Maryland Governor Vetoes Renewable Energy Bill

On Friday, Gov. Larry Hogan, R-Md., vetoed the Clean Energy Jobs Act, a bill that would have expanded Maryland’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS). Before the 2016 Maryland legislative session adjourned in April, state lawmakers had finalized the bill and sent it to Hogan for consideration.

Specifically, the legislation would have boosted the current RPS from 20% by 2022 (with a 2% solar carve-out) to 25% by 2020 (with a 2.5% solar carve-out). According to estimations from the Maryland Climate Coalition, the accelerated target would have resulted in approximately 1.3 GW more of clean energy and hundreds of new jobs. Among other provisions, the bill also would have established a working group to explore ways to help with clean energy job training.

On the Bay: House Approves Clean Energy in MD

The Clean Energy Jobs Act, which aims to increase the state's reliance on solar and wind power, passed in the House of Delegates on Monday.

The bill will ensure the state gets 25 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020, according to the Maryland Climate Coalition. Passed 92-43, the bill increases an earlier goal of 20 percent by 2022.

Gov. Brown seeks to extend California energy surcharge

In a major effort to create more high-tech jobs, Gov. Jerry Brown is sponsoring legislation to extend a state program that collects about $400 million a year from utility customers and invests it in renewable energy and efficiency programs.

The surcharge, added to monthly electric bills since 1997, is set to expire at the end of the year, and the Legislature has only two weeks to reauthorize the levy.

Big energy states meet to discuss the future of energy policy

A group of states responsible for almost a third of the domestic energy production have joined forces to assert their rights to manage their own resources and environment.

The Energy Producing States Committee officially launched Thursday in inauspicious fashion, as about two dozen legislators, energy company representatives and government staffers met in a small conference room in a downtown Salt Lake City hotel. During the first of two days of meetings, the members hammered out their mission statement and heard presentations on the future of American fossil fuels, renewable energies and nuclear power.

Innovating a clean energy future

By: Bryant Cannon, Legal Researcher

“In America, innovation doesn’t just change our lives. It is how we make our living.” – President Obama, 2011 State of the Union Address.

With the 2011 State of the Union followed by “Innovation Week” at the White House, the Obama Administration has made innovation, with a special emphasis on clean energy, central to its agenda and political fortunes. But to know the true measure of governmental support, and assess whether clean energy innovation will indeed flourish, it is necessary to take a probing look at the financial and policy tools deployed to usher in the highly touted clean energy revolution. Broadly, the policies promoted by the White House reaffirm what have been identified as the key to economic success for years – educating children and supporting advanced research will improve the supply of talent and ideas, facilitating market-driven mechanisms will incent entrepreneurs, and investing in infrastructure will promote the synergistic flow of people and ideas.

Colorado takes a step closer to truly clean technology

Colorado’s Clean Air-Clean Jobs Act (CACJA) requires utilities to create plans that reduce NOx emissions by 70% at a specified portion of their coal-fired electricity generation facilities by the end of 2017. It allows utilities to make use of many different methods to achieve those reductions, but encourages and incentivizes the replacement of coal-based generation with natural gas. Utilities must seek approval for their plans from state agencies, and must work closely with those agencies in designing such plans.

New law establishes nation's first statewide PACE program

Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter signed House Bill 1328, known as the New Energy Jobs Creation Act, along with a number of other clean energy bills, at a ceremony in Denver Friday afternoon.

Clean Energy Job Act passes Senate Committee

Today, the US Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, S. 1733, by an 11-1 vote. The Senate Finance and Agriculture Committees must now promptly debate and vote on the provisions of the bill under their jurisdiction.

On the afternoon of the first day of committee deliberations on the bill, Environmental Protection Agency Director of Congressional Affairs David McIntosh appeared before the committee to reiterate that S. 1733 and the House-passed American Clean Energy and Security Act, H.R. 2454, were so similar that computer models would produce nearly the exact same result.

The Republican committee members’ quixotic boycott of the measure is really designed to help defeat, weaken, or stall clean-energy legislation. Outside the Capitol this effort is lead by Big Oil and the Chamber of Commerce. Inside the Capitol, Environment Committee Republicans are seeking still more analysis as an excuse for delay. In fact, at least four of the committee’s seven Republicans announced their opposition to the legislation before the bill was even introduced. They are boycotting the committee to get more analysis of a bill they already oppose.

These and other opponents of clean-energy and global warming pollution reduction legislation are ignoring the numerous benefits of action, and the huge economic burden of business as usual. As old New York Yankees Manager Casey Stengel used to say “You can see a lot by looking.” In their faux search for more information about the Clean Energy Jobs Act, opponents of the bill aren’t seeing its myriad benefits. Now that the Senate Environment Committee has passed the Clean Energy Jobs Act, perhaps other senators will take a look.

Here are some benefits of the bill and why it should be passed by the committee (for a discussion of each of these benefits, click here:

1. The Clean Energy Jobs Act will enhance national security

2. The Clean Energy Jobs Act will create jobs

3. The Clean Energy Jobs Act will increase American competitiveness

4. The EPA finds the Clean Energy Jobs Act is affordable

5. The Clean Energy Jobs Act will save oil

6. The Clean Energy Jobs Act will produce income for farmers

7. The Clean Energy Jobs Act is an “all of the above” bill

8. The Clean Energy Jobs Act will reduce electricity bills

9. The Clean Energy Jobs Act will train workers for the clean-energy jobs of the future

10. The Clean Energy Jobs Act would protect the most vulnerable people

11. The Clean Energy Jobs Act will drive competition and innovation

12. The Clean Energy Jobs Act will give a boost to manufacturing sector

13. The Clean Energy Jobs Act has public support

14. Business leaders want clean-energy reform

15. Inaction will harm the economy

Source: http://bit.ly/1TvqSD