5 Renewable Energy Issues at Stake in the Midterm Elections

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS200879703020101021

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Carbon cap-and-trade. For many renewable energy proponents, putting a price on carbon emissions is key to making solar and other renewable electricity more attractive to power plant producers and their customers (utilities, businesses and consumers). Lawmakers couldn’t agree on a cap-and-trade program in 2009, during the honeymoon period of President Obama’s administration. Democrats in the House forced one through, but those in the Senate couldn’t cobble together enough votes.

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Premium for renewables. Setting solar electricity rates for long-term contracts, or feed-in tariffs, has been portrayed by many advocates as a must-have incentive to usher in a new era for renewable energy. The policy has worked to spur gigawatts of new solar energy projects per year in countries such as Germany.

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State vs federal. Renewable energy advocates have lobbied at both federal and state levels, with varying degrees of successes. Should they devote more resources to state-level fights, in the event that Congress becomes less friendly to key issues such as carbon cap-and-trade and feed-in tariffs after the midterm elections?

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California’s landmark climate law. State policies play an important role in the health of the cleantech industry — perhaps nowhere more than California, where a proposition to suspend the state’s landmark climate legislation is on the ballot. Proposition 23, which counts oil companies among its major backers, would suspend AB 32, a 2006 law to reduce the state’s greenhouse emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. If it remains in effect, AB 32 will create sweeping changes in everything from the amount of renewable energy generated to types of transportation fuels that will be used by consumers in order to achieve the 2020 goal.

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