Important Vote Today

An important vote is scheduled to take place in the House today on the American Clean Energy and Security Act, also known as ACES, Waxman-Markey and the climate change bill. I have been giving some thought to my position on the bill and it's complicated.

I know, you're saying GG, you write about the need for action at the policy level, what's so complicated about supporting a bill that includes a carbon cap along with renewable energy and energy efficiency standards?

Well, from what I can tell, the caps include so many give-aways to fossil fuels that they are rather toothless. The renewable energy standard is too low. I believe it is now at 15% by 2020. This despite that 71% of the American public supports at least 25% by 2020. The states are pre-empted for a period of time from setting higher standards and the bill strips the EPA of its ability to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

On the other hand, the energy efficiency measures, from what I understand, are pretty decent. And even weak standards and a flawed bill are more than we have had.

Let's be honest, we need to get to somewhere between 25% and 40% below 1990 emissions by 2020. The measures in this bill get us to 4% below.

Yet, this bill cannot fail right now. Because here's the deal. If I thought it was going to fail for being too weak, I would be okay with that. If I thought it would fail and people would tell Congress to go back to the drawing board and write a bill that is more in line with where scientists say we need to be.

But I fear this bill might fail for asking for too much, even though it asks relatively little. And that scares me. So if you think your Representative is going to vote against the bill because it's too agressive, it's time to get on the phone and call them and tell them to vote yes on Waxman-Markey and then get busy finding ways to make it even stronger.