Could US climate and energy act become law in 2010?
by Ray Block
Having won the fight over national health insurance, followed up by financial reform bills now in the conference stage to be reconciled between the House and Senate, to achieve the trifecta with a climate and energy act in 2010 would be a tremendous achievement for President Obama and the Democratic Party.
Every step of the way to legislative reform in the US Congress has been bitterly fought over, with the Republicans fighting rear guard action much in the way of military campaigns, with few defecting to the other side.
There is still a long way to go before the climate and energy bills become law, but some headway is being made. Here are some road signs:
* Bloomberg (May 28 2010) reports that China will likely set up a domestic market for trading carbon emissions by 2014. Polluting companies would have “half mandatory” targets for their greenhouse gases. Feng Shengbo, deputy director of the China Clean Development Mechanism Management Centre said this in an interview.
The market would be run by trade associations overseen by the government. “From the government point of view, an absolute reduction is not realistic for China at the current stage.” Feng said that he didn’t think the targets would be “very hard.”
* The E&E group which publishes a number of excellent newsletters on climate and energy policy issues reported on May 28 2010 that Senator Lindsay Graham, leader of the moderate faction of the Senate Republicans, said that “we do need to price carbon to make nuclear power and the wind and solar and some alternative technologies economically viable.”
“The electric utility industry is most in need of a market signal for pricing greenhouse gases, while other major industries could be left out of a new US carbon market, especially if it means finding enough votes to pass a bill in the Senate.”
The Greenwire unit of the E&E publishing group says “Graham maybe on to something.”
It went on to say that “Beyond Graham, several other Senate Republicans seen as critical for passing a climate bill have also expressed an interest in a less sweeping plan for controlling greenhouse gases including Senators Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, George Voinovich of Ohio and Richard Lugar of Indiana.”
Posted under Carbon Abatement Scheme, Climate Change, Global Warming, Low Carbon Economy, Renewable Energies
I like this post about the US clement…
I am doing a geography project and would like to find out how using energy such as electricity connected to climate change and how could this affect people? if anyone could help then please do, and also I would like to include long term and short term effects of climate change.
Great article, it gives you a lot to think about. There have been many sustainable energy innovations made lately. I hope they are able to enact some laws that push this more into focus.
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