Clockwise from top left: Sens. John Kerry, Sheldon Whitehouse, Barbara Boxer, and Bernie Sanders.

We cannot allow long-time opponents of renewable energy to focus the discussion only on Solyndra (whose higher-priced panels could not compete as solar costs came down) when we should be thinking about competing with China to win the next energy revolution. Why? Because the race is on to put the right policies in place so hundreds of thousands of new, well-paying renewable energy jobs will be created here, and not in China. With Bloomberg New Energy Finance reporting that for the first time ever, global investments in renewable electricity have exceeded investments in fossil fuel power plants, the question is not whether renewable energy is creating jobs; it is which country is going to lead the clean energy jobs revolution. We want it to be America.

The truth is we can win this race. The American solar energy industry is thriving, as is the renewable energy industry more broadly. Just look at the facts: We have doubled the number of solar jobs in America since 2009, and today more than 100,000 Americans work in the solar industry, at more than 5,000 companies in every single state. These include manufacturing, installation, and supply chain jobs.

Last year, we installed nearly 1,000 megawatts (MW) of solar power in the United States, more than double the amount installed in 2009. With the solar industry growing at a rate of 69 percent annually, it is one of America’s fastest growing industries, and is creating jobs all across the country. The cost of solar panels has fallen 30 percent over just the last two years, continuing a long-term decline in the price of solar.

As solar becomes more cost-competitive with conventional fossil fuels, everyone from Walmart to the United States Marine Corps is looking to go solar. Walmart is installing solar panels at 130 stores in California, and says, “Walmart has reduced energy expenses by more than a million dollars through our solar program.” The military is using solar energy with battery storage to fully power forward operating bases in Afghanistan, and Marine Col. Bob Charette says for the Marines renewable energy is “about saving lives” by reducing the number of dangerous fuel convoys needed for resupply.

The wind industry is also growing rapidly. Texas alone has more than 10,000 MW of wind energy installed, which is equivalent in capacity to 10 nuclear reactors. Iowa now gets 20 percent of its electricity from wind. There are 75,000 wind energy jobs in America today, and more than 400 manufacturing facilities in 43 states. The price of wind energy has dropped by 90 percent since 1980, and wind electricity today is competitive with fossil fuels at 5 to 6 cents per kilowatt-hour. At the same time, we are increasing American manufacturing of wind turbines, and now 60 percent of turbine components installed in the United States are made in America, up from 25 percent in 2005.

In these tough economic times, the story of renewable energy in the United States is actually a rare good news story. Renewable energy is helping to create hundreds of thousands of jobs, is making our nation more energy independent, and is cutting pollution and greenhouse-gas emissions.

As with every energy technology in the past, federal policies play an important role in supporting renewable energy in America. Key among those policies is a provision known as the Treasury Grant Program (or 1603) which turns an existing wind and solar tax credit into a grant. This provides better financing options for American renewable energy developers and has helped to attract nearly $23 billion in private sector investments in renewable energy, supporting 22,000 projects. Unfortunately this program is set to expire at the end of this year, unless Congress acts to extend it. What is at stake in this fight? If this program expires, one study shows that financing for renewable energy projects would be cut in half, just at the time when renewable energy is experiencing explosive growth.

Although Solyndra is the major headline right now, the real challenge is that Congress is debating whether we can even extend the Treasury Grant Program and other important renewable energy incentives for another year.

Meanwhile, China outpaces the United States by a 2-to-1 margin in clean energy investments, according to Energy Secretary Steven Chu. America needs to out-compete China on solar and wind, not surrender to China. At a time of nagging unemployment, with the middle class squeezed, and greenhouse-gas emissions rising, it is imperative that our nation take the lead in creating clean energy jobs right here in America.

It is time to put in place stable, long-term policies to support these critical industries. Rather than fight to turn one energy company’s demise into partisan points, it is time to point the way towards our energy future — so that all Americans win.

Busy day here — started early with some curtain-raising morning television to kick off the discussion a bit about the American Power Act that Joe Lieberman [I-Conn.] and a unique coalition are talking about later today.

But sometimes those morning-show interviews are a bit of a reminder of how much detailed discussion we lose when we’re crammed into a two- or three- or five-minute back-and-forth, which is especially tough on an issue like a comprehensive approach to climate and energy.

Which brings me to why I wanted to come by Grist — because of the in-depth discussions you’ve already had here again and again on this issue.

