To call ex-Iowa governor Tom Vilsack a dark horse candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination is to underestimate the chances of dark-colored horses. But it seems to have freed him up to make some serious policy proposals.
The energy plan (PDF) Vilsack unveiled on Tuesday is the ballsiest and most detailed any candidate from either party has offered. The headline component is that the plan would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 75% by 2050.
For the rest, I'll steal this summary from the San Diego Union-Tribune:
* Seek a 75 percent reduction in greenhouse gases produced by the United States by 2050, principally through a mandatory "cap and trade" program among businesses and other institutions. ...
* Require all automotive fuel producers to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide generated by that fuel by 1 percent a year for 10 years.
* Provide a 25-cent-per-gallon federal tax credit for the production of ethanol, an alternative fuel, from so-called cellular fiber. Production of ethanol from corn is expected to fall far short of meeting such an increase, so Vilsack, like Bush, would seek an acceleration of research into production of "cellulosic" ethanol made from wood chips, switchgrass and other feedstocks.
* Spur the nation toward a goal of 60 billion gallons of "renewable" automotive fuels used annually, 45 billion of them cellulosic ethanol or a similar fuel source, biobutanol. Vilsack would require an unspecified reduction in the consumption of petroleum products by cars, and seek vehicles that are 50 percent more fuel-efficient, both by 2030. At that point, he said, the energy for the nation's entire transportation system would be domestically produced.
* Strive to make the nation's whole transportation system "virtually petroleum-free."
* Mandate that by 2010, new coal-fired power plants meet "tough new standards for emissions" under an amended Clean Air Act.
* Require all new power plants be "carbon-free" by 2020 -- a goal some environmental analysts doubted is possible so soon. Wind, solar, geothermal and nuclear power would qualify, as would coal-fired power facilities that capture 100 percent of carbon dioxide.
That last bullet point is probably the most significant, but also the most difficult. Enforcing that would require some major costs in the short-term. But if Vilsack were elected with this plan on the table, it would be a considerable mandate for action on the energy issue.
Here he is talking with George Stephanopoulos about it, frantically dodging the question of an energy tax:
Comments
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TariffDude Posted 5:07 am
16 Feb 2007
Unless he's willing to admit that the way of life in Iowa is a heinous perversion of the way things ought to be, instead of holding onto the myth of a pastoral ethos, he's full of it. It's only possible to think that way until you've seen and smelled this place, and he has seen and smelled it. Construing Iowan ethanol production as good for the environment is dishonest.
What I am getting at: the dude ain't for real. All power-plants carbon-free by 2020? Promissory one-upmanship. An all likelihood cynical BS.
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Ron Steenblik Posted 2:03 am
17 Feb 2007
Let's assume that President Bush's target 35-billion-gallons-a-year "alternative fuel standard" is met in 2017, and that Presidential candidate Tom Vilsack's 60-billion-gallons-a-year is met by 2030, all by ethanol. (Note: biodiesel attracts an even higher per-gallon subsidy than ethanol.) Assume that corn ethanol will max out at 15 billion gallons a year by 2010, and that all future growth would come from cellulosic ethanol. So, from then on, 15 billion gallons a year would benefit from a $0.51/gallon tax credit, and all the rest from a $0.76/gallon (=$0.51 + $0.25) tax credit.
The total cost to the U.S. Treasury -- i.e., taxpayers -- between now and 2030?: $380 billion. And the annual subsidy rate by the end of that period would have reached $41,900,000,000 a year. Try pulling the plug on that kind of (corporate) welfare once it's in place.
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Nucbuddy Posted 2:23 am
17 Feb 2007
VILSACK: I did mention nuclear, and I think it's important and necessary for us to have a more enlightened view about that in the long term if we're really--and I think the way we begin that process is by focusing on the environmental benefits, long term, of that strategy
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Delay And Deny Posted 5:12 am
19 Feb 2007
Vilsack's major "contribution" to legislature seems to have been given convicted felons the right to vote.
He'd fit right in with Obama and Clinton and pave the way for ground breaking work in letting terrorists and criminals ransack America.
The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services.
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Biodiversivist Posted 5:13 am
19 Feb 2007
"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it." -Mark Twain
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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