• RPS: 20 percent by 2020
• Renewable energy and energy efficiency industries receive 9.5 percent of carbon allowances
• Transmission: regional transmission grid planning and federal siting authority
• 20-year Federal Power Purchase Authority
• Establishment of a Clean Energy Deployment Administration to aid the domestic development and deployment of renewable technologies including solar.

“We are 24 hours away from the most important climate vote of our lives. Everything hangs in the balance.

Either the House passes the American Clean Energy and Security Act and we carry momentum to the Senate. Or, we lose the vote and probably any chance of confronting the devastating threats of run-away global warming for the foreseeable future.

In recent weeks, we’ve sent a lot of email urging you and the Action Network community to keep the pressure on for passing this landmark bill. In response, our TakeAction inbox has been flooded with comments and questions about this bill and the urgency for action.

We’ve tried to respond to each question individually but thought at this critical moment it would be helpful to explain why we are working so hard to pass this bill and why now is so important.

Your support and activism is absolutely critical to our success and we hope this response helps keep us moving together toward passing the strongest possible bill.

Thanks for all you do,
Sam Parry
Director, Online Membership and Activism

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Why This Bill, Why Now?

Our vigorous effort to pass the landmark American Clean Energy and Security Act is based on a number of factors, including:

• It is a strong bill that will put America on course to cutting global warming emissions by 83% by mid-century. This, along with cuts from other countries, is in the range of what scientists suggest is necessary to stave off the catastrophic threats of run-away global warming.
• It has broad support from labor, environmental, and community groups, as well as valuable support from the business community and even many electric utilities and energy companies. In order to pass a bill of this magnitude, this broad support is essential.
• It uses a proven policy approach — cap-and-trade — that sets a declining cap on global warming pollution and creates a market that rewards innovation to clean-energy technologies. This same approach has dramatically reduced acid rain pollution at a fraction of the estimated costs.
• Now is the time. Political momentum has built over many years to bring us to this pivotal moment in history, and we cannot squander it. Key political leaders from President Obama to Speaker Pelosi to Reps Waxman and Markey are engaged as never before on passing a good bill right now. If we lose the vote in spite of the political firepower devoted to this, it will set back our efforts for many years, which would be disastrous for the climate. Once lost, political momentum doesn’t easily regenerate.

Some of our online members and activists wonder whether we should be pushing for an even stronger bill or, short of that, whether we’d be better off allowing the EPA to regulate global warming pollution.

Keep the following in mind:

• EPA has not yet established global warming regulations and it is not yet clear how they would approach the issue.
• It could take years and many court battles before EPA regulations are set.
• Nor is it clear how regulations would be handled over time with changing administrations.
• The bill would replace EPA regulations with a clear policy that locks in emission reductions through mid-century.

This is why President Obama and his team, including EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, are fully behind passing the American Clean Energy and Security Act and favor legislation over regulation.

As to whether we should be supporting a stronger bill, we have to ask what’s the alternative? What other bill stands a prayer’s chance of winning 218 votes in the House and 60 votes in the Senate? What other bill has the support of President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Reps. Waxman and Markey? What other bill could you even get out of the relevant committees?

Passing legislation of this magnitude is hard. Look at the efforts to reform health care. An entire generation of Americans has come and gone and that issue is not yet resolved.

If the planet is to avoid the catastrophic threat of run-away global warming, we have to act now. We must come together to support the strongest possible bill and get it passed. We just don’t have time to waste here.

The American Clean Energy and Security Act is a strong bill (see our summary of the bill).

Is it everything we would want? Of course not, but you don’t pass legislation in a vacuum. You must work with many interests and constituents and find common ground. That is how all legislation moves through Congress.

It is carpe diem time. It is save the planet time. It is time to pass the American Clean Energy and Security Act.

Please do everything you can in the next 24 hours to urge your member of Congress to vote yes on this critical bill.

Here are five things you can do right now to help:

1. Take Action: Send an email to your member of Congress supporting passage of the landmark American Clean Energy and Security Act. Even if you think your member is a solid yes or a definite no, it’s important for all members to hear from their constituents today on this important issue.
2. Call Your Member: Dial the Capitol Hill switchboard — (202) 224-3121 — and ask to be patched through to your representative’s office. Tell the staff that you are a voter back home and that you support the American Clean Energy and Security Act because it will create jobs, unleash our clean energy future, free us from foreign oil, and cut America’s global warming pollution.

   When you’re done with the Capitol Hill office, please look up your member at http://www.house.gov/ and find the phone numbers for home district offices — let the staff back home know what you think, too.

3. Spread the Word: Tell all your friends and family how important this vote is and that they need to get in touch with their members of Congress. Send them this url: https://secure2.edf.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=118. Tell them that this is the only chance we have to pass a climate bill this year and that we need to act now.”

ACES Act caps US greenhouse gas emissions

The passed bill would establish a cap-and-trade system to achieve lower US emissions levels by allowing institutions to trade their emissions permits so that the most efficient reduction projects are executed. This market-based incentive is estimated to be cheaper than mandating all institutions to lower emissions the chosen percentage without regard to each institution’s costs. The cap, beginning in 2012, is set for 2020 emissions to equal 17% below 2005 (or ~4% below 1990) and then 2050 emissions at 83% below 2005 (~80% below 1990). The original bill draft called for 20% below 2005 by 2020 but was relaxed as a compromise to shore up support among legislators from coal states.

The sharp drop in emissions during 2008-09 already has emissions at 6% below 2005 levels, so 17% below seems unaggressive to me. I hope advances in solar, wind, and efficiency help persuade legislators to lower the cap at least back to 20% below 2005 during the bill’s continued development or after it becomes law.

Electricity Emissions Continuing to Plunge

The EIA just published its preliminary estimate for March electricity generation, and the numbers are even more climate-friendly than last month. The most notable change is the large substitution from coal to natural gas due to the recent lower prices for natural gas. Coal use fell 14.5% from March 2008 while natural gas consumption increased 5%. More good news for the climate were a 1.2% increase in hydroelectric power generation, a .3% increase for nuclear, and a 4.8% decrease for petroleum liquids.

Year-to-date, 2009 coal consumption for electricity is down a whopping 10.2% (much more than the EIA projection of ~2.5%, as I wrote last week would probably occur). Natural gas use for electricity has fallen .8%. US emissions could fall as much as 5% in 2009 (to 7.5% below 2005 levels) if current trends continue. But for now, I’ll stick with the more conservative projection that they will fall more than 3%.

Here’s to swift passage of climate legislation to ensure emissions continue falling during our economic recovery in the 2010s.

Onwards in the Sustainable Energy Transition-