There has been a lot of hype these past few days, much of it stemming from the AWEA lobbyists, about the lack of a strong RES in the latest so called “energy bill”. After some research and a bit of thought, I’ve come to the conclusion that the lack of an RES is the “energy bill”, also known as the Clean Energy Jobs and Oil Company Accountability Act, is not going to lead to the downfall of renewable energy in the U.S. And let me explain why.
This so called “energy bill” isn’t even an energy bill per se. The focus of this bill is actually the “Oil Company Accountability” portion, not the “Clean Energy” portion. From my findings, nothing in the proposed bill even addresses energy production measures. After reading through a summary of the bill, I learned that the five main points this bill is addressing are: oil spill response and accountability, reducing oil consumption and pollution, clean energy job creation and consumer savings, protecting the environment (land and water resources), and finally enacting an oil spill liability trust fund.
As you’ll see, the clean energy job creation and consumer savings division is the only one of the above that would address an RES, and with it being more of a side note to the bill the Clean Energy Jobs and Oil Company Accountability Act bill just isn’t the right venue for a strong national RES.
For those of you who would like to learn more, or do a little research on your own, you can find a summary of the bill here. Or you can visit Senator Reid’s official webpage here. If you have any additional thoughts, I’d be happy to read them.
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