Thoughts and reactions on Obama's bold new energy proposalPosted by David Roberts at 1:40 PM on 08 Oct 2007
Staying with the Monday Is Obama Day theme, here are a few thoughts on Obama's energy plan. (Full plan
here; speech introducing the plan
here.)
Overall, I'm pleasantly surprised -- even shocked -- at its quality. It's a deft mix of good politics and strong, substantive policy. Here are what I see as the three headlines:
- 100% auction of cap-and-trade credits. This is a home run, a real act of standard-setting boldness (the kind that Obama always promises but rarely delivers). The green community should immediately use it to push Clinton and Edwards into making the same commitment, insuring that it's the new baseline for any cap-and-trade program.
- Smart investment. The revenue from auctions will be considerable, up to $50 billion a year, and Obama's smart about putting it to work, dividing it between energy R&D, protections for low-income workers, and market deployment of existing clean tech.
- A focus on efficiency. Clearly Obama gets that efficiency is the easiest route to emission reductions, and he's got a set of thoughtful, detailed initiatives to make it work.
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Much has been said about Edwards' important role in this campaign: pushing the other candidates toward stronger, more ambitious policy. You can see it at work here -- in several respects Obama's energy proposal echoes
Edwards'.
However, with his promise to auction 100% of cap-and-trade credits, Obama has put himself out ahead of all the other frontrunners. He deserves the praise he'll get for it.
As for investing the auction revenue, Obama gets it absolutely right:
Some of the revenue generated by auctioning allowances will be used to support the development and deployment of clean energy, invest in energy efficiency improvements and address transition costs, including helping American workers affected by this economic transition and helping lower-income Americans afford their energy bills by expanding the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, expanding weatherization grants for low-income individuals to make their homes more energy efficient, and establishing a dedicated fund to assist low-income Americans afford higher electricity and energy bills
Note that Obama is neatly transcending the faux-controversy between Shellenberger & Nordhaus and their critics: He's putting regulation and investment on equal footing.
He's smart on investment, too -- some of it is for basic R&D, some of it for green jobs programs, and some for pushing existing technologies to market. I particularly like this:
The Clean Technologies Deployment Venture Capital Fund will be modeled on the highly-successful Central Intelligence Agency In-Q-Tel program. In-Q-Tel is a non-profit, independently-managed venture capital fund led by seasoned venture capital professionals to develop new intelligence technologies for the CIA. The first five years of In-Q-Tel funding led to 22 new technologies being used in 40 government programs.
The CTDVCF (which needs a better acronym) would be specifically designed to get technologies across the "valley of death" that separates the lab and the market. This is a creative way to spur rather than replace market incentives.
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