But — and here’s the but — I don’t want to swing by and just sort of preach to the choir. We’re true believers — we already get the imperative of the threat our addiction to carbon-emitting energy poses. You know the science, you know the reality, and so do I.

So, what I do want to talk about is this: We need to take a deep dive together on the Senate strategy, and on the real details of the bill that make it important for the things you and I care about. So, I hope I bring something new to that discussion that we can use as a jumping-off point.

First, the Senate dynamic — the politics of this place. I want to be candid about this, and I do so with a record on this issue that I think earned me the spurs to say this. We’ve been at this a long time. Al Gore and I held the Senate’s first climate-change hearings in the Commerce Committee way back in 1988. Since then, precious little progress has been made and ground has been lost internationally, all while the science has grown more compelling. I can barely even count any more the number of international summits I’ve attended, or press conferences we’ve held after losing climate-change votes in the Senate where our message was, “Next year, we can get this done — don’t give up on the United States or the Senate.” Two Congresses ago, we had 38 votes for a bill. Last Congress, we had 54 votes for cloture out of 60 needed — and we said then — me, Joe, Barbara Boxer [D-Calif.] — that this Congress we could get to 60 and pass a bill.

So what have we done? A lot of meeting and listening — between me, Joe Lieberman, and Lindsey Graham [R-S.C.], hundreds of meetings one-on-one with our colleagues to find out what they needed to support a bill. And I absolutely believe we’re closer than ever to getting across the finish line — but make no mistake, it remains difficult, even with President Obama in the White House, and even with the House of Representatives having passed their bill by the slimmest of margins last summer. But we’re going full-steam ahead because, in my judgment, this may be the last and certainly the best chance for the Senate to act, especially with the fact that I think the next Senate — given a 2012 presidential campaign added to the dynamic and a lot of new senators — is going to be less likely than this one to find a path to the 60 votes needed for passage. So we’ve got to get it done this year.

Hear me out on this one — you know where I’ve been and continue to be on all the major environmental fights since even before I became a senator. As a lieutenant governor, I focused on acid rain and we laid the groundwork for the successful fight on the Clean Air Act in 1990, with the support of the first President Bush and bipartisan support from Congress. In stark contrast to that effort to find a bipartisan way forward, I led the successful filibuster — against the urging of many in our Democratic caucus — to defeat the second President Bush’s plan to drill in and destroy the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I point to these twin examples because I think they’re evidence that I know when to dig in and fight, and I also know when and how to find the path to getting something done across the aisle.

And here’s what I can tell you: A comprehensive climate bill written purely for you and me — true believers — can’t pass the Senate no matter how hard or passionately I fight on it. No, it’s got to be an effort that makes my colleagues — and that has to include Republicans so we can get to 60 — comfortable about the jobs we’re going to create and the protection for consumers and the national security benefits — and it has to address those pieces on their terms. The good news: I think we got that balance right.

So, the straight scoop on the details, the real down-in-the-weeds details:

First and foremost, this bill creates a major — mandatory — pollution-reduction program that sends the needed price signal on carbon, with carbon allowances auctioned in a heavily regulated market that doesn’t allow any speculators access. Only corporations that need the pollution allowances can buy them, period. No bank can swoop in and start speculating. These corporations that buy the allowances can trade them among themselves, but again, no outside entities are allowed, with the minor exception of a few heavily regulated “liquidity providers” who are there to make sure there are always buyers and sellers at any one time. The actions of these providers, however, are tightly controlled, and their profits are extremely limited by the law. There’s no Wild West of speculation possible here, just a strict market only open to those who need it.

It will also be a stable market. The American Power Act creates a hard price collar for the sale of carbon allowances. This will cut down on the volatility of the market, especially in the early days, and give investors a clear signal on future prices. We don’t let this affect the environmental integrity or jeopardize the pollution reductions we’re going for, though. Instead, we hold back a strategic reserve of allowances that we release if the market gets too high to bring down the cost without adding new carbon to our pollution targets.

And, look, creating this pollution-reduction market is incredibly important to do. We absolutely have to send a price signal to move to a new energy economy. Every business leader I talk to confirms this — nothing else will get the job done. Without it, we won’t get the certainty we need in our economy that drives the innovation and investment in the clean energy economy. And without that, we won’t be able to get a real international agreement, with teeth, to confront the crisis of climate change.

