Barely passing through the House on June 26, many project that the American Clean Energy and Security Act will take months to get through the Senate.
In a 219 to 212 vote, the bill, H.R. 2454, is intended to cut down on carbon emissions and creates 1.7 million jobs in the clean energy industry, according to the U.S. House of Representatives.
“This is a jobs bill,” President Barack Obama said in his weekly video address June 26.
The bill is based around a cap-and-trade system. The cap on emissions tightens over the years at no more than 97 percent of 2005 emissions starting in 2012 when the bill will take effect if passed by the Senate and President Obama. By 2020 the requirement is lowered to 80 percent of 2005 levels, 58 percent by 2030 and 17 percent by mid-century.
“The energy bill that passed the House will finally create a set of incentives that will spark a clean energy transformation in our economy,” Obama said in the weekly address. “It will spur the development of low-carbon sources of energy — everything from wind, solar and geothermal power, to safer nuclear energy and cleaner coal.”
Universities are considered nonresidential buildings in the bill but no specific regulations are outlined. It does, however, grant the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency the ability to “develop and implement … in consultation with the secretary of energy and the director of commercial high-performance green buildings, standards for a national energy and environmental building retrofit policy for nonresidential buildings,” according to the final version of the bill.
Cal State Long Beach has already been making efforts toward a greener campus when it installed 800 solar panels on top of Brotman Hall in 2007. The panels produce 80 to 90 percent of the building’s peak energy, providing CSULB with about 4 percent of its energy needs.
University officials could not yet be reached to see how this could potentially affect CSULB if the bill passes through Senate.
In H.R. 2454, industries are allowed to sell, exchange and auction off emission allowances they could be granted or have already been granted. Greenhouse gas emitters are required to hold one allowance for each ton of emissions, but the number of allowances will be reduced significantly by 2050. The bill has a laundry list of allowances that could potentially be awarded to utility companies, including oil firms, superconductor makers and coal-fired utilities.
Many legislators would not vote in favor of the bill until individual promises were made to their state. The number of pages doctored in the bill more than doubled by the time it reached the final vote.
Obama and Rep. Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California and co-sponsor of the bill, said additions to the bill were necessary in order to apply a national climate bill to every region of the country. Regional differences, Obama has said, must be attended to.
According to a New York Times article, Rep. Bobby Rush, Democrat of Illinois, would not sanction the bill until almost $1 billion was provided for job training and energy-related jobs to low-income workers. In addition, the money would create subsidies to make public housing more energy efficient.
One of several additions to the bill made by legislators grants Florida $50 million for hurricane research.
Some CSULB students seem unsure of the bill, while others agree with it as long as its goal is to reduce carbon emissions.
“Since it’s for helping the environment and preventing emissions, then I think it will be helpful,” said Solmaz Bavili, a freshman civil engineering major.
Derrick Santiago, a freshman psychology major, questions any legislation passed through Congress.
“I don’t think any bill is effective because they always have a hidden agenda behind it anyway,” Santiago said. “Just because they were able to trade a portion of their emissions doesn’t mean the problem of global warming is being solved.”
Obama has high hopes for the bill and has been encouraging the Senate to pass the legislation, which could potentially save 240 million barrels of oil annually, according to the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy.
Toward the end of his weekly address, Obama said, “This legislation will make clean energy the profitable kind of energy that will lead to the creation of new businesses and entire new industries and that will lead to American jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced.”
Brianne Schaer contributed to this article.
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