Green Jersey

In support of the U.S. Senate climate bill

by Matt Elliott

Senators Barbara Boxer and John Kerry introduced a bill yesterday to promote clean energy and fuel the growth of green jobs in America.

A similar bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), passed through the House in June. Yesterday’s Senate version is known as the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act.

As even a casual observer of U.S. politics could guess, the Senate bill, like its House counterpart, is far from perfect. But despite its flaws, the Senate should make sure that this bill passes quickly and, ideally, gets strengthened in the process.

Even with the bill’s weaknesses, it represents a milestone. 

We now have real hope that the United States – finally, after years of inaction – is ready to begin the hard work of expanding the clean energy market and addressing global climate change. And given scientists’ increasingly dire and urgent warnings about the looming threats posed by global warming, we need to begin that hard work now and without delay.

These clean energy bills are the first step forward toward real solutions.

They represent real progress, but they alone will not solve global warming or realize the ultimate goal of one day powering America with 100 percent clean, renewable energy. If I thought we could achieve all that with one bill, I’d use this space to argue that we should reject yesterday’s Boxer/Kerry bill and start from scratch.

But the science is clear that we do not have time on our side.  More than ever, we need to finally put a stake in the ground and then work tirelessly to keep moving forward.  The Boxer/Kerry bill introduced yesterday is that stake in the ground.

Most notably, the bill preserves and builds upon protections in the Clean Air Act, requiring the nation’s oldest and dirtiest coal plants to eventually meet modern pollution control standards while steering the country toward wind, solar, and other renewable technologies.

And it improves upon its House counterpart by aiming to cut global warming pollution 20 percent by 2020.

This will lay the foundation for progress. And then, moving forward, we will have to continue to push back against the coal, oil, utility, and agricultural lobbies that have fought so hard, deployed thousands of lobbyists, and spent hundreds of millions of dollars to keep us addicted to fossil fuels.

Just last week, the United Nations issued a report concluding that the impacts of global warming are arriving faster than scientists had predicted two years ago.  It’s time for the US to kick it into high gear and confront this problem head-on. This bill is the first step on a long journey.  Let’s pass it without further delay and get to work.

Matt Elliott is the global warming and clean energy advocate for Environment New Jersey.