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April 15, 2011
On March 21, Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) released a white paper on the design of a Clean Energy Standard (CES) , which would require a certain percentage of the nation's electricity (and potentially thermal energy) to be produced from "clean" resources. The Senators, who are the Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, respectively, requested comments on the design elements of a CES — including what resources should count as clean, what role energy efficiency and thermal energy should play, what utilities should be subject to the CES, how a federal standard would interact with the 30 existing state standards, and the role of complementary policies.
To download the full comments submitted by the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, please click here . The executive summary is written below.
Executive Summary
The design of a Clean Energy Standard (CES) must set goals and incorporate parameters that focus on explicit positive outcomes. While the rationale for a CES could purely be to address environmental degradation from power plant pollution, it could also be to spur economic development or to keep electric and heating bills affordable to American homes and businesses. If designed accordingly, a CES can achieve all three outcomes.
In other words, what do we want a clean energy standard to do? The goal of a CES is to meet energy needs at minimum impact to people and the planet—which can be broken down into the fundamental elements of air, water, land, and climate. The challenge would be to ensure the following occurs:
Please click here to download EESI's full comments.