In all the jargon-laden field of sustainability and climate change, some of the most common but most unnecessarily obscure terms are “Renewable Energy Standards” (RES), also known as “Renewable Electricity Standards” (RES) and “Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS).” All are essentially the same thing — requirements that electric companies get a certain proportion of their energy from renewable sources like wind, solar, and geothermal.

Currently 29 states have some form of binding RES policies. Once implemented their RES programs will cover approximately half of retail electricity. Yet under these programs less than 5% of total projected electricity generation will be renewable by 2025.

Some states have gone much farther.  Maine law, for example, requires 40 percent of electricity come from renewables by 2017.  But some politicians are trying to eliminate the RES policies that states have already implemented.

A national RES is under active debate in Congress. (more…)

With the collapse of climate protection legislation in Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency, acting under a mandate from the US Supreme Court, is stepping in to regulate the greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change.  At the end of 2009 it issued an “endangerment finding” that greenhouse gases in the atmosphere “threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.” New regulations are scheduled to go into effect early in 2011.

While American labor unions have been heavily involved in the discussion of climate legislation and green jobs, since the defeat of climate legislation few have publicly raised their voices yet on EPA regulation of greenhouse gasses.  Here are five reasons they should support it.

1. Labor has identified “green jobs” as the key to its future.  But recent experience shows that there is no way to grow green jobs without putting the pressure on to reduce emissions – that’s why green jobs have been growing so slowly in the US.  EPA regulation is a powerful tool to do that.  Only with such pressure will the many players in the US economy use whatever subsidies and public investments are made to actually create green jobs by transitioning to a lower-GHG basis.  Compared with overall spending in the economy, spending on environmental protection and clean-up employs more than twice as many workers in construction (11 percent versus 4 percent) and 25 percent more in manufacturing (20 percent versus 16 percent). Plant closings and layoffs in response to environmental regulation are very rare, affecting only 1/10th of 1 percent of all layoffs nationwide. Science-based targets and timelines are essential to spur investment and create green jobs. (more…)

[by Brendan Smith; Cross-Posted with HuffingtonPost.com]

I am not an environmentalist. But all I think about these days is the climate crisis.

I admit I have arrived late to the party. Only recently have I begun to realize what others have known for decades: The climate crisis is not, at its core, an environmental issue. In fact it is not an “issue” at all; it is an existential threat to every human and community on the planet. It threatens every job, every economy in the world. It threatens the health of our children. It threatens our food and water supply. Climate change will continue to alter the world our species has known for the past three thousand years.

As an oyster farmer and longtime political activist, the effects of climate change on my life will be neither distant nor impersonal. Rising greenhouse gases and ocean temperatures may well force me to abandon my 60-acre farm within the next forty years. From France to Washington state, oystermen are already seeing massive die-offs of seed oysters and the thinning shells science has long predicted. I can see the storm clouds and they are foretelling doom.

But my political alter ego is oddly less pessimistic. Rather than triggering gloom, the climate crisis has surprisingly stirred up more hope than I have felt in twenty years as a progressive activist. After decades of progressive retreat it is a strange feeling. But I am haunted by the suspicion that this coming crisis may be the first opportunity we have had in generations to radically re-shape the political landscape and build a more just and sustainable society. (more…)

[by the Labor Network for Sustainability; a footnoted version is available here.]

With the collapse of climate protection legislation in Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency is stepping in to regulate the greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change.  While American labor unions have been heavily involved in the discussion of climate legislation and green jobs, they have had little chance to think through the issues raised by EPA regulation.  This backgrounder presents facts and defines questions that can contribute to their consideration.

EPA regulation of greenhouse gasses

The Clean Air Act, just celebrating the fortieth anniversary of its passage, is widely recognized as an effective, well-accepted, and popular means for protecting the environment with minimal economic disruption.  It requires the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate air pollution and sets out means for it to do so.

When George W. Bush stated his opposition to the Kyoto Protocol, he specifically said that he did not believe the Clean Air Act applied to greenhouse gasses.  The Bush era EPA followed that policy.

In April 2007 in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency the Supreme Court found that the United States has a law for regulating carbon dioxide called the Clean Air Act and that unless the EPA can disprove established science it must regulate greenhouse gasses under the Clean Air Act. (more…)