Now, we can’t leave American workers exposed, waiting forever for others to join us in the effort to price pollution, because that would force them to compete against countries that have no greenhouse-gas emissions limits. That would just shift pollution abroad rather than reduce it, and in the process, it would cost us jobs. So we’ve included a robust, WTO-consistent border-adjustment mechanism in the bill. It’s pretty simple: Imports from countries that aren’t doing what we’re doing will need to pay a fee at the border or we will give our producers the resources they would need to keep from having their production shifted overseas to avoid the cost of polluting. This will prevent the “carbon leakage” of companies moving production offshore, and it allows American manufacturers to compete on a level playing field with those overseas. And I guarantee that on a level playing field, nobody beats the American worker.

We also want Americans to share in the benefits of this legislation, so the American Power Act — inspired in part by the great work of Sens. Maria Cantwell [D-Wash.] and Susan Collins [R-Maine] — sends the bulk of the proceeds from the sale of the pollution allowances back to the American people directly in the form of rebates. None of it stays with or grows government. Those rebates rise over time until it all goes straight back to Americans.

That’s the heart of the bill. I realize there’s been a lot of discussion about some other aspects of it, so here are some of the other parts of the bill:

• Clean Air Act: This part of the bill has generated a lot of commentary and reporting recently, and some of it has just missed the mark. Here’s the deal: This bill does not take the EPA out of the mix on regulating carbon. In fact, it strengthens the Clean Air Act by expanding the authority of the EPA and making that authority permanent. First, the entire pollution-reduction program is under the authority of the EPA.  The bill specifically requires the EPA to regulate large sources of carbon pollution, but it does not allow it to issue what in many cases would be duplicative regulation of the same sources.  Essentially, what the bill says is that EPA should use the program specifically designed for making the deep reductions in carbon pollution called for in the bill.  The bill preserves key Clean Air Act tools for sources not in the program, and it calls on EPA to continue setting tough emission standards to reduce global-warming pollution from cars and trucks.  It also continues EPA’s ability to set performance standards for old, dirty power plants to make sure they clean up. 

• Offshore drilling: We’re in the middle of a catastrophe in the Gulf, and it’s important that we fully understand the implications as we move forward. This bill starts that process by tightening current federal law and implementing two major reforms. First, any state can veto drilling less than 75 miles off its border. Second, any new rig will have to be studied for the environmental impact of any potential spill, and any state that is found to be at risk can veto that drilling.

• State laws: The long-standing efforts of states like California to implement innovative programs around vehicle emissions and other programs will not be affected. The bill does make clear that carbon is a national problem, and that the national policy on carbon needs to be the law of the land. But outside of that specific area, states are still free to pursue the policies that they wish. I’ve talked with [Massachusetts] Gov. Deval Patrick about this — Massachusetts has been one of the states ahead of the curve and our bill rewards them — but like with acid rain, these governors know we ultimately need a national solution.

So — one more time – would I design every piece of this legislation exactly as it is if I only had to get my vote? Of course not. But that’s not the way democracy works. The Senate — and our caucus — is a very diverse coalition, from coastal states to Midwestern states to states with large coal reserves. Sixty votes is a tough coalition to put together.

But our planet can’t wait for the perfect bill. We need to get a really good bill now, one that reduces carbon pollution and puts us on a path to a clean energy future. And if we do this, I know we can get a tough international agreement to deal with this global problem. Those are the two things I remind myself of every day when it comes to this bill. You’ve got to keep your eye on the prize. Bottom line: We’re at a crossroads. On one path is clean energy, a more stable climate, and a more prosperous economy with America back in control of our own energy, generating good clean-energy jobs. On the other is the status quo, which is unsustainable. Keep that in mind when you look at this bill and engage in the debate.

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Photo: Willy VolkEvery half-second a shark is killed for its fins, so in the time it takes you to read this post, hundreds of sharks will die. “Finning,” as the practice is known, is decimating shark populations world-wide. Every year up to 73 million sharks are caught, stripped of their fins, and left for dead in the ocean.

Shark fins are a delicacy in many Asian countries, and the market is expanding to other parts of the globe. Fishing boats can save cargo space and pack more shark fins by just cutting off the fins and throwing the rest of the shark back into the ocean. But a shark can’t survive without its fins.

Sharks are the ocean’s top predators. They sit at the apex of the food chain, and their presence balances out the populations of the ecosystem.

