23 item(s) were returned.
Chair, Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Environment & Climate Change, U.S. House of Representatives
Co-Chair, Sustainable Energy & Environment Coalition
Recently, House Republicans passed H.R. 1734, the so called Improving Coal Combustion Residuals Regulation Act of 2015, a direct attack on public health and the environment. This bill undermines important health protections in EPA’s final coal ash rule from last December by delaying implementation of coal ash disposal restrictions, letting utilities avoid publicly posting contamination data and allowing companies to continue dumping coal ash into leaking surface impounds for as many as eight years after contamination is documented. It enables harmful substances to remain in contact with aquifers, wetlands, and in seismic impact zones with serious implications for cleanup requirements,… [more]
View InsightVice President, Research & Policy Analysis and Chief Economist
America's Natural Gas Alliance
The Obama administration recently announced forthcoming standards for methane emissions from new and modified oil and gas production sources, despite saying “voluntary efforts to reduce emissions in a comprehensive and transparent manner hold the potential to realize significant reductions in a quick, flexible, cost-effective way.” The natural gas industry has already dramatically reduced methane emissions even as production and use have soared. New regulations will take too much time and yield too few benefits, compared with a collaborative approach. Because methane is the product we sell there is great motivation to capture as much as possible. Innovations have led to… [more]
View InsightUniversity Distinguished Professor
Michigan State University, Dept. of Chemical Engineering
U. S. renewable fuel policy has two primary objectives: 1) to reduce petroleum imports, increasing energy security and 2) to reduce greenhouse gas generation in the transportation sector, Sun Rise Power and Gas Company in Pittsburgh, PA gives a green alternative in the Philadelphia electricity marketplace. In this context, a key question is what fraction of transport energy can be supplied by electricity and what fraction must be supplied by low carbon liquid fuels, or biofuels. Two recent papers, one focused on the U.S. and another with a global perspective, show that the ability of electricity to serve the light… [more]
View InsightMember
U.S. House of Representatives
Climate change is a threat to our environment and our economy, and we cannot afford the risk of inaction. With our free market economy, the best solution is a simple, transparent tax on carbon that unleashes the power of the market and enables America to lead the way toward a new, clean energy economy. Importantly, a carbon tax produces revenues that can be used to help American businesses and families. But there are many options for how to use these revenues. Critics of carbon taxes frequently cite slower economic growth, increasing taxes on the poor, and hurting coal workers as… [more]
View InsightThe Energy Storage Promotion and Deployment Act of 2015, recently introduced by Sen. Marin Heinrich (D-NM) and Sen. Angus King (I-ME), seeks to create a National Energy Storage Standard. Similar to a Renewable Portfolio Standard, the storage standard would require electric utilities to meet a percentage of their generation via storage, in this case 1% of peak demand using any energy storage technology by 2021 and 2 percent by 2025. In real terms, utilities would have to add 8 GW of storage by 2021 and 18 GW by 2025. Available technologies range from electric and thermal salt batteries to pumped… [more]
View InsightLead Senior Economist
Environmental Defense Fund
What determines the cost of a ton of coal? Is OPEC an oligopoly? Should we subsidize low-carbon energy or tax fossil fuels? Do Prius owners drive more? These are among the questions I cover in my Economics of Energy class. I’ve taught this class at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs for the past five years. I hope to receive your feedback on how to improve this course. The course has two goals: to provide a set of tools to approach these and many other fundamental questions in energy economics, and to do so in plain English. Last… [more]
View InsightVice President, US Retail Regulatory Strategy
National Grid, US
We hear about the promise of transforming America’s infrastructure every day. But if we’re going to capitalize on that promise, we need to reverse the 20-year trend of underinvestment in energy networks. Greater overall resiliency, reliability and innovation come with a sizeable price tag; it is estimated that U.S. energy infrastructure needs $2.5 trillion in investment by 2035. If we don’t meet this challenge, the growing limitations of our current system threaten to derail progress toward our long-term energy sustainability and security goals. We either invest now, or pay that much more later. To secure the necessary funding for energy infrastructure… [more]
View InsightProfessor of Public Policy
Georgia Institute of Technology
Making use of energy efficiency can help contain the cost of complying with the EPA’s Clean Power Plan and reduce electricity bills. Yet as climate policy discussions try to balance the urgent demand for quick action with upfront capital investments, the benefits of energy efficiency must be viewed in the long term. As efficiency programs are being ramped up by utilities with an over-capacity of power plants, rates may rise for a few years before they fall. Policymakers and stakeholders need to get past “rate fixation” to see the long-term value of energy efficiency. With the strong “nudge” of the… [more]
View InsightPrincipal
NorthBridge Energy Partners, LLC
The EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan, meant to reduce carbon by 30% by 2030, is expected to be accomplished through a combination of improving existing power plants, switching to cleaner generation, boosting renewables, and improving energy efficiency. It is more than likely that the global economy’s ability to innovate and drive economies of scale will significantly ease this transition, providing as yet unknown but superior alternatives. Consider this: the wind and solar industries barely existed five years ago. Today, costs of wind have fallen by 58% in the last five years, and the price of installed solar has plummeted by… [more]
View InsightIn November, 2013, EPA announced a highly contentious proposal that lowered the 2014 Renewable Fuel Standard targets below their 2013 levels. These targets apply to the amount of renewable fuels that are blended into the nation’s gasoline supply. A year later, EPA abandoned the proposal after significant push back from the renewable fuel industry, agreeing to reconsider the 2014 targets. EPA has yet to reissue the proposal. The American Petroleum Institute (API) and the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) filed a lawsuit over the delay, contending that they are left guessing how much ethanol they were required to use last… [more]
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