Clinton's climate and energy plan

Some reflections on the strengths and weaknesses of Hillary's new proposal

Posted by David Roberts at 12:12 PM on 05 Nov 2007

Efficiency and permit auctions and R&D, oh my!

Hillary Clinton released her comprehensive energy and climate plan today. It is thoughtful, comprehensive, and though disappointingly conventional in a few areas, inspiringly bold in others.

With the release of Clinton's plan, all three Democratic frontrunners for the presidency now have visionary, far-reaching energy plans that would fundamentally reorient the country away from carbon-intensive energy and toward energy efficiency and renewables. It is difficult to think of a another policy issue on which the ground has shifted so far, so fast, and difficult to think of another policy issue on which the gulf between the two political parties is so vast and striking.

Here are a few of the highlights:

• A cap-and-trade system, aiming for 80% emission reductions from 1990 levels by 2050, that auctions 100% of pollution credits.

This position -- once on the extreme end of the activist wish list -- is now the shared position of the Democratic presidential frontrunners. Remarkable.

The revenue from the auction would go to easing the impact on low- and middle-income families, stimulating the market for energy efficiency and renewables, and (this is somewhat vague -- I'm trying to get more on it) offering transition assistance to energy-intensive industries.

• Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency

More than perhaps any other candidate, Clinton bases her entire plan around efficiency, the fastest, easiest way to get emission reductions. Whether it's bold new CAFE targets (55mpg by 2030!), new green building standards and incentives, a Connie Mae program (stolen, with credit, from Gore) to help Americans finance home efficiency projects, decoupling utility profits from electricity supply, providing incentives for smart grid technology, or phasing out incandescent lights, Clinton has obviously gotten the efficiency religion. This is a sign, I submit, of some very good advice from advisors (including an advisor named Bill).

• Investment, investment, investment

This is not just about regulations and restrictions. Clinton's plan would raise a great deal of money to invest in green energy and efficiency, partly from rescinding tax breaks offered to oil companies, partly from auctioning pollution credits. She would double energy R&D, offer special bonds to individuals and industries for efficiency investments, make the production tax credit for solar and wind permanent (which is huge), and directly stimulate the development of smart grids and plug-in hybrids. Spreading money around like this not only raises the chances for success, it also makes the plan a much easier political sell.

• Making energy a core concern of government

It's easy to release a plan; what's hard is making the plan a top priority of the federal government once you take power. Clinton's plan would create a National Energy Council, modeled on the National Security Council, to coordinate action across federal departments and agencies.

• Focus on shared responsibilities and economic opportunities

Clinton's plans does a great deal to a) stress the enormous number of jobs that can be created around clean tech, and b) make it clear that not just the federal government but industries and individuals share the responsibility for tackling this problem. This is just the right balance of rhetoric.

Now, on to some worries:

• Biofuel subsidies

Clinton is far from alone in this, but the notion that we can get "60 billion gallons of home-grown biofuels" by 2030 is a dangerous fantasy. For one thing, home-grown biofuels are almost inevitably going to be more expensive than foreign-grown, which means an expensive and inefficient form of protectionism. And it's just not physically possible to reach that target. Trying will exacerbate all the familiar environmental problems associate with biofuels (well covered on this site -- I won't rehash them here). Clinton's going to say more about her biofuels policy tomorrow. Maybe it's not as bad as it sounds. But I'm not hopeful.

• Clean coal subsidies

Again, what's bad here is bad in every energy plan from every candidate. Indeed, hers is somewhat better, since instead of indiscriminately throwing money for "research" at the coal industry, she would specifically fund 10 CCS demonstration projects. If those don't pan out, that gives her leverage to finally move away from coal entirely.

• Anemic support for public transportation

It's good that Clinton sees fit to call it out for special attention, but a billion a year for public transportation falls woefully short of what's needed.

• Nothing about a shift in foreign aid or support for adaptation in developing countries

Nothing in the "international leadership" section of the plan discusses the moral obligation of developed countries to assist developing countries -- which will be the hardest hit by changes that are already locked into the climate system -- in preparing for and coping with climate change. This is inexcusable.

