Renewable Electricity Standard

One step forward, several back

The Kerry-Boxer bill is not “more ambitious” than Waxman-Markey 2
Posted 4 weeks, 1 day ago I'm sure Steve Mufson and Juliet Eilperin didn't choose the headline, but whoever did, I think it's a real mistake to refer to the Kerry-Boxer bill as "a bit more ambitious" than its Waxman-Markey counterpart in the House. This became conventional wisdom almost immediately, but it seems to me both wrong and pernicious -- the more Kerry-Boxer is seen as a leftward move from the House bill, the more senators who want to be seen as moderate will want to be seen hacking it down.
Local fetishists still wrong

We need transmission to solve global warming 15
Posted 1 month ago The new version of Energy Self-Reliant States manages to duplicate the fallacies of their previous reports, and adds new ones.
Sen. Jeff Merkley answers Grist’s questions on Senate climate bill 6
Posted 2 months ago
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) has come out swinging on climate and energy issues, securing an appointment to the Environment & Public Works Committee, sponsoring or co-sponsoring a series of clean energy bills and amendments, and generally staking out the left edge of the climate bill debate. Sen. Merkley was kind enough to answer a couple of questions from Grist about the upcoming Senate battle over the climate bill.
Windfall prophet

South Dakota Sen. Johnson comes out in favor of passing climate bill 1
Posted 3 months ago
South Dakota Sen. Tim Johnson (D), considered to be a fence-sitter on climate legislation, seems to be taking more of a strident stance in favor of passing a bill this year.
By the numbers

Renewable energy is more exciting than cap-and-trade! 3
Posted 3 months, 2 weeks ago
When asked their preference for addressing energy needs, a dominant plurality of Americans identified increasing use of renewable energy (34%), with only 9% preferring the cheapest energy sources.
West Virginia redefines dirty energy as “alternative” 2
Posted 4 months, 1 week ago
In the recent legislative session, Gov. Joe Manchin (D) championed and state lawmakers approved an energy portfolio standard bill requiring 25% of generation to come from "alternative and renewable" sources by 2025. But the new standard, which goes into effect this month, has defined "alternative" to include natural gas, old tires, coal gas and even waste coal.
Senate it all before

Enviros cringe as Senate committee approves energy bill 3
Posted 5 months, 1 week ago
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved an energy bill on Wednesday that has the environmental community up in arms. The plan, enviros say, relies too heavily on fossil fuels and doesn't do enough to advance renewable energy.
Always look on the bright side of life

The faint silver lining of the Waxman-Markey clean-energy-mandates cloud 4
Posted 5 months, 1 week ago
The Waxman-Markey bill would require that 20% of the nation's power supply come from clean energy (15%) and efficiency (5%) by 2020. But wouldn't the U.S. have reached those mild targets without any government intervention, through natural market growth? Would the bill's mandates have any effect at all?

A spate of recent analyses have argued that the bill's Combined Efficiency and Renewable Energy Standard, or CERES, would induce no new deployment of renewable energy over and above the business-as-usual scenario. In other words, they might as well not have bothered.