They’ve roamed the seas since hundreds of millions of years before the dinosaurs, adapted to perfection for their habitat and purpose. But many species of shark are now facing extinction because of finning.

Sharks are often large, slow-growing, and slow to reproduce. They just can’t be slaughtered in large numbers and still survive as species. Already some scientists believe that there are species that are “functionally extinct,” unable to perform their role as top predator.

Removing sharks from the food chain will have broad, cascading, and unpredictable effects. To see this, we can just look at the experience of removing top predators on land.

Wolves disappeared from Yellowstone National Park in the early 1900s. As a result, elk populations boomed, with unchecked numbers grazing on aspen trees. In turn, the aspen trees were decimated, and their loss had a devastating effect on animals that relied on the trees for their habitat — songbirds and beavers, in particular. Moreover, with the aspen trees gone, there was little to prevent rivers and streams from eroding their banks.

Yellowstone’s ecosystem deteriorated until wolves were reintroduced in the mid-1990s. Then, the aspen stands recovered and with them the species they supported.

Sharks serve the same purpose in our world’s oceans, balancing out populations of species so the whole system works. To protect sharks, Congress passed the Shark Finning Prohibition Act in 2000. But the act left some big loopholes, and we are working together to push to close them.

The Shark Conservation Act of 2009 [introduced by Senator Kerry and supported by John Ford of the Discovery Channel] would ban any U.S.-flagged vessel from carrying shark fins without the rest of the shark, and they must be brought to port with their fins naturally attached.

The legislation also would protect the American fishing industry by allowing the United States to identify and take action against any countries that do not have a regulatory framework comparable to ours to protect sharks.

We’ve already got some great support for this bill. There are 10 co-sponsors in the Senate representing some of the biggest fishing regions in America. In addition, the Pew Environment Group has joined the cause, pushing for protection of these amazing species of fish.

This week, during the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, there’s no better time to step up the effort to end the disturbing and destructive practice of finning.

Time is running out on some species of sharks. If we don’t take action soon, some of them will become extinct. And with the oceans under increasing strain from the effects of the crisis of global climate change, we can’t afford to slaughter such an important part of the ecosystem past the brink of extinction.

A year ago I was battling to stop drilling in ANWR. Last night, finally — after years of battling and five years after we introduced the Kerry-McCain legislation to raise fuel efficiency standards — we actually accomplished things in the Senate that will improve the environment.

This is something that never would’ve happened with Bill Frist as the Majority Leader. But with Harry Reid leading the Senate, we were able to finally pass the first significant rise in CAFE standards in over a generation.

I can’t tell you what a difference this makes. Yes, this has been an issue for me for many years, and I took a lot of heat for this during the 2004 race — you might remember the Bush-Cheney campaign saying we were going to cost jobs in Michigan, when the truth is this is going to create good jobs in Michigan.

But after all the hits we took, after all the scare tactics, truth won a victory last night. Why? Because all of the activists of the Democratic Party helped to deliver a Democratic Congress, and now we can start the long process of building an energy economy that can work for us in the 21st century and can address climate change instead of making it a hell of a lot worse.

This isn’t the perfect solution to the CAFE debate, and the overall energy bill still lacks some important components. But I never thought this would happen right away, and legislative change can be a long battle of attrition. In fact, you can bet that’s exactly what it will be — more on that soon. (In fact, in Boston I’m unveiling a scorecard of what we achieved and what we missed, and the work that remains to be done.)

But bottom line, we’re moving the right direction on this, and with continued pressure and continued work, we can change the way we get our energy and the way we do business.

The nitty gritty details of what’s in the energy bill can be found here, if you’d like to get the full rundown. But this is an historic moment; fuel fleet efficiency standards have been stagnant for 20 years, while oil prices have skyrocketed and our climate crisis has gotten more acute. Finally, we have a Congress that isn’t burying its collective head in the sand over this. We’re beginning the long process of moving forward.

We also managed to include a great number of other environmental initiatives in this energy bill, including support for furthering the technology on carbon capture and sequestration (something I worked with the folks at MIT on and I think holds huge potential). There are also provisions providing support for the development of more efficient lighting materials and building materials, as well as authorizing a program for electric drive transportation. And we set specific guidelines for the reduction of gasoline usage from projected levels and required biennial reports on the progress toward meeting those goals.