Anyway, I give the plan an A overall -- it could certainly be improved, but as a campaign plank it is fine, fine work, moving the ball forward rather than hiding safely in the middle. Clinton's team deserves kudos.

For story: Clinton's climate and energy plan
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like I said in another thread

Some say that a vote for Clinton is not much different than voting for a Republican. This is so ridiculously absurd, and is demonstrated once again by this policy proposal.

And she's not even the top candidate on my list.

by Flamingo at 12:30 PM on 05 Nov 2007

My Goodness

I pointed to Marginal Revolution a day or two ago, as an "economics" site that did a good job of tying that field to ... whatever I said.

Today's posts have all been winners, but would you believe this China fact?

"...there are 100 gigawatts of "illegal" electric power plants in China, meaning plants not approved by the central government. (The entire nation of France uses 80 gigawatts of power. China uses 650 gigawatts.)"

Attached to the "Clinton energy" subject because it drives home how much the problem is actually international at this point. Whatever we do here, it must be a lever to ultimate international agreement ... or we lose anyway.

by odograph at 1:03 PM on 05 Nov 2007

Does international sell on the campaign trail?

I think if Hillary included too much international aid in this plan, she'd open herself up to attacks that global warming was just an excuse for those liberal hippies to raise our taxes and send the money to Red China and use whatever's leftover on their all-night reefer parties. At least, that's what I'm sure my Uncle Warren would say.

International aid is necessary, and I'm sure it will come, but I don't think it's a plank in the campaign platform.

Join the discussion on global warming, recycling, and organic beer at The Green Miles!

by TheGreenMiles at 1:25 PM on 05 Nov 2007
[ Parent ]

CPR at the Graveside

We can only hope that our political leaders have a super double-secret emergency climate plan hidden somewhere to slap on the table when the populace wakes up and demands serious action NOW because cities X, Y and Z have become withered wastelands and caravans of refugees wander the US.

I know, they don't.

Any climate change plan that involves continued use of coal is a loser. Supposing we could capture 100% of the emissions and store them forever (we can't) simply mining the stuff involves inevitable coal mine fires that emit methane and CO2 for years.

Anyone who has been following Climate Change news closely and received a passing grade in college physics now knows that things are drastically worse than the worst IPCC projections. This fall the ice cap at the North Pole went crazy and fell off the map of normal.

In other news the world's oceans are losing the ability to absorb CO2.

For the layman: "You're screwed."

Whatever weather you were counting on to go about your normal life's business is not going to be reliable. You will be getting periods of disastrous weather from somewhere else. Ask the citizens of Australia, Atlanta GA, or Tabasco, Mexico.

We have to stop adding carbon and start removing carbon from the atmosphere on a crisis schedule. We are now experiencing "or else" but it will surely get worse.

This plan, while better than most, doesn't even come close to being adequate. Enabled on schedule it would be CPR at the graveside of your dead mother. Far too little, far too late no matter how earnestly practiced.

Put the Carbon Back

by Pangolin at 1:55 PM on 05 Nov 2007

Baselines? "Foreign" Oil and CAFE

"reduce electricity consumption 20% from projected levels by 2020"

Just wondering who gets to set the projected level by 2020 and what happens to the goal if the real level by 2020 is way over the current projected level. Why not use a specific date like 1990 as they do with greenhouse gas goals?

And, this bugs the crap out of me, but why do politicians have to keep using "foreign" to describe oil? Why can't they just say we have to reduce our dependence on OIL? Our dependence on ALL oil is the problem. Politicians have been saying this crap about foreign oil for more than 30 years and we keep using more of it. They have not reduced our dependence on foreign oil one iota mainly because our demand keeps right on growing.

And about those CAFE standards: Read Elizabeth Kolbert's book review in the November 5, 2007 edition of the New Yorker -- 'Running on Fumes, Does the "car of the future', have a future?'

