legislation

Biofuels loophole in 2007 energy bill grandfathers in pollution

A recent report ($ub. req'd) by Greenwire's Ben Geman revealed a massive loophole in the 2007 energy bill that renders meaningless most of the climate safeguards for corn ethanol that Democrats have touted.

The loophole exempts any ethanol refineries that have already been built or were under construction at the time the bill passed from meeting the global warming requirements. Those facilities have a combined production capacity of 13.7 billion gallons, just shy of the 15 billion gallons of production mandated in the bill -- meaning that the Democrat-vaunted greenhouse-gas safeguards will apply to only 11 percent of corn ethanol production.

With recent studies in the journal Science and elsewhere revealing that corn ethanol takes 167 years to produce enough greenhouse-gas savings to make it as green as regular old oil, and with billions of people struggling with skyrocketing food prices, and millions more acres of forest and savanna being destroyed, that means disaster for the climate and the world's poor.

Glenn Hurowitz Politics

You can’t achieve the three goals of climate policy at once

I’ve been thinking about carbon policy lately (shocker, I know), prompted by recent interactions with Monica Prasad, Peter Barnes, and our own Sean Casten. The more I think about it, the more one of the central tensions becomes clear to me. Here are three goals for good climate legislation: Simplicity: The bill should not be […]

David Roberts Politics

Lieberman-Warner criticism, Part 2

This is the second in a five-part series exploring the details of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act. See part 1 here.

With atmospheric GHG concentrations rising at a frightening rate, we need a full court press to change directions, using every possible tool at our disposal. From an economic perspective, this means that we not only need to impose financial penalties on polluters, but also provide financial incentives for those who act to lower GHG emissions. We need a market mechanism in place so that the costs of GHG emission -- or the revenue associated with GHG reduction -- factors into individual investment decisions immediately. In short, we need big sticks and big carrots. The Climate Stabilization Act (CSA), as the Lieberman-Warner Bill is known, is a small stick with no carrot. This post explains why.

Sean Casten Politics

Thoughts on the farm bill and the skyrocketing cost of food

The rising cost of food worldwide is more complex than portrayed in recent articles in The New York Times and the Washington Post.

Like a magician revealing his secrets, the once-invisible farm and food system is drawing scrutiny from the media, policymakers, and the public as we realize how intertwined our farm and food system is with the energy sector and global markets.

But how did we get here? How did our modern, abundant, and affordable food system run aground? In a sector that is global in reach, absolutely essential (we must eat, after all), and includes the politics of saving family farms and ending hunger, there is no simple, singular answer. A lot of it has to do with economics and politics. Most of it has to do with what goes into making a box of cereal, and why we even have boxed cereal.

Alan Hunt Politics

Renewable energy standard passed in Ohio

Ohio gets 87 percent of its electricity from coal (and the rest is mostly nukes), putting it in the upper echelon of coal-using states in the nation (No. 2 behind Texas, to be precise).

And that, friends, is about to change, because yesterday the Ohio Legislature passed a renewable energy standard requiring utilities to provide 12.5 percent of Ohio's electricity from clean, renewable energy sources like wind and solar by 2025. This bill has a solar-specific requirement that will result in about 594 MW of solar in the Buckeye State. Not too shabby! Kudos to Environment Ohio and the thousands of other activists that worked hard to make it happen.

Next, the bill lands on Gov. Strickland's desk. If you like, take a moment to email the governor to thank him for making clean energy a top priority and encourage him to take the final step of signing this bill into law.

Adam Browning Politics

How Congress is shortchanging our health and sweetening things for the food industry

Are we becoming children of the corn, thanks in part to large subsidies and overproduction?

Photo: NREL/Warren Gretz

At dinner Sunday night, I asked my friend Prasad if he knew about the new farm bill and what it means for average Americans. He didn't.

I wasn't surprised. With the election, the war, and rising prices to fret about, not many people are pondering legislation about farms. But they should, because it has huge implications for the country's nutrition, environment, and health. Here are three reasons why we all should pay closer attention to the 2007 farm bill: food, fuel, and fat.

First, some background.

Bill Chameides Food

Lieberman-Warner criticism, Part 1

Lieberman-Warner is deeply flawed. And like most things political, it's most passionate defenders and opponents are insufferable.

It is sad but true that there is no such thing as perfect legislation, for the simple reason that the democratic process demands compromise. Therefore, to the extent that Lieberman-Warner is only imperfect to the degree that is demanded by our political process (e.g., if it's the best we can do, all considering), so be it.

It's not that good. And lest there be any confusion, I come to bury, not to praise. But that doesn't mean that we ought not have a more responsible discussion of the details of Lieberman-Warner and how they can be better framed. Because like it or not, this is the train upon which our national greenhouse gas policy will be framed. It may or may not leave the station prior to 2009 (I for one think it won't), but it's going to be the framework from which any future bill starts. And rather than expend our effort trying to derail that train, this is the time to be reviewing the cars. Keep the good ones, replace the bad ones (probably overhauling the engine in the process), but don't delude ourselves into thinking that we can throw the whole thing out, start fresh, and end up with perfection.

Here, then, is my attempt to try to dive into those details so that we can have a more enlightened debate.

Sean Casten Politics

A conversation with McCain policy adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin

Opinions differ on the quality of John McCain’s domestic policy agenda, but you’d have trouble finding anyone in Washington who would disparage the man he’s chosen as one of his top advisers. Douglas Holtz-Eakin has a dauntingly long resume and a reputation among policy wonks on both sides of the aisle for fair-minded number crunching. […]