The OurEnergyLibrary aggregates and indexes publicly available fact sheets, journal articles, reports, studies, and other publications on U.S. energy topics. It is updated every week to include the most recent energy resources from academia, government, industry, non-profits, think tanks, and trade associations. Suggest a resource by emailing us at info@ourenergypolicy.org.
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This year, the United States has an enormous opportunity to invest in a clean energy-driven economic recovery that will support millions of good-paying union jobs, confront environmental injustice, and prevent the worst impacts of climate change. On March 31, President Joe Biden released the American Jobs Plan calling for major job-creating public investments in clean energy industries, clean infrastructure, and innovation. This plan would simultaneously confront the climate challenge; drive investment in high-quality, family-supporting jobs; and build worker power by including high-road labor standards and expanding the right to organize.
However, tension has long existed between labor and environmental constituencies …
View Full ResourceLow-income communities and communities of color have been confronted with environmental injustice for decades, and even centuries, in the United States. From toxic dumps to polluting power plants, oil refineries, chemical companies, and other industrial facilities concentrated in their neighborhoods, Black, Latinx, and Indigenous people have been forced to endure dangerous and life-threatening environmental and health risks. These troubling conditions are compounded by the harms of racial and economic inequality.
While action to end systemic racism is long past due, President Joe Biden’s commitment to direct 40 percent of his administration’s climate and clean energy investments to disadvantaged communities marks …
View Full ResourceOn May 25, 2021, the Biden Administration and the State of California jointly announced their intent to advance floating offshore wind in two locations along California’s coast—a 399 square mile area located offshore of Morro Bay and an area offshore of Humboldt—with lease auctions expected in 2022. This followed on the heels of a federal announcement in late March establishing a nationwide offshore wind energy target of 30 GW by 2030. Offshore wind could become an essential piece of California’s renewable energy puzzle while delivering on multiple statewide goals, from tackling climate change and addressing environmental justice to building a …
View Full ResourceGrowth in U.S. shale gas production has driven the development of natural gas pipelines from producing regions to consuming markets, typically in different states. If long-term growth trends in U.S. shale gas continue, the need for new pipelines could be substantial. One recent analysis by the pipeline industry projected over 30 billion cubic feet per day of new pipeline capacity would be needed through 2025. This new infrastructure could amount to several thousand miles of additional interstate pipeline and on the order of $40 billion in capital investment.
Under the Natural Gas Act, companies seeking to build interstate natural gas …
View Full ResourceRewiring Communities is a new, innovative proposal focused on delivering the climate, economic and health benefits of household electrification to low-to-moderate income (LMI) families by bringing together the capabilities of local communities and the financial resources and administrative flexibility of the proposed Clean Energy & Sustainability Accelerator (the “Accelerator).…
View Full ResourceFossil fuel combustion attributed to residential and commercial buildings accounts for 15% to 25% of economy-level greenhouse gas emissions—which means that building electrification will play a strong role in creating a clean energy future. But there is no one-size-fits-all way to electrify buildings. Geography, climate, existing building stock, technology innovation, and governmental preferences have created a complex decision matrix for utilities to navigate.
How can you manage the considerable uncertainty about building electrification cost and feasibility? What can you do now to decarbonize through building electrification with such an unsure future?
In this paper, industry experts Val Jensen and Duncan …
View Full ResourceOn March 26, 2021, Massachusetts Governor Baker signed legislation, “An Act Creating a Next-Generation Roadmap for Massachusetts Climate Policy” (“the Act”). The Act amends the state’s Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA) and directs state agencies to set interim economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions limits, as well as sector-based emissions sublimits for certain sectors, every five years. It codifies the state’s long-term emissions limit of net-zero emissions by 2050 and directs the adoption of a 2030 emissions limit of “at least 50 percent below 1990 levels” and a 2040 emissions limit of “at least 75 percent below 1990 levels.” The Act also …
View Full ResourceOur entire country is engaged in a broad and long-overdue examination of the roles that race and racism play in our society – our legal system, workforce, communities, politics, schools and more. Race also plays a role in energy – who has access to it, how much they pay for it, who works in the energy industry, who lives near our power plants, and who has a seat at the table to determine energy choices that town, city, state and federal governments make on our behalf.
This paper examines three broad categories of the race and energy nexus:
Jobs and… View Full ResourceA 2015 federal Clean Air Act rule requires oil refineries to install air pollution monitors at their boundaries to identify benzene emissions escaping into surrounding neighborhoods. Whenever the monitoring results show that benzene levels at refinery fencelines average more than nine micrograms per cubic meter above background levels over a year, the 2015 rule requires the refinery to investigate and take action by cleaning up the emission sources causing the problem.
Thirteen refineries exceeded EPA’s “action level” in 2020 for the 12 months ending on December 31, 2020, reporting annual benzene concentrations that range from 9.36 micrograms to more than …
View Full ResourceBuilding our nation’s resilience is an urgent priority. Our vulnerability to the stresses and shocks of climate change threatens US food, energy, water, transportation, and health security, imperiling our economy and our very well-being as a nation.
Our economy has never been more vulnerable to climate disasters such as droughts, flooding, storms, wildfires, and extreme weather like hurricanes and arctic storms. The consequences of this fragility disproportionally affect those already vulnerable or marginalized by structural economic, social, racial, and environmental inequities.
The Biden-Harris Administration’s ambitious commitment to tackle the climate crisis offers a timely and unprecedented opportunity to address this …
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