Excerpts: "Talking up the car of the future, McCarthy suggests, is just another way Detroit has found to insure that it never arrives. It is worth noting that the average new car sold in the U.S. today gets twenty miles to the gallon, which is virtually the same as it got in 1993, when the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles was launched, and -- remarkably enough -- less than Henry Ford's Model T got when it went on the market, ninety-nine years ago last month."

"But, improving gas mileage will take us only so far. Once the Chinese and the Indians really start driving, double or even triple fuel efficiency won't suffice."

Bottom line: "the car of the future may turn out to be no car at all." Let Hillary try telling that to Americans.

by justlou at 5:30 AM on 06 Nov 2007

Excellent points, justlou

These are only my personal opinions.

by Ron Steenblik at 5:52 AM on 06 Nov 2007
[ Parent ]

"foreign oil"

Part of the vocabulary behind the "Energy Independence!" slogan. Presumably it is supposed to appeal to people for whom "national security" and disengagement from commitments of one kind or another in the Middle East are important priorities, e.g. Republicans, some independents, and fans of Thomas Friedman.

And therefore, JustLou, you are quite right. "Foreign oil" is misleading, and misses the point. And it is potentially very dangerous, if it leads to resorting to domestic oil extracted from ANWR, and to increasing reliance on coal -- all for the sake of appearing "strong on national security"!

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 3:32 PM on 06 Nov 2007

"bold new CAFE targets (55mpg by 2030!)"

The point about Elizabeth Kolbert and CAFE standards is good, but my reaction to the subject was . . . another hollow Clinton campaign promise?

When Bill and Al campaigned in 1992, they promised that average fuel efficiency would hit 40 mpg by 2000. Didn't happen -- not even close! Their administration didn't even propose across-the-board CAFE standard increases during their 8 years in power. Thanks to their failure, average fuel efficiency is now down to 24.5 mpg as of 2004 (http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/cafe/FuelEconUpdates/ ...), lower than during the Reagan administration.

Don't get me wrong, the Republicans are worse on energy, and CAFE standards are no measure of the all-around worth of a candidate. Focusing on cars and transportation at all is missing the bigger picture, etc., etc.,

My point is: I am baffled that people believe Hillary when she suggests things like this. How much of this whole energy plan is just typical Clintonesque talking the talk?

by johnpdeever at 11:11 AM on 13 Nov 2007

What's missing

It's a good plan in many ways. But the junior Senator from New York missed one of the biggest energy issues in the Rocky Mountain West: policies imposed by bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. to sacrifice many of our most majestic public lands to feed the nation's fossil fuel addiction.

This is a big issue in Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico. Governor Bill Richardson gets it, and he has been in the vanguard of a rising bi-partisan tide of Westerners determined to allow energy development on the West's terms, for the West's best interests. If Hilary hopes to win votes in the Rockies, she needs to commit to balanced energy policies that reduce demand for natural gas, strengthen enforcement of public lands laws that the Bush administration has violated or ignored, and commit to a package of policy reforms to protect wildlife habitat, water supplies, clean air, and the private property of working farm and ranch families who currently have no say when their "split estate" lands are leased for mineral development.

Hunters, anglers and other sportsmen are emerging as a key swing voting bloc across the region. They care about deer and elk habitat, trout streams, and habitat protection. Any candidate who hopes to win their votes needs to stand tall on these concerns.

Hilary also needs to follow the lead of Colorado Governor Bill Ritter, another Westerner leading the way to a New Energy Economy. Premature oil shale development in northwest Colorado is a disaster waiting to happen if the boosters from Wallace Stegner's "Land of Gilpin" have their way. The federal government needs to go slow on oil shale, and make sure industry proves they can do it right without wreaking havoc on our environment and quality of life. Colorado's people and leaders have it right across the political spectrum. Hilary's plan needs to encompass oil shale, which would require the construction of new coal plants just to power the mines. She should also address proposals to develop tar sands in Utah, to avoid the ongoing environmental catostrophe in Canada's vast tar sands fields.

MICHAEL LIND

by MIKE CHIROPOLOS at 10:37 PM on 13 Nov 2007

Plan

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by RemyP at 12:40 PM on 09 Feb 2008

ADVERTISING POLICY

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