Florida Renewable Energy Plan a Job and Economy Juggernaut

If Florida embraced its solar and wind power potential and got 20 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2020, it would create 37,000 new jobs, generate more than $16 billion in economic activity by 2025, and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 319 million tons, a new study commissioned by the state Department of Environmental Protection shows.

The just-released report examined 28 policy measures in Republican Gov. Charlie Crist's 2008 Climate Action Plan, including the 20 percent by 2020 renewable electricity standard.

In all, it found that implementing the full Climate Action Plan could add almost 150,000 new jobs and bring almost $40 billion in increased economic activity to the Sunshine state.

Unfortunately, the Florida legislature undermined the governor's efforts to turn that renewable energy standard into law this spring during what longtime observers of the statehouse said was one of the most dysfunctional and depressing legislative sessions in memory.

The new report reveals just how much economic opportunity was squandered by recalcitrant lawmakers, even as they faced a $6 billion budget deficit.

After that astonishing lapse of legislative judgment, the governor's office is now shifting to Plan B: It hopes to tap into the billions of federal stimulus dollars that are being made available to state energy offices around the country.

Florida, like many other states, developed its climate action plan in anticipation of federal action on climate change. The current version of the Waxman-Markey climate bill in the U.S. House calls for a 20 percent nationwide renewable electricity standard by 2020, identical to Florida's target.

Crist's office is not giving up on its clean energy agenda or its RES goal. It's using budgetary and executive authority to show leadership within a sun-drenched region of the country that has been largely laggard on clean energy mandates.

Just in time to make a Department of Energy deadline, Crist's office submitted an application for $126 million in federal stimulus funds to provide what would be the biggest single investment in clean energy and energy efficiency in the state's history. 

A look at the application, available on the Florida's official climate change web site, shows where most of the federal funding would go. The biggest single allocation is $24 million for a renewable energy grant program. Another $20 million would go for schools to integrate solar panels and hurricane shelters into school construction and clean energy trades into curricula. Another $15 million would be available for solar energy loans and incentives.

Fifteen million dollars is also slated for a residential retrofit program to kick start the housing industry through energy efficiency upgrades. The housing industry is among the hardest hit in the state economy, with property appraisers and construction workers alike thrown out of work.

"As we looked at opportunities for recovery, the Climate Action Plan provided a critical input into how to allocate budget dollars," said Steve Adams, director of policy for the governor's energy office. "Putting the federal energy application together was a slam dunk because we had already done the work."

State energy offices that applied for federal stimulus funds needed to demonstrate their potential for making greenhouse gas reductions, energy efficiency improvements and job creation in their applications. Crist's Climate Action Plan, completed in October 2008, provided the menu of policy options and quantifications that Florida needed.