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Senate legislative package remains work in progress
Committee aides say discussions on the bill are ongoing, but legislative language has yet to materialize, in large part because of the more than 100 bills that have been referred to the panel since Murkowski announced plans to move comprehensive legislation earlier this year. The bills span a range of policy arenas, including production, infrastructure, efficiency and accountability.
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Climate Change Calls for Science, Not Hope
Last year, President Obama set a goal of reducing carbon emissions by as much as 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025, only 10 years from now. Now, environmental experts are suggesting that some parts of the strategy are, at best, a waste of money and time. At worst, they are setting the United States in the wrong direction entirely. That is the view of some of the world’s top environmental organizations, including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Sierra Club. On Tuesday, they argued in a letter to the White House that allowing the burning of biomass to help reduce consumption of fossil fuels in the nation’s power plants, as proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency, would violate the Clean Air Ac [ read more … ]
White House summit highlights link between warming, health
Lyndsay Moseley of the American Lung Association, who will attend today’s event, applauded the administration’s focus on this issue. ALA has become a frequent proponent of climate mitigation policies, citing the fact that higher temperatures work with particulate pollution to exacerbate asthma and other respiratory illnesses. Medical officials are becoming increasingly aware of these environmental triggers, Moseley said. “But they’re limited in what they can do, which is why there is a growing call for action in the policy arena,” she said. [ read more … ]
Renewable energy may double, mostly without subsidies, but fail to restrict emissions growth — study
In 25 years, more than half of the world’s energy-generating capacity will come from zero-emission sources and renewables will generate twice as much power, but atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide will likely still push the world past the ubiquitous 2-degree-Celsius goal, according to analysis released today by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). The BNEF report, whose authors assumed “renewables globally will see no further policy support” after 2018, beyond subsides for offshore wind installations, does not consider long-term implications from U.S. EPA’s Clean Power Plan. [ read more … ]
Debate over California’s renewable energy expansion goes through the roof
A political fight over California’s renewable energy industry is playing out in the corridors of power, but it deals with something closer to home: your rooftop. Capitol policymakers are advancing an ambitious proposal to have renewable sources generate half of the state’s electricity by 2030, up from the 33 percent benchmark already in law. The full force of California’s political establishment backs the goal: Gov. Jerry Brown pitched the idea, Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, has promoted it aggressively, and bills enshrining the new standard passed both the Senate and the Assembly with strong Democratic support. [ read more … ]
In grid debate, ‘tension is not always a bad thing,’ says FERC’s Honorable
Colette Honorable, the newest member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, is taking to heart some recent advice offered by a state utility commissioner — always remember where you come from. “The point of that is to remember that state regulation is important, the ways in which state regulators carry out their work is important,” Honorable said in a recent interview. [ read more … ]
This Huge Wind Turbine Floating on Water Is Fukushima’s Energy Solution
A mere 12 miles from the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant will soon sit a 620-foot, 1,500-ton windmill atop a 5,000-ton podium. It’ll be the biggest floating wind turbine on Earth, and it could usher in a new age of green energy for a region largely fed up with nuclear energy. The turbine, completed Monday, will generate up to 7 megawatts of electricity, making it Japan’s most powerful wind turbine, and the most powerful floating turbine in the world. That’s good news for Japan, a country that’s shut down nuclear power plants in the wake of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami and subsequent meltdown.
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Note: News clips provided do not necessarily reflect the views of coalition or its member governors.