So what’s next? We were very close to getting my major tax package included in this bill, one that rolled back $9 billion of tax breaks for big oil companies and added incentives for plug-in hybrids and many other environmentally beneficial technologies. We are only one vote short of breaking the GOP filibuster on that, and when Tim Johnson returns to the Senate from his courageous battle back to health, we can try again.

We still need to pass legislation demanding that our nation get 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. Proposals to set requirements like that were blocked by (you guessed it!) a GOP filibuster. But the American people are demanding action, so we’re gaining converts every vote.

This energy bill is not the single silver bullet solution to our energy and climate crises. But after years of fighting a losing battle to get any progress toward solving those problems, I am very happy to finally be moving in the right direction. The momentum is on our side, and we’ll continue to create truly revolutionary change in our economy.

Thanks for all of your help.

The energy bill, as it stands, is not nearly strong enough, so there are a number of amendments that must be adopted to give us a bill that actually gets us started on that path of dealing with our energy crisis and our climate crisis.

But when we tried to bring up the Bingaman amendment that requires the use of alternative energy sources, the Republicans in the Senate simply refused to vote up or down on it, essentially demanding that these amendments get 60 votes to even be considered. The procedural details of what they’re doing and our responses get pretty arcane pretty quickly, but as I type this in the midmorning we’re currently locked in a battle to move all of this forward.

It’s amazing to me that some people still refuse to see the gravity of the situation staring us in the face, with the best science telling us we may only have a decade to act before the climate crisis reaches a dangerous tipping point. But there are the same interests throwing up the same roadblocks. Take CAFE standards — I and many others are demanding that the standards be raised to 35 mpg by the end of the next decade, with light trucks and SUVs included in that and other mandatory requirements for medium and heavy trucks. And we want to close the loopholes that allow automakers to miss even those targets. But the Bush administration has written to Congress that they are opposed to any numerical requirement in the statute.

Think about that for a moment. They say they want fuel economy to get better, but they don’t want to put any numeric requirements about what that means. And they want medium and heavy trucks exempted from even that!

Another area where I’m pushing is to require that at least 20 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2020. This has been a part of my energy plan since 2002, and I mentioned this over and over (and over) during the campaign in 2004. There has been significant support for this change now in Congress, but there are still powerful interests arrayed against it.

Dogmatic refusal to consider new approaches to this crisis can have such enormous consequences, it boggles the mind how people can do it.

I noticed the article that was flagged by David Roberts here a couple of days ago that indicated the big fights were going to be over some of the same tired issues of the past — but that’s not entirely true. Sure, there is once again a proposal to drill in ANWR, and we once again will strongly fight that. But overall, there are significant steps being taken, and now there’s a leadership in the Congress that wants action on this. In addition to the CAFE standards, I’m fighting to get more conservation and efficiency throughout the economy, and we have a bill pending to make the Capitol complex green, so that the federal government can be a model of how to make workplaces environmentally friendly, not a glaring example of “do as I say not as I do” politics.

While I strongly oppose any bills promoting coal-to-liquid technology, I’m also fighting to make our most widely used electrical-generating fuel, which is coal, cleaner with carbon capture and sequestration pilot projects and research funding. And I’m working to ban the building of any new coal-fired plants without that technology.

All of these proposals have significant support in Congress, and, unlike in the last couple of Congresses, the leadership is behind my efforts to get real votes on these issues and force some change.

But I’ve learned, starting way back when I was working as an activist on the first Earth Day, that environmental change doesn’t happen without a lot of activism from Americans. There are too many monied interests defending the status quo because they think it makes them more money. They don’t want to upset their old balance sheets by embracing the new economy and the prosperity that will flow from abundant clean energy.

There are lots of business people who do recognize that, and many sectors of our economy are already leaping ahead of the federal government on these questions. Fred Smith of Fed Ex testifies today in front of my committee about the importance of raising fuel economy standards.

But the entrenched interests (especially Big Oil) still hold sway with many in Congress. So the activism of ordinary Americans is desperately needed to tip the scales decisively in favor of a new direction. Call your senators today and tell them that you want a new direction. Tell them that you want CAFE standards raised, that you want at least 20 percent of our energy to be from renewable resources, that you want significant action on energy policy.

Thanks for your time. Being in the thick of all of the floor fights, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to respond to any comments today, but I’ll try, and I’ll at least read through them all at the end of the day.