. Eco-nazis and the democrats go too far.
- by btalex1990 May 24, 2009 1:22 AM PDT
- They prophecized that Obama would cause our electric bills to jump sky high, looks like the prophets told me right, now we will all suffer even more energy costs with cap and trade, first they want to take away our vacations to help the environment (while clean and cheap energy is still being supressed), and now they want to take away and limit our fun at home and since many things cost not at home, many will start being depotised.
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(8 Comments)Increasing energy and gas costs won't just effect electricity, it will effect everything, food may double or triple, more jobs will be slashed, more paycuts will be in effect, society will become more renegade and more crime ridden and this will mean more terrorists, rebels, and even scumbag killers and this may lead to martial law and the imprisonment of all American citizens and we will be raped by the police, and even allies will become enemies, all patriots will become slaves, and by then color won't matter to those who are still racists because this time it won't be black people being slaves, it WILL BE ALL OF US, who will serve the banking cartels, the elites, the rothschilds.
We will all be serving the tiny elite and carbon credit banks making money off of carbon.