On Monday, Hillary Clinton unveiled her climate and energy plan, an ambitious 10-year, $150-billion package that emphasizes efficiency and investment in green jobs, and moving energy to top of the list of government concerns. She released the plan at a Cedar Rapids, Iowa wind turbine factory, calling climate change "our space race." As the campaign wears on, all of the Democratic candidates have done their best to one-up the others on the climate and energy front, and Clinton's announcement brought her from the back of the pack to on par and even ahead of, in some regards, both Barack Obama and John Edwards.
Clinton's plan has three main components: reducing gas emissions 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050, cutting foreign oil imports to one-third of projected levels by 2030, and making broad investments research and development of renewable energy technologies to create 5 million new "green collar" jobs and job training programs. They're all strong promises, and coming from the candidate whom many perceive to be front-runner, they mark major gains in the movement for action on climate change. Now all three of the leading Democratic candidates have energy and climate plans that are solid on their merits and bold in their promises, moving them far ahead of their Republican counterparts in crafting a plan to wean the United States off foreign oil and confront climate change.
At the heart of all three plans is a pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and to 80 percent below that by 2050. This is the level of cuts that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and a growing number of scientists agree will be necessary to avert the worst effects of climate change, and up until very recently, was a far more ambitious goal than candidates were willing to adopt. To reach that target, all three have called for a market-based cap-and-trade program that auctions off credits rather than giving them away to polluting industries, a smart move that joins regulation with investment. In an auction-based system, companies would essentially bid for the right to pollute, increasing their incentive to adopt new, pollution-curbing technology.
The Clinton plan is much bolder than the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act currently making its way through the Senate, which only promises to cut emissions by 63 percent from 2005 levels by 2050 and gives billions of dollars in pollution credits away at no cost. It remains to be seen whether Clinton, who sits on the Environment and Public Works Committee that is charged with moving that bill to the Senate floor, will sign off on the legislation as is or push for one more in line with her presidential promises. But the prospect of tougher targets and plans from all three Democratic front-runners lends some hope that after 2008, Congress will be able to improve upon any climate bill they may pass this year.
The Clinton, Edwards and Obama plans overlap in many areas. They all pledge to reduce our oil imports; bring down overall consumption of oil; draw 25 percent of our energy from renewable sources by 2025, with emphasis on wind and solar; and make major public investments in the research, development and deployment of green tech. There are crossover plans to make federal buildings more efficient, phase out incandescent light bulbs, and invest in Smart Grids, and an across-the-boards emphasis on creating green jobs and job-training programs.
The three policies unfortunately also overlap in some of the wrong areas: emphasis on domestic biofuel production and "clean coal" technology. Clinton calls domestic production of biofuels to increase to 36 billion gallons by 2022 and 60 billion gallons by 2030, a move environmental groups are loathe to support but that is sure to appeal to corn-country voters. She also wants to fund 10 carbon capture and sequestration pilot projects, which again, isn't the favorite of environmental groups but appeases the coal lobby, and isn't any worse than the tempered support of coal in the Obama and Edwards plans.
But in many ways, the Clinton plan is the most aggressive and most detailed, probably an advantage of being the last out of the gate. The Edwards plan proposed a transition period to auctioning off credits in cap-and-trade, and both Obama and Clinton responded with a call for immediate, 100 percent auction. Edwards called for one million new green jobs, Obama one-upped him with "millions," and now Clinton's plan calls for 5 million. Edwards and Obama pledged to cut oil imports by 7.5 million and 10 million barrels of oil a day, respectively; Clinton says she'll cut imports two-thirds, or by more than 10 million barrels a day. Obama and Edwards mentioned energy efficiency; she made it a central component of her plan, promising a 20 percent cut in national energy use from projected levels by 2020 through efficiency alone. And while all three plans call for significant increases in automobile fuel efficiency standards, Clinton's is particularly interesting in that it out-does anything she's supported previously, pledging to raise CAFE standards to 55 miles by 2030, and create a $20 billion "Green Vehicle Bonds" program to help U.S. automakers update their plants to reach that goal.
Clinton's plan also includes a proposal for a "Connie Mae" program to support low and middle-income Americans in buying green homes or renovations, an idea borrowed from Al Gore, and funding to help retrofit 20 million low-income homes to make them more energy efficient. Obama's plan has more for low-income families -- including a fund to assist low-income Americans with higher electricity and energy bills protections for low-income workers in the new, green economy -- but both offer creative was of addressing the inequality question when it comes to green tech. Both would fund these measures in part with proceeds from the cap-and-trade credit auction.
There are other innovative ideas in Clinton's plan, including the creation of a National Energy Council, modeled on the National Security Council, to coordinate the work of federal departments and agencies. Her plan calls for the creation of a $50 billion Strategic Energy Fund to invest in alternative energy, which would be paid for in part by ending the tax breaks to oil companies, demanding royalties when they drill on public land, and giving them a choice of investing in renewable energy technology or paying directly into the fund. These funds would provide a third of her proposed ten-year, $150 billon investment clean energy technology. Her plan would also double the federal investment in energy research, and fund something she calls "Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy," a research agency based on the model of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Other positive inclusions include spurring the development of hybrid vehicles and making the production tax credit for solar and wind permanent, as well as deemphasizing nuclear as a renewable energy option.
It's a strong plan, among other strong plans in the Democratic field. Climate and energy haven't been subject to much debate thus far, perhaps because there's little of controversy among the candidates, as their plans demonstrate. And since few of the Republicans have even mentioned climate change as a policy concern, it's not likely to be a central subject in the general election. But with the addition of Clinton's ambitious plan, all three of the frontrunners have clearly accepted climate change and energy issues as among the most pressing concerns in their potential presidency, whether or not they're pressing concerns in the election.
