This week, people who care about climate and clean energy issues have been trying to comprehend what the election of Scott Brown of Massachusetts to the U.S. Senate means for the future of comprehensive U.S. climate and clean energy legislation. Although Brown voted in favor of a cap-and-trade bill when he was a state senator, agreeing that Massachusetts should join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, he opposed a national cap-and-trade program during his senate campaign.
Some have speculated that Brown’s election means the current climate and energy bill, which includes a cap-and-trade program, now stands little chance of passing. ”A large cap-and-trade bill isn’t going to go ahead at this time,” U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein told the San Francisco Chronicle in a recent interview.
Others believe that a climate and clean energy bill with a cap on carbon emissions will still move forward this year. Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council and an Apollo Alliance board member, argued in a Huffington Post piece that a number of signs point to impending action on the climate and clean energy front. These include Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s statement on Wednesday—the day after the Massachusetts election—that the Senate still plans to tackle energy and climate in order to “strengthen our national security, our environment and our economy.” Beinecke also referenced the ongoing bipartisan effort by Senators Kerry, Graham and Lieberman to produce a bill that both Democrats and Republicans will support.
The Apollo Alliance is continuing to urge the Senate to move forward with a comprehensive energy bill that includes a cap on greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, with Congress and the administration’s new focus on “jobs, jobs, jobs,” passage of a climate and clean energy bill is more relevant than ever. Climate and clean energy measures create jobs. Even without national climate and clean energy policies, green jobs have grown at more than twice the rate of overall jobs over the past decade, according to a June 2009 study by the Pew Charitable Trusts. State-level studies show the same trend. For example, a December 2009 study by Collaborative Economics and Next 10 showed that California, which has some of the most forward-thinking climate policies in the country, has seen green job growth outpace overall job growth by a rate of almost 3-to-1 since 1995.
Weekly update readers may be familiar with the studies quoted above, but another compelling study has received less public attention. Published recently in the journal Energy Policy, the study, by Dan Kammen and his colleagues at UC Berkeley, finds that all non-fossil fuel technologies (including renewable energy, energy efficiency and low-carbon technologies) create more jobs per unit of energy than the fossil fuel sector does. Click here to read the study.
States Still Taking the Lead
While national policymakers are still debating whether and what action to take on climate and clean energy issues, states continue to lead the way with cutting-edge programs in renewable energy, energy efficiency, clean cars, cap-and-trade programs and more. Dozens of states have renewable energy standards, energy efficiency standards for their buildings and appliances, standards requiring reduced greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, or are participating in regional cap-and-trade programs.
This year, states are continuing to plow ahead on clean energy initiatives, clearing a path for future federal government action. In Wisconsin, legislators are beginning to debate a bill that would require 25 percent of the state’s energy to come from renewable sources by 2025. In Washington state, Gov. Chris Gregoire, inspired by her trip to the international climate negotiations in Copenhagen, recently announced plans to make state agencies carbon neutral by 2020. In Tennessee, Gov. Phil Bredesen is busily—and successfully—working to attract solar manufacturers to his state.
To find out more about what’s happening at the state and local level on clean energy issues, get in touch with our state and local Apollo Alliance affiliates. You can also learn more about individual states’ existing programs and plans at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change website.
In Other News …
*Next week, the Apollo Alliance will release three reports that analyze existing workforce training programs in Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin and identify ways those programs can be better integrated and scaled up to help fill jobs in the clean energy sector. The reports look at the skills that are needed for green-collar jobs in construction and manufacturing, and make recommendations for how existing training programs can provide those skills by filling in gaps between programs rather than investing in new and sometimes unnecessary ones. The reports, Mapping Green Career Pathways, were co-written by the Apollo Alliance and partner organizations in each state and will be posted to ApolloAlliance.org on Mon., Jan. 25.
*In case you haven’t heard, Carl Pope, long-time executive director of the Sierra Club and an Apollo Alliance board member, announced this week that he is leaving his current post and will become executive chairman of the organization. We offer our sincere appreciation to Carl for all the wonderful work he’s done at the Sierra Club, and we look forward to working with him in his new position. Meanwhile, we’re excited that the Club’s new executive director will be Mike Brune, who we know well from his work leading the Rainforest Action Network the past seven years. Mike, good luck with your new job!
*As part of the lead up to Clean Energy Week 2010 (Feb. 1 – 5 in Washington, DC), Apollo’s executive director, Cathy Calfo, will participate with two other clean energy experts in a webinar called “Looking Ahead to Clean Energy Week 2010: An Analysis of the State of Clean Energy in the U.S.” The webinar will be held on Mon., Jan. 25 at noon eastern time and will cover a review of recent state and federal policy initiatives, among other topics. To register for the webinar, click here.