Greenpeace Warns Obama: Congress is Undermining the Clean Energy Future

Greenpeace warned President Obama in a report released today that Congress is on track to undermine his promises of a clean energy future. Without the president's intervention, climate legislation moving through Congress will simply result in a continuation of business as usual.

The report is a five-count indictment of the House and Senate legislation, highlighting their maximum dangers to successful U.S. climate policy.

In the House-passed American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) bill — and potentially in the proposed Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, headed into Senate hearings next week — Greenpeace says Congress is planning to:

• Undermine the Clean Air Act,
• Set carbon caps that would be far too weak,
• Sanctify coal as the nation's primary “clean” energy,
• Give away the lion's share of pollution allowances to big polluters, and
• Do virtually nothing to accelerate a national shift to renewable energy.

“Individually and together, these points of danger constitute an existential threat to the integrity of the law and the ability of the United States to resume its place as a respected leader in the world,” Greenpeace writes in the report Business as Usual.

With the right direction from the president, however, the Senate still has time to rectify the problems and take effective action.

Obama has an opportunity to provide that first firm push on Friday, when he is scheduled to give a speech on clean energy at MIT. If he stands up for his principles and demands better legislation from Congress, he could be hailed as a hero when hundreds of thousands of people around the world gather on Saturday for the 350.org International Day of Climate Action.

Without significant changes, the Greenpeace report concludes, the current climate bills will not decrease emissions or do much to discourage fossil fuel use:

“In other words, federal climate legislation currently pending in Congress will deter a clean energy economy and fail to avert catastrophic climate disruption."

On Count 1 of the indictment, undermining the Clean Air Act, Greenpeace highlights how the House-passed ACES bill would expressly prevent the EPA from regulating carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

Greenpeace argues that that would create a perverse incentive that would encourage energy companies to continue operating their oldest, most-polluting plants rather than replacing them with more efficient plants.

Greenpeace isn’t the only group concerned. Several other environmental groups, as well as MoveOn.org and members of Congress, began speaking out about protecting the EPA's authority after the Clean Air Act limitations were included in Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Ed Markey's (D-Mass.) ACES bill.

So far, the draft Senate bill proposed by Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) leaves in tact the EPA’s authority to use the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Greenpeace wants to keep it that way.

Count 2, the weakness of the carbon caps in the current climate bills, may be doing the most to damage Obama's global reputation as a changemaker.

Scientists and the IPCC have been calling for developed nations to cut their emissions to a level 25% to 40% below their 1990 emissions by 2020. Germany has committed to cutting its emissions 40% below 1990 levels. The EU as a whole has pledged to cut emissions at least 20% below 1990 levels.

And the United States? The House bill's proposes to cut U.S. emissions to 4% below 1990 levels by 2020. It has made the U.S. the couch potato of international climate talks. The Senate isn't expected to do much better.