After months of being attacked from all sides, the American Clean Energy and Securities Act (ACES) finally made it through the Energy and Commerce committee, looking more like a colander than like a ‘Clean Energy Jobs bill’, as it is often touted by centrist environmentalist organizations. A bunch of environmental groups came out against the weakened ACES arguing that “while a week of debate failed to adequately strengthen protections for consumers, communities, and the climate in this bill, it erased all doubt of who will benefit most from it: Big Business”. Environmental Defense Fund and the National Resources Defense Council, who masterminded the first iteration of the bill, came out in support and most others (Disclaimer: Campus Progress is in this last category) are not taking a stance one way or another while loudly calling for the bill to be strengthened. This bill is over 900 pages long (Chairman Waxman hired a speedreader in anticipation of Republican demands that parts of the bill be read aloud, check it out!) and contains everything from a market-based pollution reduction system, to Renewable Energy Standards, to funds for international assistance, to a ton of giveaways for coal companies and dirty utilities.
This bill isn’t perfect, far from it. It’s the product of a political process that is corrupt and gives way too much power and access to corporations who realized a long time ago that having politicians in their pockets is a much better investment than innovating their products for the public good. The bill went from being a relatively weak, but still exciting Clean Energy Jobs Bill to becoming a bailout for King Coal thanks to the hard work of Blue Dog Democrats (especially those on the top of the King Coal’s donor list) who weakened the bill every chance they got. Chairmen Waxman and Markey did an incredible job protecting the bill at every turn, but their herculean effort wasn’t enough to overcome the copious amount of cash donated by energy industries to the campaign coffers of most Energy and Commerce committee members (duh, makes you wonder how progress can be ever made, it’s time to Change Congress!).
As it stands, the bill cleared the most conservative committee in Congress, heavily scarred but structurally intact. The emission reduction targets are there, but are insanely low and won’t guarantee our survival. The sheer amount of allowed offsets in exchange for maintaining the status quo is baffling. The Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Resource Standards are also still present but maimed to the point of insignificance, and the amount of subsidies for Carbon Capture and Sequestration (a technology that is unproven, extremely expensive and doubtful to work on a large scale) is criminal and drastically more than is given to renewables and other off the shelf technologies that can cheaply and rapidly help reduce energy bills and emissions.
The bill’s next step will be to go through a couple other committees where we might have a chance to right some of its most corrupt aspects. After that, it’s up to the whole house to give it the OK and send it over to the Senate. Bottom line is, we still have lots of work to do and the battle isn’t over yet.
If you ever thought of taking action in your community, NOW is the time. Whether it’s to talk to neighbors or to blockade a proposed coal power plant, now is the time to do something, and don’t forget to e-mail pictures, press releases, media clips, and flyers of your action to your legislator. Let them know that you are watching, that you won’t stand for a weak bailout bill for King Coal, that you demand the survival of our generation! E-mail me if you’d like to brainstorm actions you can take in your community to push for strong federal legislation.