Pete Altman's Blog: U.S. Law and Policy

In Wake of Oil Spill, Most Americans See Need for Clean Energy and Climate Legislation

2010-05-07T22:58:10Z

This week, NRDC has been making the case that the Gulf Oil spill is a disaster that should shock the Congress into acting on a big scale to reform our energy system and get moving on clean energy and climate legislation. After all if we really want to prevent future oil spills, we have to cut back on our reliance on oil and the best way to do that is to pass strong legislation.

We've called on President Obama and the US Senate to seize the moment.

It looks like the White House gets it, according to news reports over the last couple of days, such as this one from E&E News (subscrip required):

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said today that he expects public opinion to grow in favor of an energy bill as gas prices make their traditional summer climb and while the oil spill continues in the Gulf of Mexico.

"With what you see is going on in the Gulf, you understand that drilling and drilling alone isn't going to solve our energy problems," Gibbs told reporters. Asked about prospects for a climate bill in the light of the spill, Gibbs said, "It's more ripe than it ever, in all honesty, has been."

Carol Browner, the president's top energy and climate adviser, made a similar connection between the climate bill and the Gulf Coast spill during an an interview with Bloomberg Television's "Political Capital With Al Hunt," which airs this weekend.

And the American people get it as well, as a new poll by NRDC reveals. In it, we found that in the wake of the Gulf spill,

Voters strongly favor the passage of a clean energy and climate change bill, with more than six in ten (64%) agreeing the Senate should pass the bill and four in ten (39%) saying so strongly.

That's a pretty clear signal that the American public gets that we need to move America off of oil and dirty fuels, but that as NRDC Program Director Wesley Warren puts it, "Congress needs a response which is as big as the spill is."

ACES Puts US and World On Safer Temperature Path

2009-06-26T19:16:01Z

Duke University just released an analysis of the impact that ACES will have on global temperature, factoring in the impact that US leadership will have on the rest of the world. As many recognize, the only way to get serious global efforts to cut emissions moving is for the US to make clear its own commitment.

The Duke study concludes that ACES can help drive a global policy that would stabilize carbon dioxide concentrations below 450 parts per million and limit global temperatures increases to less than 2 degrees above 1990 levels.

What will that do as far as global warming impacts go? Here's a synopsis of the escalating impacts of global warming, based on IPCC reports. You can see for yourself what global warming effects the ACES bill will help us avoid:

The bullets ACES will help us dodge: global GDP losses of up to 5%; extinction of 40% or more of the world's species; decline of global food production; and so on.

Amidst all the posts regarding the economic benefits of the ACES bill, its worth remembering that it will put us on track to avoid the worst effects of global warming.

ACES Will Help Create More Jobs and Opportunities for Low-Income Families

2009-06-26T16:26:19Z

The American Clean Energy and Security Act will help spur $150 billion in clean energy investments, which will create 1.7 million good-paying jobs throughout the United States.

Clean energy jobs are labor intensive, and clean energy investments create more jobs across all skill and education levels than comparable investments in fossil-fuel energy sources.

Clean energy investments create 3.2 times as many jobs as fossil-fuel investments overall. Among workers with few educational credentials and little work experience, clean energy investments create 5.5 times as many jobs as fossil-fuel investments. Furthermore, 75% of those clean energy jobs provide opportunities for advancement and higher salaries, enabling workers to lift their families out of poverty.

How would this job creation, and new opportunities for low-income families work out state-by-state? Based on recent reports by the Political Economy Research Institute, we mapped out job creation figures for total jobs created as well as the number of those jobs that are accessible to workers with low educational credentials or few jobs skills. On the map below, total job creation figures are in black, the low credential job figures are in white.

Total US job creation: 1,713,500 jobs. Of those, 871,000 would be accessible to those with low educational credentials and/or few job skills.

Sources:

"The Economic Benefits of Investing in Clean Energy" downloadable from http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/06/clean_energy.html. "Green Prosperity: How Clean Energy Policies Can Fight Poverty and Raise Living Standards in the United States" downloadable from http://www.nrdc.org/energy/greenjobs/.

NRDC commissioned PERI to develop state-level figures for low-credential jobs for 21 states. Figures for remaining states were estimated by NRDC based upon the PERI data. For full methodology and explanation, click here.

Americans Save on Fuel Bills Under ACES

2009-06-26T15:03:48Z

The American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act allocates funding to produce the next generation of clean, fuel-efficient vehicles in the United States, and when combined with clean vehicle performance standards adopted by the Obama administration, the American on-road fleet will become about 25% more fuel efficient over the next decade.

As a result, by 2020, Americans will drive more efficient vehicles and have lower household transportation costs. Even in the face of rising gasoline prices, cleaner vehicles will save money by sipping instead of guzzling gasoline.

For detailed methodology and explanations, and a printable map, click here.